The Christmas holiday is one of the most anticipated times of the year.  Unfortunately, criminals also look forward to the season as more people are out shopping and leaving their homes unattended during holiday travel.  Here are a few holiday safety tips to protect you and yours this season.

Safety Tips Around the House

Before traveling, contact your local law enforcement agency and ask to have your home placed on “vacation watch.”  Most municipalities offer this service.  The nearest patrol officer will ride by your home for a safety check once during their shift.  Be sure to notify authorities when you have returned.  Note, please do not call 911 to discuss this service.  A non-emergency number should be listed in your phone book. 

Try to make your house look lived in while you are away.  Consider picking up some inexpensive timers for lights and radios, and have them come on at times when you are normally home.  I even suggest staggering the timers so that living room lights come on and off early in the evening and bedroom lights come on later.  This is consistent with most schedules, but adapt it to fit your family’s routine.

Do not broadcast your plans to everyone.  You may be proud that you are taking your family on a week-long cruise over the holidays, but don’t brag too much.  You never know who might be taking note of your travel plans.

Leave a spare key and emergency telephone number with a trusted neighbor or friend.  In an emergency it may be necessary for someone to enter your home (water heater busted, etc.), so it is a good idea to leave a key with someone local. 

Pay someone to rake up leaves and/or blow off your drive way.  Tall grass in the summer and down leaves in the winter are a sure sign of an unoccupied house.

Silence the ringer on your home telephone.  One trick of the criminal trade is to stake out a house and call the phone number.  If the phone rings and rings with no answer it is a safe bet no one is home. If the phone doesn’t ring at all, crooks may suspect they are dialing the wrong number, or someone is home and using the phone.  Do not mention your travel plans on voicemail or answering machines.

Remove garage door openers from cars parked in the driveway.  It is a good idea to leave a second car parked in the driveway, but be sure to remove the garage door opener.  Burglars can easily bust out a window and open your garage with the click of a button.

Lock garage entry doors.  If you live in a home with an attached garage, lock the door from the garage to the home when leaving for Christmas vacation.  Garage doors have been known to malfunction, or be manually forced up, allowing access to your home.

Trim shrubbery and trees close to your home.  Overgrown shrubs provide the perfect cover for a burglar working to pry open a window.

Do not leave remnants of Christmas morning by the curb.  Large appliance boxes and containers are a sign Santa was really good to someone in the neighborhood!  They are also a sign to theives that the house just got a new plasma television for Christmas.  Break down boxes and put them in cans or black garbage bags to conceal the products that were inside them.

Holiday Shopping Safety Tips

Use the buddy system.  It is always a good idea to shop in pairs as theives are less likely to target two or more individuals. 

Lock your gifts in the trunk.  An electronics store bag filled with goodies sitting on the back seat in plain view is tempting for a smash-and-grab burglar.

If shopping at an outdoor mall or outlet stores, consider moving your car when you drop off presents.  No one likes to lug around too many items from store to store, so most people return to their cars several times to drop off purchases and resume shopping.  When you do this, consider moving your car a few lanes away.  Thieves like to stake out parking lots for people leaving purchases in their car and returning to stores.  If they see you get in and drive away they will likely assume your shopping trip is over and look for another target.

Ask for a security guard escort.  If you approach your car and see an unsavory character staked out nearby, return to the store and ask for someone to walk you to your car.  Most store security personnel are used to this, so there is no need to feel embarrassed.  Besides, better to be safe than sorry!

Have keys ready, and don’t take your time getting in your car.  There is nothing I hate to see more than a single woman approaching her car while digging through a purse for her keys.  With her head down and her attention diverted she is such an easy target.  Find your keys before you leave the store and have them in hand.  Walk quickly and confidently to your vehicle, and unlock, enter and lock the doors in quick fashion.  Once safely inside you can verify receipts, store away purses, etc.

Park in well-lit areas.  If you know you will be shopping for a long time, anticipate coming out into a dark parking lot and look for light poles to park under.  Besides providing light, light poles also serve as a reference point in a crowded parking lot to remind you where you parked your car.

Parents, park next to the shopping cart return area.  When you are finished shopping it is nice to put Junior in the car seat and return the shopping cart one lane away, rather than walking fifty feet away with Junior alone in the car, or you toting him and three bags of groceries.

These are just a few things to keep in mind while out and about this holiday shopping season.  Actually, they are good tips for any time of the year, but especially during times when criminal activity is high. 

I’d like to hear from you.  Please add any additional holiday safety tips in the comments below.

Few products out there have as many household uses as vinegar.  From soothing feet to cleaning a computer mouse to removing streaks from your dishes, vinegar is definitely a product to have on hand in large quantities.  I’ve compiled a list of just a few of the many household uses for vinegar below.

