A few years back I discovered a product marketed under names like the Soap Saver. This handy “soap dish” can stretch that bar of soap a few more showers – and prevent it from getting mushy. The “Dry Bar” manufacturer claims a savings of 22% with each bar!

Rather than holding the soap flat, it stores the bar vertically. The container is open on the bottom to let water drain off. What’s more, the container is tapered so as the bar shrinks it won’t slip out.

Pick yourself up a soap saver at Target, Bed Bath and Beyond or online…it’s easily worth a few bucks.

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Make carbonated water or soda at home

For about $1 per liter, the Sodastream carbonated water and soda maker is a super simple, convenient and “no trash” way to get on demand sparkling water or flavored soda at home. And it you’re a big soda drinker, it’s a great alternative to sugary and artificial sweetened sodas. Or simply add your own Sodastream flavoring to the mix.

I never really considered this being a good buy for at home  use, but it really has been one of our best purchases ever. Instead of drinking diet soda with dinner, I drink sparkling water – a cheaper, healthier and no waste alternative.

If you like flavored sodas, the Sodastream gives you many mixes you can easily add to your water for what would cost about 15 cents per can.

The hardest part about buying a Sodastream is deciding which model to buy – they offer four from about $100 to $200. Basically, the big difference is construction material (plastic vs metal) and aesthetic (plain Jane to fancy penguin with glass carafe).

The Sodastream is a simple device – there is no electric or moving parts. You simply insert the pressurized carbonation tank into the unit to “power it”. Insert or screw in the bottle with cold water (the directions suggest using refrigerated water, which I’ve found does yield maximum carbonation). Hit the carbonate  button a few times and you’re done. Once the carbonation tank is empty (appx 40 liters), you simply purchase a replacement tank for about $35 and ship back the old one.

I’ve only found a few minor drawbacks to Sodastream: you should carbonate the water when you need it. Like any bottled carbonated beverage, it will lose its carbonation over time after opened. At the time of publishing, the Sodastream units were hard to find, even online. Finally, with the basic model, you must screw the bottle into the unit at a strange angle, making it cumbersome to use. All that aside, the Sodastream has a been a great purchase.

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Hand vac picks up pet hair

The Shark Cordless Hand Vac (aka Pet Perfect Hand Vac) picks up an amazing amount of pet hair and dirt, even when you think none is there!

A combination of a powerful motor and brush head really pulls up an amazing about of pet hair and dirt on most any type of carpet. I’ve used in my cars and on rugs at home.

The brush can be removed for a standard “hand vac” head, or insert a narrow nozzle attachment for hard to reach places.

The biggest and perhaps only drawback to this vac is the battery. The battery tends to get weak very quickly, so the length of time to get maximum power can be limited.

All in all, this vac is worth its weight at getting up dirt.

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Unlike traditional hot tubs which essentially chemical bomb the water, you should enter an ahhNatural tub clean. If it becomes overwhelmed with oil and bacteria, you may need to resort to chlorine to get it back to clean state. I have resorted to using chlorine on a few occasions, but only to get my water back to “normal”. When I do this, I remove the ahhNatural bag from the tub until most of the chlorine has dissipated.

ahhNatural specifies using hydrogen peroxide to shock the tub and keep it clean. I usually do this after refilling the tub. Over the course of using the tub, I use “MPS” – monopersulfate. There are a few forms of this compound on the market, which most pool supply stores will carry at least one. Essentially this uses oxygen, like peroxide, to keep the tub clean. You should experiment with various MPS brands. SpaDepot offers an MPS I have used consistently. However, I have found that when the water gets really dirty, you may eventually go through a large quantity of MPS. What I have noticed is that in large quantities, MPS will break down into some cloudy material. This may give you the impression that your water is dirty. It will eventually get filtered out, but you may need to resort to chlorine to get the tub back to normal. Too much MPS can wreak havoc with your pH too.

The biggest tip is that pH is critical. It is true that your ahhNatural water will stabilize to its preferred pH, which will likely differ greatly from the standard spa pH level. I have also lived in two areas where the water is quite different and can impact how easy it is to maintain your pH.

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Ever see those restaurants with fancy wine dispensing setups that have bunches of tubes connected to bottles with little spickets? Well, assuming you don’t have thousands of dollars for that, the next best thing is Private Preserve.

Essentially, what the fancy restaurant setup does is reduces or eliminates the amount of air/oxygen in an open wine bottle. They displace the air with a noble gas, which is heavier than air, and won’t oxidize the wine. That’s what Private Preserve does for the home wine drinker.

We’ve gotten an extra few days from an open bottle of wine – red or white – with wine gassing. While it’s not full proof, wine gassing is certainly better than simply corking the bottle or the “vacuum” type systems which try to extract air from a bottle.

The gas cans usually cost about 10 bucks and seem lighter than air. But you get dozens of uses from one can. Like the Screwpull and Wine Aerator, any wine drinker needs Private Preserve.

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