S5E8: Life Hacks From Moser Consulting

00:00:11:01 - 00:00:39:24
Speaker 1
Hello and welcome to a special edition of ASCII Anything, presented by Moser Consulting. Today, you're going to hear a lot about life hacks. We surveyed our employees via our Slack channels and we have put together a list of life hacks that I think you will all enjoy. With me is producer Brian, and we have a ton of ideas that I know Brian and I for sure were liking it.

00:00:40:07 - 00:00:41:16
Speaker 1
What do you think of that?

00:00:42:00 - 00:00:59:14
Speaker 2
Yeah, I was happy to get some tips and tricks to make my life easier. But a couple of them annoyed me because I hadn't thought of them independently. Like, Oh, that's a really easy thing that I could have been doing this entire time. Why didn't I ever think of that? But this week we're going to make your life easier, folks.

00:01:00:00 - 00:01:12:18
Speaker 1
Yeah, there's there's a couple that you will hear throughout the show today that, like Jade, she gave us an excellent idea on a dishwasher hack that for some reason, neither of us have ever thought about before.

00:01:12:18 - 00:01:15:06
Speaker 2
And that, I'll be honest, that one was the most annoying.

00:01:15:09 - 00:01:15:21
Speaker 1
Yes.

00:01:16:02 - 00:01:29:20
Speaker 2
That is. And I'm not going to spoil it, but as soon as I read hers, I was like, I'm dumb. How did I never think of doing that before right now? Okay, cool. I will definitely be doing it from now on. So, yeah, keep an eye out.

00:01:30:01 - 00:01:42:01
Speaker 1
All right. And with us is Jade, who's going to share with us a life hack that I think I will certainly start using, because I don't I don't do this right now in my house, but I'll let her tell us all about it. Jade, how are you?

00:01:42:09 - 00:01:43:10
Speaker 3
Good. How are you?

00:01:43:11 - 00:01:49:08
Speaker 1
I'm doing excellent. I'm really looking forward to this because this is something I don't do. And I use this appliance a lot of times.

00:01:49:08 - 00:01:56:13
Speaker 2
I'm still mad that I didn't think to do this on my own. Yeah, since I feel serious when I read it, I was like, Oh, yeah, that's getting incorporated in me.

00:01:57:06 - 00:02:23:19
Speaker 3
Oh, yeah. This like, hack has, like, changed my life and it's like, so simple yet so genius. So I don't know why like more people don't do this, but if you're like me and you hate putting away the dishes, what you should do is sort your utensils by type. When you put them in the dishwasher that way, when you're putting them away, you just grab them, put them right in, don't need to sort them out because putting away the utensils.

00:02:24:02 - 00:02:33:06
Speaker 3
I hate like I like doing plates and bowls. Those are fine utensils. I'm just like, I hate sorting them. But with this life, like you don't need to do that and you save some.

00:02:33:06 - 00:02:36:18
Speaker 2
Time and full handful and full done.

00:02:37:00 - 00:02:37:09
Speaker 1
Yeah.

00:02:37:10 - 00:02:47:04
Speaker 2
Unless you have some fancy utensils other than a fortnight and spoon that I don't you know, I've never basket of chopsticks at our house too. But those fall through the basket a lot. So I usually handle.

00:02:48:03 - 00:02:50:22
Speaker 3
Chopsticks so we don't put them right there.

00:02:51:04 - 00:02:55:14
Speaker 1
I feel like companies should take advantage of this and kind of label it.

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Speaker 2
Scary. Yeah. Yes.

00:02:56:23 - 00:03:06:10
Speaker 3
Or I think to make a bigger what is it? Holes for each other because some of them are different size. Yes. Like just give me lots of big ones. Yes. You know.

00:03:06:20 - 00:03:16:06
Speaker 1
Because this is a great idea. I honestly I'm like Brian, I don't know how it's never occurred to me that I should just put all the knives together, all the forks together, all spoons together.

00:03:16:21 - 00:03:36:16
Speaker 2
It's very it's probably going to save me 30 to 45 seconds at a time. But I think of all the time that I've spent over the years loading and unloading dishwasher. So I think if I add that all together, I think I'm not great at math, but I think that's probably would have saved me at least a year of my life at this point.

00:03:37:01 - 00:03:41:15
Speaker 1
Yeah, I mean, I'm going to say it must be a very gratifying feeling when you grab that whole bunch and just.

