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Two Miracle Products for Your Hardwood Floors and Furniture 

Posted on by Dawn Link Posted in Cleaning, Home

Two Miracle Products for Your Hardwood Floors and Furniture

Do you have wood floors or furniture that need sprucing up from scratches or dull finish? Let me recommend two products I love that are just short of miraculous.

 

Last week, I moved a sofa and scratched the hardwood floor. Badly. No worries. I was able to get those scratches out in two minutes with Amazing Tibet Almond Stick. Packaged in a small tin container is a lipstick-size cotton stick saturated with almond extract oil. Unwrap the foil and rub the stick on the scratch. Wipe off the excess and voila!

My wood coffee table was looking dull. No worries. I polished it the professional way, with Trewax Paste Wax with Carnauba. After cleaning the table, I rubbed on a thin layer of the wax with the sponge included in the can and buffed with a clean microfiber towel. The table looks like new. Start to finish, the job took 10 minutes.

Both products are sold at my local hardware store as well as on Amazon.

Photo: Pixabay

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The Latest Scoop on Tipping

Posted on by Dawn Link Posted in Budget

The Latest Scoop on Tipping

What is going on with tipping guidelines these days? There seems to have been a shift since the pandemic started of whom we tip, how we tip, and how much we tip.

During the pandemic, we started tipping for takeout to support the local restaurant staff who were cooking and packing up our orders to make up for the lack of tips from sit-down dining. Now that sit-down dining has returned, patrons are still expected to tip for takeout.

Tip jars are prominently displayed in places we have never or rarely seen them before: at counters of convenient stores, takeout counters, and retail stores.

I have even heard of online shopping sites having a place to enter a tip when placing an order.

What’s more, those tip screens that suggest gratuity amounts that often start high and go higher. Do these intimidate you? There’s even a name for this, “guilt tipping”. Isn’t that all too often what you are experiencing? I know that I am.

How much to tip? Not so long ago, 15-20% was considered the “appropriate” amount to tip, but the new norm is 18-25%. Curiously, some people’s (ir)rationale is that prices have gone up, but 15% of a higher price is still mathematically higher.

If you are looking for some guidelines on how much to tip, consult the following:

AmericaJosh

Grubstreet

If you find some of these changes annoying and one more thing “eating away” at your budget, you a

re not alone. ABCNews

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How to Clean Your Electronic Devices

Posted on by Dawn Link Posted in Cleaning, Computer, Electronics

How to Clean Your Electronic Devices

With spring just around the corner – though Punxsutawney Phil tells us it will be another six weeks of winter all tolled – let’s get a head start on cleaning some electronic devices we use daily. These might include mobile phones, Air pods, headphones, computer screens, and keyboards.

How to clean your phone

How to clean Air pods and ear buds

How to clean your computer’s screen

How to clean your keyboard

Another way to ‘clean’ your computers and smart phone is to turn them completely off at least once a week. This is especially important if weird things are happening, and you can’t figure out why. Reboot them like we used to in the ‘old’ days!

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Simplify Bill Paying

Posted on by Dawn Link Posted in Bill Paying, Finances, Mail

Simplify Bill Paying

I was talking with a friend who had just spent the afternoon writing out checks to pay her bills, putting stamps on the envelopes, and driving to the post office to mail these inside (to avoid having them stolen from a collection box). We talked about how she can simplify her bill paying.

It took some doing, but I convinced her to start using online banking to pay her bills. The bank guarantees delivery by the due date, she can set up regular payments such as rent to be made automatically, and she saves postage, not to mention time.

Another option is to go directly to the company’s website and initiate payment from their site. No check needs to be written and you control how much and when the bill is paid. You can set up autopayment if you desire.

I do suggest to people that they continue to get paper bills. Once they switch to electronic billing and start receiving email notifications, chances are once the email comes into your inbox, it gets buried. It requires another step to find the email, click on the link in the body of the email, look up your password, and finally get to go look at your bill. Will you really take the time to remember to go back to that email, and will you click through to view your bill online? Besides, having that piece of mail in your hands is a tangible reminder that you must pay and when.