Vinegar foot soak to remove dry skin.  This was a new one for me, but one I learned while visiting my mom in the hospital recently.  Nurses came in and asked if she wanted a vinegar foot soak. They poured up a 50/50 solution of vinegar and warm water, and dipped two bath towels in the vinegar solution. After wringing out the towels, they wrapped them around my mom’s feet and let them “soak” for about twenty minutes.

When they removed the towels and wiped her feet down with a fresh towel the dry skin practically fell off, leaving her skin smooth. I think she still deserves a nice pedicure when she leaves the hospital, but I was impressed by this frugal solution to dry skin.

Substitute for expensive rinse aids in dishwashers. I learned about this vinegar tip from Amy over at MomAdvice.com.  Skip the Jet Dry and simply put some vinegar in the rinse aid compartment of your dishwasher.  Dishes will come out “squeaky clean” and without streaks. If you are skeptical of this one, note the primary ingredient in commercial rinse aids is, what else, vinegar!

Clean trackball computer mouse.  I use a Logitech TrackMan Wheel mouse at home and my lone complaint about the device is that over time dust and lint accumulates under the trackball and impedes its movement.  Disconnect the mouse, remove the trackball and use a soft cloth dampened in a 50/50 vinegar-water solution to wipe off fingerprints, dust and accumulate grime from the trackball itself.  Then use a cotton swab or Q-tip moistened in the same solution to clean out the little chamber the trackball is housed.  Let parts dry about two hours before replacing the trackball and plugging the mouse back in.

Removing mildew. We recently had some mildew build up in a hard-to-reach corner of our shower, and instead of using a costly commercial bleach cleaner, I had success with white vinegar. Simply apply a solution of equal parts vinegar and water to the mildew (for heavy build up you may need to try full strength vinegar). The nice thing about using vinegar is you don’t have the ventilation or skin irritant concerns you have when using commercial cleaners.

Remove stickers and window decals.  Vinegar is great for removing stickers and decals. Apply full strength vinegar to the sticker and let it sit for a few minutes.  Then scrape the sticker off using a credit card (preferably one you paid off!).

Make your car windows frost-free. In the winter I spend a few minutes each morning scraping frost from my windshield.  Inevitably, the later I am for work, the heavier the frost!  I am implementing this tip to save myself some time, and from potential frostbite on my right hand.  Spray windshields with a solution of three parts white vinegar to one part water. Each application can last up to several weeks.

Remove bad odors.  Have you ever had this experience?  We recently found a three-month old container of tuna fish in the very back of the refrigerator.  The smell was almost bad enough to peel paint from our kitchen walls.  Even after running it through the dishwasher it still smelled like seaweed rotting on a beach in July.  We soaked a slice of white bread in vinegar and left it in the container overnight.  Voila, no more bad smell!

Disinfect cutting boards and counter tops.  After chopping up chicken for tonight’s dinner, it is a good idea to disinfect your cutting board and surrounding counter tops to remove bacteria and bugs such as Salmonella.  Wipe them clean with full-strength white vinegar. The acetic acid in vinegar is an excellent disinfectant.

Freshen up your garbage disposal.  After a few weeks, garbage disposals start to smell a little like that old container of tuna fish as foods rot and bacteria grows.  Instead of buying those expensive disposal deodorizing tablets, make your own at home.  Mix equal parts vinegar and water and freeze in an old ice tray.  Drop a few cubes in the disposal once a week and flush with cold water.

Remove cigarette odors from suits and coats.  Ever been trapped in the same room with a smoker for a couple hours?  Chances are your coat or suit jacket now smells like cigarettes.  To eliminate the odor, fill a bathtub with the hottest water your water heater will produce and pour in one cup of vinegar.  Hang your suit or coat on the shower curtain bar and close the bathroom door overnight.  The smell should be gone by morning.  Warning, lock the bathroom door, or avoid this tip altogether if you have small children as a filled tub presents a potential drowning hazard. I keep this tip handy on trips, and have used it to remove wrinkles from clothing after unpacking my suitcase.

As I stated in the opening, this is only a partial list of the many household uses of vinegar.  Please share with us your frugal vinegar tips in the comments below.

Photo courtesy of geocam20000

As the dog days of summer begin to grow shorter it is a great time to think about winterizing your home to prepare for the colder months ahead.  Snow, ice and sub-freezing temperatures can damage a home’s exterior, leading to costly repairs.  Inadequate seals and insulation can force home heating systems to work in overdrive, adding hundreds of dollars to winter utility bills.  Implement the following winter preparation tips to save on energy costs and protect your home from costly damage.