00:03:42:04 - 00:03:50:01
Speaker 3
Boom, because it's to make my fiancee put away the utensils because I hate doing that. But now I'm just like, I can do that this time.

00:03:51:01 - 00:03:53:10
Speaker 2
The other way to make it easy. Thanks. Done.

00:03:53:21 - 00:04:10:18
Speaker 1
Now I'm assuming you load them too, because you got to. You can't let them. Yeah. Okay. No, I gotcha. At my house, I'm the one that load them and then takes it out. So I will certainly do this because I actually do enjoy doing dishes by hand. I'm not going to lie. I am one of those people. But every now and then I'm tired and I don't want to do both.

00:04:10:24 - 00:04:18:14
Speaker 1
So that's when the dishwasher comes in and I'm glad that they do. So thank you for this life hack. This is really time saving, life saving for me.

00:04:18:18 - 00:04:29:14
Speaker 2
This is one of my favorite ones. We've got household hacks, we've got outdoor hacks, we've got home repair, beverage related, adult beverage.

00:04:29:14 - 00:04:30:09
Speaker 1
I'm just going to say.

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Speaker 2
Most of them would work without it, too.

00:04:34:14 - 00:04:53:08
Speaker 1
But yes, yes, yes. Okay, let's say that. But you don't want to miss that one because it's a really cool one. I'm not going to spoil it. I think the one of the ones that really did surprise me, but it brought up the level of maybe I should be doing this was the one that can be brought to us regarding gift cards.

00:04:53:08 - 00:05:04:17
Speaker 1
That one was one that again, I went, Why? Why haven't I been doing this? I mean, I go to the store, I buy from there. I should be earning these rewards points.

00:05:04:17 - 00:05:20:11
Speaker 2
Yeah, it's very little effort on my part for a whole heap of rewards. Yes. And being lazy, which is something I excel at. So something that I can reap a lot from with minimal effort on my own. Please tell me more.

00:05:20:14 - 00:05:38:03
Speaker 1
And with us right now, we have Tamara, who has a life hack that it's going to help you save money. And I don't know about you, but I think I enjoy saving money on just about everything that I try not to spend. But if I have to spend, then if I get to save a little bit money, I'm happy.

00:05:38:10 - 00:05:42:01
Speaker 2
I use the word genius a lot and I'm going to use it again here. This one is genius.

00:05:42:01 - 00:05:49:19
Speaker 1
Yes. Yeah. Yeah, I agree. So tell me, how are you guys? We're doing great. So tell us about this life hack there they are.

00:05:50:05 - 00:06:00:00
Speaker 3
So for me, it's all about saving money. And my husband, I mean, you know, and I know I am my hack is basically I go to Starbucks pretty much almost every day.

00:06:00:03 - 00:06:00:21
Speaker 1
This is true.

00:06:01:11 - 00:06:22:23
Speaker 3
I found out I every Thursday I go online to Kroger and I like all my digital coupons. And every Thursday they have gift cards On Friday. If you purchase any gift cards on Friday, it's or times amount up your money. Hmm. So let's say I get $50, I will get 200 points for just putting a gift card as $0.20 off a gap.

00:06:23:03 - 00:06:46:23
Speaker 3
So it adds up and then you can earn as much point as you want for the month. But the party is that it expires the last day of the following month. So like, let's say I purchased it in May, it will expire June 30th. Okay. So I look every time and I tell my kids, look, I have this amount of points, use it before it expires because I try to give it to my kids because they're in their twenties.

00:06:47:04 - 00:07:11:10
Speaker 3
Right. Struggling. Right. I do it for them, but not for myself. But if I do get gas, I will try to use like, any discount. Yeah, whatever. So every Friday, every Friday morning I go to Kroger. If I go to work and purchase my $50 gift card and it sometimes I'll have like two points. Like specific restaurants, like Ketchup, Roadhouse, Chipotle.

00:07:11:23 - 00:07:13:24
Speaker 3
Those are what we're going to do for dinner next week. Yeah.

00:07:15:06 - 00:07:16:02
Speaker 2
Absolutely.

00:07:16:18 - 00:07:39:17
Speaker 3
All the points adds up when we're doing like every Friday, they have like five things on sale. It could be like a dollar for Kroger brand. It could be an offering for strawberries. My favorite is detergent. They do like 79 for detergent for type, and you can only buy five at a time. So I will buy five detergents and I never run that much lasting a time.

00:07:40:06 - 00:07:43:01
Speaker 3
It's a money saver when they're normally like 1499.

