Household Hints and Handy Tips : The Smart Way to Make Life Easier

by Reader's Digest Association

Here is a book packed with thousands of useful hints and expert tips. You can count on it to make your life easier - whether you are an on-the-go career person, a harried homemaker, a neophyte do-it-yourselfer, or someone experienced at juggling job, home, family, and friends.

Genres: Reference, Nonfiction

480 pages, Hardcover

First published August 1, 2001

About the author

The Reader's Digest Association, Inc. is a global media and direct marketing company based in Chappaqua, New York, best known for its flagship publication founded in 1922, Reader's Digest. The company's headquarters are in New York City, where it moved from Pleasantville, New York.

The company was founded by DeWitt and Lila Wallace in 1922 with the first publication of Reader's Digest magazine, but has grown to include a diverse range of magazines, books, music, DVDs and online content.

Reviews

[Sven · Rating 2 out of 5]

There is some useful info in here, but much of it is outdated or obsolete. A newer edition might be more relevant (my copy is from 1994). Or just google it.

There are three sections:
1. Getting organized
2. Indoors
3. Outdoors

The Outdoors section is probably the most relevant, since nature hasn't changed much in the last 30 years. But it does still have pretty useless tips, so as how to maintain your car's drum brakes.

The Indoors section has lots of ideas to clean, repair, and maintain a house, but technology has definitely advanced significantly since the early 90's. And there's a weird compulsion to wax everything:

-All floors need the protection of wax or special dressing.
-Disguise bad scratches in vinyl flooring by rubbing them with a worn screwdriver blade and then waxing the area.
-When you wash curtains, wash the rods as well. Then apply wax to the rods...

There is also a hot hack to clean grout with a typewriter eraser.

Finally, the "Getting Organized" section is highly outdated. Most people didn't have computers or the internet in 1994, so it doesn't even mention the concept. But it does offer tips for writing checks and selecting a bank that offers 24-hour automated teller machines. And this outdated gem about retirement: It's too late to start preparing for your retirement on the day that you pick up your gold watch. Find out right now what your pension plan benefits will be; otherwise you may be in for a shock when you retire. Yeah...I'll get right on that...

[Patricia Atkinson · Rating 4 out of 5]

lots of great information in one book a must have book

[Kristin "DeadlyKittenKay" Mummert · Rating 3 out of 5]

useful tips but mostly geared towards home owners

[Angelina Virginia Jones · Rating 5 out of 5]

Good reference book to own.