Keep the straws from unwanted drink bottles

If you have a drink bottle with an internal straw, when the bottle cracks, leaks or dies, don't throw the straw out! Remove it from the bottle and keep it in your cutlery drawer for whenever you need a straw, or keep a couple in your bag for use when you're out. I keep three in a little cotton bag in my handbag for when we order a drink that would normally come with a disposable straw (milkshakes, iced coffees, spiders, soft drinks). After use, I just give the straw a quick rinse in the restroom sink, or wrap in a serviette, and give a good wash when I get home. A simple way to reduce waste and help the planet!

Make-up removal wipes make tough cleaning a breeze

I stumbled across a fantastic household cleaning product quite by accident! While cleaning and decluttering the makeup drawer, I accidentally found myself smearing broken-off eyeliner and other cosmetic dust around. The standard multi-purpose cleaners were not helping and the mess was getting bigger. In desperation, I grabbed out a make-up remover wipe and attacked the mess. Just like that, it removed all the old eyeliner, plus power foundation and everything else from the bottom of the drawer! I'm adding make-up wipes to my regular bathroom cleaning routine from now on!

Cheap pasta sauce recipe

I make this vegetable pasta sauce for three reasons - it's cheap and healthy and it uses up leftover vegies (cooked and uncooked) so I save three times!

Whenever I serve up a dish of vegies for dinner (usually broccoli, carrots, beans and zucchini in my house) and it isn't all eaten, I put the leftovers in a ziplock bag and throw it in the freezer. Then, when my fresh vegies are starting to get to that 'oh dear' stage, I start cooking!

In a big pot, with a bit of olive oil, I fry onion and garlic and add all the 'oh dear' vegies - sometimes there is a fiddly bit of broccoli that is too small to use in a meal or carrots that are starting to wilt. Other vegies I have added include celery, cauliflower, broad beans, spinach, cabbage and capsicum. I chop and cook all of this - in summer I add fresh tomatoes, in winter I throw in a couple of cans of Home Brand tinned tomatoes. To this I add the frozen leftover vegies, a squeezie stock concentrate or stock cube and some water.

I cook the whole lot until everything is soft, and then I blitz it in a food processor or with a Bamix until it looks like pasta sauce. I then freeze this in meal-size portions and use it for everything - I add it to mince for bolognese, or just use it neat. My kids don't know it's full of vegies - they just think it's another jar of commercial pasta sauce!

Hand sanitisers banish foot odour!

We are saving over $600 a year on shoe deodorisers! My husband has terribly smelly feet and is very embarrassed by the problem. It was costing us approximately $12 every week to buy different shoe inserts and powders, all of which were only temporarily effective. Now it only costs us $2.00 every two months! My husband has discovered that just a few drops of waterless hand sanitiser on each foot kills all the bacteria that causes the feet to smell. It takes just a few seconds to apply and evaporates very quickly, meaning no mess on his feet, socks or the carpets. He buys the large bottles of sanitiser for only $2.00 in the bargain stores and they work brilliantly. All his shoes, including his work boots, are now completely odourless!