00:07:43:07 - 00:07:49:17
Speaker 2
But what do you do when the detergent goes stale and bad? Oh, wait, it never does.

00:07:51:00 - 00:08:03:20
Speaker 3
Everything I do, I shared my children. So this is why I tell my family. This is they do they go to Target. They go to these restaurants in. Why not get all these fuel points and save? Gas is expensive.

00:08:03:21 - 00:08:05:10
Speaker 1
Yeah, you're going to use gas anyway.

00:08:05:10 - 00:08:22:02
Speaker 3
So every time I go, I always at least have $2 off my spare That was for my children. And I'm like, Hey guys, I have this one appliance, use it. And if at the very last day the big four expires, I'll just use it. Yeah, many times. And I would use like, fire.

00:08:22:11 - 00:08:27:07
Speaker 2
Better luck next month. You had every opportunity. Now these are mine. Yes, 100%.

00:08:27:11 - 00:08:42:09
Speaker 1
Exactly. Yes. And gas, like you said, is very expensive. So any $0.10 that you can take off helps out. So. Yes, so can we. Thank you very much for being with us and sharing this great life hack. So everybody go out there and buy your gift cards on Friday.

00:08:42:11 - 00:08:42:19
Speaker 3
Yes.

00:08:43:16 - 00:08:51:00
Speaker 1
There was one that we recorded that it's got to do with bacon as a temptation.

00:08:51:19 - 00:09:04:12
Speaker 2
This one could legitimately lead to injury. Yes. If you're forgetful, you can actually fool yourself instead of your intended target. So, you know, if you employ the bacon wipe hack, be mindful.

00:09:05:02 - 00:09:15:16
Speaker 1
Yes. Of those around you that it might not be the intended target, but many other could be interested by that smell. So just stay tuned for that.

00:09:16:08 - 00:09:25:02
Speaker 2
You might wind up catching something above your weight limit on the trap. Yeah. Like a like your child or a household cat. Yeah, Buddy wants that.

00:09:25:04 - 00:09:29:07
Speaker 1
Yeah. Watch out for dogs. That's. That's sure.

00:09:29:07 - 00:09:32:20
Speaker 2
Why would you do this to me? I thought we were good.

00:09:32:21 - 00:09:50:07
Speaker 1
Yeah. Also delicious. But damn it, man, how dare you? All right. And with us right now, we have Kelly, who's going to talk to us about a very interesting way to catch mice. And the game mousetrap comes to mind. So what can you tell us about your life, hack?

00:09:50:17 - 00:10:11:07
Speaker 3
I had some mice coming in through my dryer vent during the wintertime, and I put traps down and I had tried cheese, I had tried peanut butter, and they just ignored it. Then I was told by somebody to try bacon grease and I happened to have some bacon grease. So I tried it and oh my goodness, that worked like a charm.

00:10:11:07 - 00:10:23:23
Speaker 3
I came back after putting it down overnight. The traps were full. So it works. It is work. It works. It was successful. I thought I'd pass that on because, like, you know, not everybody has heard about that.

00:10:24:09 - 00:10:36:21
Speaker 2
Yeah, I definitely have not. I generally use peanut butter, but bacon grease makes a lot of sense. I don't know anything in the universe that can resist bacon, so that absolutely makes sense.

00:10:37:08 - 00:10:46:03
Speaker 1
Yeah. This is a great life hack. I've never had to deal with such an issue, but if I ever do now, I'll remember to use Baker Grease because, of course, who can resist bacon?

00:10:46:08 - 00:10:57:06
Speaker 2
No, that's all right. That's the answer. Yeah. The only potential danger is me getting caught in the trap with your finger. Brian, I don't want to talk about it.

00:10:57:17 - 00:11:01:12
Speaker 3
Yeah, you don't have to put the actual bacon. Just. Just the leftover grease.

00:11:02:24 - 00:11:05:01
Speaker 1
But see, that's the thing. It'll attract our smell.

00:11:05:01 - 00:11:12:22
Speaker 2
So I go in the dark. I can't tell if that's grease or actual bacon until it's too late. Awesome. All right, Kelly, thank you very much.

00:11:13:05 - 00:11:13:20
Speaker 3
Sure thing.

00:11:14:04 - 00:11:27:23
Speaker 2
Joining us now for our Life Hacks discussion is Janey, who had a couple of great ones for around the house. Janey, thanks for joining us. Thank you. So two things that I've noticed is you can always peel an orange with a spoon and you never get your hands dirty.

