Monthly Archives: August 2015

The good life for pensioners

Superannuitants have the ideal opportunity to indulge in an oily rag lifestyle. They have time on their hands and by some miraculous intervention, money appears in their bank accounts every second Thursday! While the pension is not a fortune, it helps pay for some of the basics that may be a little impractical to provide […]

Nappies

The NZ Herald has run an interesting article about nappies. Here’s the link: Cloth nappies getting a bum rap. One point was that 80% of nappy buyers said they would expect to spend up to $50 a week ($2600 a year) on nappies.    

Terry Moffitt, North Shore.

I read the tip about using a paper towel cardboard roll for plastic bags. This still involves pulling bags out of it and getting more than one at a time. Rather putting individual bags inside of one bag and pulling them out, start off by putting in inside another and then those inside the next […]

Claire Taylor, Auckland.

Save old dried out tea bags – put in jar and cover with methylated spirits – great fire starters. [Yes, that does work well. You don’t need a lot of meths. Enough so each bag is damp, not dripping. – Oily Eag Ed’]

LH, Auckland.

Just want to say, how much I look forward to and enjoy your weekly newsletter. it’s such a gem. [Thankyou LH, it’s nice of you to say so. – Oily Rag Ed’]

Waste not want not recycling

Oily raggers tend to be ‘waste not, want not’ types so it’s no surprise that they have lots of ideas to make the most of what others throw out. A.M. writes, “When sandwiches are left over use them by placing them in a roasting dish. Scramble some eggs and pour over the sandwiches. Bake until […]

Paper making

Why not make your own paper? You will need scrap paper, water, a basin, an electric blender or your own pulping device, starch (if you are going to write on the paper with felt tip pen), a few lengths of small-gauge timber, and a small piece of cheesecloth (or muslin cloth). The first step is […]

Toilet paper

We recently noticed an interesting article about a company making toilet paper out of recycled sugar cane stalks. It said recycled toilet paper is more expensive than the stuff made straight from trees (“because the carbon footprint is huge”) which got us thinking about recycled paper in general and loo paper in particular. So we […]