My next “project” will be convincing her that it is easy to use the bank’s app to deposit checks. The only time she should need to go to the bank then would be for cash withdrawals, or to visit the friendly tellers.

Have you switched to online banking? What’s holding YOU back?

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Where Are Your Important Papers?

Posted on by Dawn Link Posted in Death, Estate Planning, Family, Filing, Paper Management

Where Are Your Important Papers?

No one ever plans to be sick or disabled yet planning for such an emergency can make all the difference. Do you have such a plan? Do you know where your important papers are located?

The National Institute on Aging has a fabulous checklist for preparing and organizing legal documents and important papers. You do not have to be “aging” to need this level of organization. Think of it this way: if something happens to you, would your spouse, children, other family members, designated health proxy, and power of attorney be able to readily access critical information to take care of you and your affairs. Utilize this website to ensure that they do:

National Institute on Aging

This past summer, a friend of mine was in a near fatal car accident. She had multiple broken bones and a concussion. Her children were, thankfully, located near her and were able to jump in to take over; however, no one knew IF she even had a will, power or attorney, or health proxy. It turns out that she did not have any. All those important documents were still being edited. My friend never imagined that they would be needed for a while, so she just put them aside to be done later.

My advice, please do not put off doing this important paperwork. One never knows what the future will bring. As a result, start working on this project today!

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Design your Own Exercise Program

Posted on by Dawn Link Posted in Exercise, Goals

Design your Own Exercise Program

Do you have a lot of fitness experience (taking classes, playing sports, or working out under guidance of coaches and trainers) and want to design your own exercise program? If so, you could then essentially design a fitness program yourself, likely saving time and money.

To accomplish creating your own exercise program. you want a program that covers aerobic, strength, flexibility (stretching), and balance. If you’re an athlete, add agility work.

There are many resources online, some trustworthy and some sketchy. Just because a guy has big muscles, and a YouTube channel does not make him qualified to advise others on fitness. The exercise routine that works for him might be totally unsuited to your goals. Research this thoroughly.

For an exercise library, a good resource is the ACE (American Council on Exercise)

For strength exercises, read up on the different muscle groups and the order of exercising them (for example, large muscles before small muscles).

Also be aware that many personal trainers will design a program for you and let you go off and work out on your own. They will also review and fine-tune a program you’ve designed yourself.

Good luck with designing your own program!

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How to Hire a Personal Trainer

Posted on by Dawn Link Posted in Exercise, Goals, New Year's Resolutions

How to Hire a Personal Trainer

So many plan to lose weight at the beginning of a new year. One way to help you do so is to consider hiring an expert to guide you. In fact, a personal trainer can design an exercise program that helps you reach your fitness goals, suits your personality, and accommodates any physical limitations you might have.

When hiring a trainer, look for the following:

  • Qualifications
  • Experience
  • Compatibility

Qualifications

How do you determine if a trainer is qualified? Do so by asking what certifications they have. (If they are not certified, then pass on them.) Personal trainers are not licensed; anyone can hang up a “personal training” shingle. However, there are many, many organizations that certify personal trainers. The best require the candidate to pass a comprehensive written exam, to maintain CPR/AED certification, and to stay current in the field by completing Continuing Education Units (CEU) on a regular schedule. There are some fraudulent businesses that sell personal trainer certificates (among other types of credentials, such as diplomas). Some businesses also have a low bar on what knowledge a candidate must demonstrate to be “qualified” to train others.

The best certifications are:

  • ACSM (American College of Sports Medicine). The gold standard!
  • NSCA (National Strength and Conditioning Association)
  • ACE (American Council on Exercise)
  • NASM (National Academy of Sports Medicine)

You can get a sense of how rigorous the training is by going to the website and looking at the requirements.

Experience

Don’t measure experience only in years, but in relevance to your needs. If you are training for a specific sport, has the trainer worked with others in that sport? Basically, you want a trainer who has worked with others with goals like yours.