00:11:27:23 - 00:11:32:15
Speaker 3
So that's awesome. And when your jewelry is looking a little.

00:11:32:15 - 00:11:44:11
Speaker 2
Dingy, just a little bit of toothpaste on a little toothbrush, sparkles it right up, wedding rings looking a little matte finished. And I have to try that one later. Very good. Awesome. Thank you very much. We appreciate it.

00:11:44:21 - 00:12:05:03
Speaker 3
Thank you. All of my life hacks have to do with travel, it seems like, but they're really good ones. So I used to travel a lot, stay in a lot of different hotels, and was always uncomfortable. So first off, if I'm traveling and it's a short distance, like I'm going to go by car and not plane, I always take my own pillows.

00:12:05:10 - 00:12:22:02
Speaker 3
Just I have a couple of burner pillows at my house, though. I'm in the back of car, take them in the hotel with you. And it makes the world of difference between a good night's sleep and a bad night's sleep. But that's hard to do if you're traveling by plane. So if we're flying somewhere, you can't take a pillow.

00:12:22:13 - 00:12:47:17
Speaker 3
You get to the hotel, your pillows super squishy and weigh way too fluffy. What I do is go into the bathroom, get a fresh towel, re fold it into a big third into thirds, and then shove it in the pillow case In between the pillow. Case in the pillow. And it's just it gives just enough firmness to the pillow that, you know, you might actually get a good night's sleep in the hotel.

00:12:47:24 - 00:13:12:09
Speaker 3
My second life hack and I think this has gone around a little bit on the Internet, so it may not be totally new, but, you know, when you're in a hotel room and the curtains won't quite close, that light pokes in. So if you don't have any clips or anything with you to like, push them together, take one of the hangers out of the closet that has the pants clips on it and just clip the hanger to to keep the curtains together.

00:13:12:16 - 00:13:25:11
Speaker 3
It's just using something that's already in the room. You don't remember to bring anything with you. And you, again, might actually get a good night's sleep because you're not have the sun poking in at your eyeballs. So those are some good ones that have helped me.

00:13:26:01 - 00:13:45:17
Speaker 2
I found that even in a hotel room where the curtains do meet, invariably the AC unit is right under the curtains and at some point in the night when it kicks on, it will blow them apart. The sun comes through. So I've done the I've done the hanger trick for years, but the towel and pillow is definitely something I'm going to keep top of mind.

00:13:46:12 - 00:14:02:21
Speaker 3
Yeah, I just I find the I like a nice, nice firm pillow. I find that the pillows in the hotels are you put your hat on. You just go all the way down. It just flattens out and that little you just got to remember to take it out later when you leave the towel back in the bathroom. It's absolutely life changing for me.

00:14:03:03 - 00:14:22:05
Speaker 2
To add on to your travel hack, Melinda, if you're traveling for an extended amount of time, you don't have a chance to do laundry. You got that one funky, dirty, closed bag that you're carting around with you. A good way to help it stay as nasty as possible is the little travel bar of soaps that you get in your hotels.

00:14:22:17 - 00:14:34:03
Speaker 2
Unwrap one or two of them and throw them in the bag with your dirty laundry, and it will keep that bag from being as awful as it would otherwise be. Thank you very much, Melinda.

00:14:34:11 - 00:14:34:24
Speaker 3
Thank you.

00:14:35:08 - 00:14:43:17
Speaker 1
And with us right now is Toby, who's got a very interesting life hack about a can opener to unseal a tight jar. So, Toby, how are you?

00:14:44:04 - 00:14:44:21
Speaker 2
Good. How are you doing?

00:14:45:15 - 00:14:47:10
Speaker 1
Good, good. So tell us about this life hack.

00:14:48:01 - 00:15:01:20
Speaker 2
I don't even remember where I got it from, but it saved my hand. A lot of pain ever since I found out about it. So basically, you take a can opener. It's got to be a can opener that has an end that has appointed side. And you take any jar that you have that you're trying to open the lid on.

00:15:02:03 - 00:15:21:03
Speaker 2
Like maybe a, a glass jar of salt or something like that. That's what I'm thinking of. And you just put the pointed end underneath the edge of the jar and then pry it back. And what that does is it releases the air seal and you'll hear a pop, which is a very enjoyable sound. And once the pop happens, you can just easily unscrew the lid.

00:15:21:03 - 00:15:26:15
Speaker 1
No problem that it's amazing because I don't think I've ever heard that before.

