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The Write Stuff: Notebooks From Daiso

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If it’s a proper notebook you need, there is no better—or less expensive—place to buy one than at Daiso, our favourite $2 store.

 

CHEAP & PERFECT | Say what you will about the note-taking capabilities of a laptop, smartphone or tablet, sometimes it’s more satisfying—and quicker—to write stuff on actual paper. For me, jotting works best on notebooks that are both attractive and quirky, and the best selection of these kinds of notebooks I know of is at Daiso, my favourite dollar-style store. Read more

Rentable Plastic Boxes Are The Way To Move

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Forget the waste and mess associated with cardboard boxes—the most expedient and ecofriendly way to move is with FrogBox.

 

SAVE TIME & AVOID STRESS | Anyone who has ever packed up their belongings to switch dwellings doesn’t need to take the Holmes and Rahe Life Changes Scale Stress Test to know moving is stressful. Anything that makes moving house easier has our stamp of approval, which is why we love FrogBox, the company that delivers reusable plastic moving boxes and supplies to your old home (or office) and then picks them up at your new one. Read more

Cleaning products-Shutterstock

These Three Inexpensive Cleaning Products Perform Miracles

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What we know for sure is that these three ordinary household cleaning products really can perform miracles.

Cleaning products-Shutterstock

 

BUY RIGHT | Supermarkets everywhere contain aisles full complex and sexy (the Method brand comes to mind) home and laundry products all claiming maximum cleaning efficiency. Would that everything their manufacturers said about them were true. Then again, there isn’t much any of these companies could say about their liquids and powders that would sway us away from our arsenal of basic, inexpensive household cleaners. Why make a switch when every one of them is a miracle worker—every time out.—Team Frugalbits Read more

Slides- Shutterstock

Turn Slides Into Digital Versions Effortlessy

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These companies will turn your stockpile of old media—colour photos, slides and negatives—into new digital versions, saving you both time and effort.

Slides- Shutterstock

 

SAVE TIME & EFFORT | What’s on your bucket list? Exotic travel? Learning how to play an instrument or speak a foreign language? What about creating a digital inventory of the gazillions of snapshots and slides you’ve got stashed in drawers and boxes around your house? That fun (hahaha) undertaking is on my list for posterity (plus iPad) reasons but was buried near the bottom until a recent article in the NYT persuaded me to push it to the top. Written by my tech journalist crush Farhad Manjoo, it outlined the various options for converting all manner of old media—photos, videos, cassette tapes, paper documents—to new digital versions. Yeah! Just what I’d been looking for, a relatively painless not-so-expensive fix. Read more

Woman Shopping - C. Phaisalakani

Over Or Under: What’s Your Shopping Style?

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Are you an under-buyer or an over-buyer? Here’s what you can to do about it if you are.

Woman Shopping - C. Phaisalakani

 

BUY RIGHT | After squeezing the last bit of paste from the only tube of toothpaste in our house last week, I rushed out and bought a replacement at Shoppers Drug Mart. The next day I was cruising through WalMart, a store I seldom visit, when I noticed my toothpaste brand was regularly priced at $1.25 a tube cheaper than at Shoppers. That’s a considerable savings, so I made a mental note to return in the future and stock up. I didn’t buy any that day because I already had some at home.

Gretchen Rubin, The New York Times bestselling author of The Happiness Project, coined a term for people like me. She calls us under-buyers, and she knows one when she sees one because she’s an under-buyer too. Read more

Using Products at 1/2 Strength Makes Sense

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Using everyday products at 1/2 strength is often more than enough.

 

WASTE NOT | It all started with my first highlights. My stylist swung me around to the mirror for the reveal, and I basked in the glow of my glorious, glittering bangs, confident I would gleam forever in a radiant halo. Then he pulled me back to earth with a thump: “You’re going to have to stop washing your hair so much.” My wise stylist explained that daily washing strips the hair of colour and leaves it dull and dry.

I’d spent big bucks on my hair and was determined to protect my investment, so I cut down on the number of times I washed, and I revisited everything I thought I knew about shampoo. Instead of Shampoo, Rinse, Repeat, it became Shampoo, Rinse for me, all the way. Then one day it occurred to me—not only was my hair looking just as good or better, my shampoo budget had been cut in half. Read more

Pile Of Receipts -iStock

Tame Your Paper Tiger With Neat Receipts

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If piles of cash receipts make you feel trapped like a circus cat come tax time, this scanning device could bring relief.

Pile Of Receipts -iStock

 

SAVE  TIME | Everyone has their own idea of Hell On Earth, but sorting a year’s worth of scrunched up cash receipts spilling out of plastic bags and bureau drawers is a one-way trip to bookkeeping-Hades for pretty much anyone.

I’ve tried various organizing and recording methods, but my favourite is NeatReceipts, a mini “scanalizer” that reads, records and analyzes data from both sales receipts and business cards. It also allows you to print out copies with multiple receipts on a page. Read more

Street Sign - No Left Turn

Why You Want To Avoid Left Hand Turns

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With gas prices soaring, here’s a surprising, absolutely free way to economize.

Street Sign - No Left Turn

 

SAVE MONEY & TIME | Is the high and climbing price of gasoline weighing on your mind? On Saturday, the Vancouver Sun reported that over the past week the price of gas across Metro Vancouver jumped to $1.40 a litre and that locals should brace for increases as high as $1.60 a litre heading into summer (CLICK HERE for the story). Last spring The New York Times ran a practical piece on ways to save on gas with reporter Michelle Higgins recommending, among other things, that drivers download an app like GasBuddy.com to help them find cheap gas while on the road (locally try online at VancouverGasPrices.com); that they fill up with regular instead of premium; and that they check to make sure their tire pressure is right (CLICK HERE for the story).

Fabulous as Higgins’s 13 suggestions are, she neglected to mention a proven way to economize on fuel, save on time spent in traffic and reduce injuries to drivers and passengers: Avoid turning left. Read more

Computer Frustration

Why You Want A Password Manager

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ç with this dead-simple password manager.

Computer Frustration

 

LIFESAVER | Everyone has their own definition of personal insanity. Mine is wasting colossal amounts of time trying to log in to all the Internet stuff—websites, social networking platforms, and software applications, whatever—I subscribe to. Experts warn us to mix up passwords to keep hackers at bay, but that’s created a nightmare for me, and plenty of embarrassing moments when I’ve needed to access key information quickly and couldn’t do it. Read more

Yellow Pages - Shutterstock

How To Stop Getting The Yellow Pages

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If unwanted telephone directories go straight to your recycling bag, here’s how to opt out of receiving them.

Yellow Pages - Shutterstock

 

WASTE NOT | According to a 2010 Globe and Mail article, plenty of people still let their fingers do the walking through the physical pages of a hard copy version of the Yellow Pages. Funny, I don’t know even one of them. Everyone I know from 8 to 80 has switched to the computer to find the telephone numbers of their favourite businesses. For me, the Yellow Pages has become a shelf-grabbing dinosaur, and I cannot remember the last time I leafed through my copy—oh wait, yes I can. It was last week after two copies of the latest tome arrived on my doorstep and I picked up one them to look for a way to opt out. Read more