Compatibility

You and the trainer must click. It is a subjective evaluation, but an important one. You must feel comfortable with this person to, basically, avoid throwing your money away.

Good luck with your search if you decide to go this route!

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Best Wishes for a Fabulous 2023!

Posted on by Dawn Link Posted in Exercise, New Year's Resolutions

Best Wishes for a Fabulous 2023

Goodbye 2022. Now is a good time to reflect on the past year. How was it for you? Did you achieve any goals, learn new skills, or take the vacation you planned pre-pandemic?

While it can be fun to reflect, this is also a good time to look ahead: What kind of year do you want 2023 to be? Is this the year you change careers, downsize, buy your first house, get married or divorced, or make other major changes? Alternatively, is this merely the year to go with the flow, keep things steady, and not rock the boat?

We wish you a 2023 that is everything you want it to be. Happy New Year!

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If You Are Planning on Starting an Exercise Program in the New Year, Read this First!

Posted on by Dawn Link Posted in Exercise, New Year's Resolutions

If You Are Planning on Starting an Exercise Program in the New Year, Read this First!

One of the most common New Year’s resolutions is to start (or re-start) an exercise program. To increase your odds of your success, here are some factors to consider:

Do you feed off the energy of others when you exercise? If so, investigate joining a gym or an exercise class. Community ed (adult ed) and town recreation programs often run inexpensive classes if you do not want to pay for a gym membership that you think you will not use. Also, not all gyms that offer classes are the same. Some have a wide range of class types, for different styles (dance, yoga, Pilates, or weight training) and levels, while others have limited programs. If the gym you are considering advertises classes, ask to see the schedule before signing up.

Are you the type of person who prefers to exercise in private? Then you will not be happy sharing space in a regular gym. Some personal trainers offer private or semi-private sessions in their studios (even at some gyms) or will come to your home.

When looking for a gym to join, stay close to home. If you must travel more than 12 minutes, research shows, you are unlikely to stick with it.

You might be more inclined to stick with an exercise program if you have a friend join you. You will at least be accountable to each other!

If you are looking into joining a gym, visit during the hours you would most likely work out so you can see how crowded it is, who works out at that time (are you comfortable working out around guys who deadlift 400 lb.? teens?), and what the staffing level is then. Does equipment appear to be in good shape, or are there “out of order” signs on machines? Is the equipment you would use available? Also check the facility (including restrooms and locker rooms) for cleanliness.

Most gyms will give you a free pass for a day or a week so you can try it out before signing a contract and paying membership dues. They do not always advertise this, so ask!

After reading this, you are probably considering whether you, yourself, would in fact prefer to work out at home, on your own, or with a personal trainer. If so, check in again for a future blog with suggestions on how to go about doing so.

Good luck with your exercise program, whichever route you choose!

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Five Ideas for Decorating for the Holidays on a Budget

Posted on by Dawn Link Posted in Budget, Christmas, Crafts, DIY, Finances, Holidays, Home, Shopping

Five Ideas for Decorating for the Holidays on a Budget

With prices for everything on a seemingly endless spiral upward, you might want to go DIY for holiday decorations this year. Even if you are not an artsy-craftsy type, here are five ways to add a festive look for pennies:

  • Candy cane garlands: hang a string or ribbon across the wall from which to hang the candy canes.
  • Gift wrap your door: wrap ribbons (horizontal and vertical) around your front door and add a bow to make it look like a wrapped gift.
  • Painted pinecones: add a dab of white paint and behold, snow on the pinecones! Alternatively, skip the paint and go natural.
  • Christmas card tree: tape string on your wall in the shape of a tree (or go abstract!) and hang your cards from it.
  • Candy jar centerpiece: Fill a candy jar with peppermint candies, pinecones, cranberries (or fake berries), ornaments, or cinnamon sticks.

There are so many creative and cute decorating ideas that are simple and inexpensive. What are a few of yours?

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