Indoor Winterizing Tasks

1.  Have chimneys cleaned and inspected.  Blockages and buildup in chimneys can lead to dangerous conditions such as fires and inadequate ventilation.

2.  Consider a thermal insulating blanket for your hot water heater.  Hot water heaters are often the least-efficient appliance in your home.  This is especially true if your tank is store in an outdoor storage room or garage (as ours is).  When temperatures drop the tank has to work extra hard to keep the contents warm.  Consider adding a thermal insulating blanket for your hot water heat to insulate the water from surrounding temperatures.

3.  If your windows are not made of newer insulated glass, consider installing storm windows.  New, energy-efficient windows often two layers of glass with insulating air in between.  Older, single-pane models allow cold air to more easily seep in and make rooms feel cooler.

4.  Add insulation to attics and crawlspaces.  Inadequate insulation in attics allows heat to rise up and out of your home, forcing heating systems to work harder to keep your home warm.

5.  Install a programmable thermostat. Programmable thermostats allow you to automatically create a heating/cooling schedule for your home.  At night you can allow inside temperatures to drop down a bit, but warm things up just before the alarm clock goes off. Similarly, you can allow the temperatures to drop inside your hours when it is empty during the day, but warm things up before you arrive home from work.

6.  Arrange for a professional inspection of your furnace.  Just like automobiles require periodic maintenance, furnaces require servicing by a professional.  It’s worth the cost of a service call.

7.  If you vacation during the winter months, leave your heat on and set it to 55 degrees.  This will help reduce the chance of interior pipes freezing.

8.  Install a carbon monoxide detector.  Gas-log fireplaces and furnaces can give off toxic carbon monoxide gases.  Follow manufacturer recommendations on placement of monitoring device.

9.  Install fresh batteries in all smoke alarms.  We change the batteries in our smoke alarms twice a year, around daylight savings time changes.  It’s a good idea to periodically test alarms to be sure batteries are still working properly.

10.  Inspect fire extinguishers and recharge if necessary.  Replace any extinguishers older than ten years.

11.  Insulate water pipes that may be exposed to freezing temperatures.  If water in pipes freeze, chances are the expansion will cause them to burst and you’ll be stuck with a huge bill from a plumber.

Outdoor Winterizing Tasks

12.  Caulk around windows to prevent cold air from seeping in around cracks.  If you are not sure your windows needed additional caulking, try the candle trick.  On a windy day, light a candle and place it near your window with indoor cooling/heating systems turned off.  If the flame flickers when a gust of wind picks up it is an indication air is seeping around your windows.

13.  Clean gutters.  A clogged gutter can lead to a flooded basement when snow melts and the water has no where to run off.

14.  Drain garden hoses and turn off any outdoor water faucets.  Remove nozzles or sprayers from the end of garden hoses and be sure to drain any water left in the line.

15.  Add some antifreeze to the base of portable basketball goals filled with water.  During winter months the water in the goal’s base can freeze and expand, cracking the base.  Purchase a brand of antifreeze that is safe for kids and animals just in case.

16.  Inspect driveways and pathways.  Patch cracks with a cement or asphalt kit to prevent water from entering the cracks, freezing, expanding and creating even larger cracks.

17.  Make sure you have a snow shovel, rock salt, sand and other tools for dealing with snow and ice on your property.

18.  Stock up on firewood.  Store it at least 50 feet away from your home to prevent fire and termites from coming too close to your home.

19.  Bleed the valves on any hot-water radiators.  Open slightly until water appears and close again.

20.  Be sure there are no flammable materials stored close to your furnace.  This one seems obvious, but many fires are started during the winter months because of flammable items being stored too close to furnaces.

21.  Inspect fireplace damper to make sure it is opening and closing properly.  One year, in our old home, the damper wasn’t opening properly, but we did not discover it until we lit a fire and the living room filled with smoke.

22.  If you installed summer screens on doors and windows, replace them with the glass equivalents stored during the summer.  Adding the extra pane of glass back to storm doors will ad a layer of insulation against colder temperatures.

23.  Drain gas from lawnmower and store for the winter.  It’s also a good idea to store the lawnmower or tractor indoors during extremely cold temperatures.

24.  Consider a tune-up on snow blowers and other snow removal equipment.  A little preventive maintenance goes a long way for winter equipment.

25.  Apply sealant to decks.  Sealant helps prevent wood damage from extreme freezing/thawing cycles.

26.  Move potted plants inside, or closer to the home to prevent damage from freezing temperatures. The temperature near your home’s exterior walls will be a little warmer than out further in your yard.  It also helps to cover outdoor plants with a sheet to insulate them from sub-freezing temperatures.

27.  Clean patio furniture and store it away from winter.  In some areas winter storms are often accompanied by high winds.  During these storms, outdoor furniture can be scattered about your yard (and your neighbor’s yard).  Since you won’t likely be using it, look for a place to store it until spring.

28.  Check with manufacturer to determine if spare refrigerators or freezers stored in unheated garages are safe to operate at extremely cold temperatures.  Extra refrigerators and freezers are great for stockpiling grocery deals, but if the temperature drops below the inside setting of your refrigerator or freezer it can cause the unit to operate inefficiently.

29.  Seal areas around dryer vents, cable outlets and mail chutes with a caulking gun.  Look for cracks or holes around outdoor fixtures such as vents and outlets as these spaces allow cold air from outside to enter your wall space and make indoor heating less effective.

I’d like to make this a living list that we can all refer to–please add additional winterizing tasks in the comments below.

The following is a guest post contributed by Heather Johnson, who regularly writes on the topic of small business finance. She invites your questions and writing job opportunities at her personal email address: heatherjohnson2323 at gmail dot com.

Although they may not be your largest monthly expense, your utility bills can certainly make life tough — particularly in the summer months when we seem to use more water and blast the air conditioner. Since things are heating up right now, it is a good idea to prepare for rising costs. Below are 10 simple ways to save money on your utilities.

1. Turn off the light as soon as you leave a room.
2. If you will be away from the house for more than two hours, turn off the air conditioner.
3. Turn off the water while you brush your teeth.
4. Water your lawn at dusk or after dark, as the heat of the sun will evaporate the water.
5. Use energy-saving, fluorescent light bulbs.
6. Hand wash large, bulky dishes to save room in the dishwasher.
7. Use cold water to wash your clothes. Cold-water detergent is now available in all major grocery stores.
8. Don’t linger in the shower.
9. Keep the thermostat at a reasonable level. Using ceiling fans can help the comfort level.
10. Don’t use an automated sprinkler system. Instead, only water your lawn when it looks thirsty, preferably with a soaker hose.

While the tips above won’t make you a millionaire, they will help you save money on rising costs this summer. Much of this advice can be applied to your life year round. However, it is during the warmest months that most of us really start to resent the incoming utility bills.

I recently had an occasion to create some sawdust building our square foot garden box.  All that cutting and drilling left a small pile of sawdust behind, and instead of simply scraping it up and throwing it away, I wondered how I might be able to reuse it.  It turns out sawdust has several little-known, but highly effective, uses around the house. From weed killing to cleaning up spills, sawdust is a handyman’s most useful leftover.

It is cheaper than Roundup.  Many people are unaware of sawdust’s weed-killing prowess, particularly dust made from walnut and cedar wood varieties. The sawdust not only suppresses weeds similar to mulch or other cover products, but as it decays it creates soil conditions that are not conducive to plant life - even weeds. Carefully sweep sawdust into crevices you don’t want weeds or grass to grow, such as expansion joints in concrete or in between stepping stones in your backyard.

Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow.  Around the holiday season a small pile of sawdust can be mixed with some glue and a little white paint, and used to coat your favorite holiday crafts to simulate snow. Add some glitter for a special holiday sparkle. This also works particularly well when creating a snowy ground for a small nativity scene or similar Christmas display.

Make your own sawdust briquettes to use as firestarters.  Have you ever used those soap-like bricks of highly flammable gel to get a fire going? With sawdust and a few other products found around the house you can make your own fire starter briquettes. First, melt some wax in a large Teflon pot - candle wax will do the trick. Begin slowly adding sawdust until the mixture becomes less pliable. Pour up the hot wax/sawdust mixture in some non-stick muffin or cupcake pans and allow them to cool. Slide out the “cake” mixtures and voila, homemade sawdust briquettes guaranteed to get your wood-burning fire going.

Sawdust is super absorbent.  Sawdust has fantastic absorbent quality, and soaks up just about any home spill, from motor oil to a bucket of paint. Stash some in your garage and throw it out over a spill if you kick over a can of motor oil. Push it around the spill with an old mop and watch it soak up the spillage.

Trade in those snowchains.  This tip is particularly relevant for drivers that must battle snow and ice on their daily commutes. Sprinkling some sawdust in a snowy rut can help your car’s tires gain traction, and prevent the snow and ice underneath from growing further compacted. As a side benefit, it is biodegradable so you are not hurting the environment by throwing out some synthetic, commercial mixture.

The next time you create some sawdust, remember these tips before sweeping it up and trashing it.  You will save a little money and do your part to help the environment.

Image Credit:  steve_lodefink