00:15:26:24 - 00:15:44:23
Speaker 2
I use this hack quite often and highly endorse it. It removes the need for those like rubber things that they sell to grab a hold of a jar and try to open. It also removes the veins that pop up in your forehead and neck while you're trying to stir like a particularly stubborn jar of pickles.

00:15:45:12 - 00:15:49:00
Speaker 1
So this is a great one. Well, Toby, thank you very much for sharing.

00:15:49:09 - 00:15:56:04
Speaker 2
Yeah, sure. Happy to. And joining us now is Ben Rick, who's going to share a life hack for building better, healthier, more productive habit.

00:15:57:03 - 00:16:21:23
Speaker 4
So the life that I use is called habit minder. It's about helps with, but it's called Habit bundle. I like it because I'm looking at it right now. I can essentially decide what habits I want to do when I want it to notify me. And so it started actually with me talking to my wife and she was saying that it would be good if I would make the bed every day.

00:16:21:23 - 00:16:42:00
Speaker 4
So I was like, I could do that. That's not hard to do. And so I found this app and I created one, but that I'd make the bed. And I was like, Let's do one for taking my supplements and reading and learning, praying and just everything. And so it literally, you know, at different points during the day, it gives me a reminder that, hey, have you tried to hear what I said?

00:16:42:02 - 00:16:52:00
Speaker 4
Have you read? I've learned something. I mean, I'm not perfect at it, but it helps me be more intentional about getting the things that are important to me done and building really good habits. So that's my.

00:16:53:16 - 00:16:56:06
Speaker 2
Life. All right. You know, is there a website for it?

00:16:56:07 - 00:17:14:00
Speaker 4
Well, I don't know the website, but it's an app. It could be on Google or or Apple. And yeah, you can just kind of create whatever. They have a whole different list of things you created, create your own set of hearts, get a lot of friends, customizations to it so you could make your exercise or the 30 minutes.

00:17:14:00 - 00:17:27:02
Speaker 4
So I want to do the 20 ounce of water so they give you groups and then you can just pick different things that you want an atlas and then when you want the notifications to come up. So I have a bunch of app and at eight in the morning that says, you know, be proud of you. Thank you.

00:17:27:02 - 00:17:30:14
Speaker 4
Water after you've made your bed and then you could stagger them throughout the day.

00:17:31:05 - 00:17:32:22
Speaker 2
Okay. And what was the name of the app again?

00:17:33:02 - 00:17:38:18
Speaker 4
Habit minder. It's a b I t am I DVR Awesome.

00:17:38:18 - 00:17:40:09
Speaker 2
Okay, great. Thank you very much.

00:17:40:20 - 00:17:41:04
Speaker 4
You're welcome.

00:17:41:14 - 00:17:53:08
Speaker 1
So with us right now is Brian, who submitted a couple of interesting life hacks. Tell us a little bit. I'm going to start with this one. It's let's call it a soda can life hack. So I'll let you explain it.

00:17:53:19 - 00:18:16:15
Speaker 2
Yeah. Yeah. We'll build a sort of for this whatever your choice beverages. So this is just a quick way to get everything on the same shelf. I kind of turn it into a standard practice after kind of getting the hang of it. So the big thing is make sure that you grab a 12 pack of sodas or whatever and make sure that it's set, you know, kind of any way that you would drink a normal drink so that the soda is standing upright that way.

00:18:16:15 - 00:18:31:23
Speaker 2
You don't have them rolling out into your fridge, but essentially open the front half of the box and put your hand in front of the sodas. And then you stick that side on the shelf and then you pop open the back half of the box and you push your arm through and all the photos will go right out onto the the shelf that you need.

00:18:32:06 - 00:18:49:15
Speaker 2
And then you can also do this with a cooler as well. So you pop open that front half, put your hand over the front half where the kind of sodas are sitting, you know, open. You put that front half side down and then you put all your ice around it in a cooler and then you can just pull the cardboard right up and out and your drinks are all chilled and ready to go.

00:18:50:07 - 00:18:51:19
Speaker 1
Huh. That's interesting.

00:18:52:11 - 00:19:07:15
Speaker 2
That is is a trick that I have used in the past for a cooler, but I've never applied it. Opening the end and pushing through to load my refrigerator again for soda. Oh, yeah. And first you kind of get it's a little wonky because you got to make sure, you know, you don't have the first couple falling out.

00:19:07:15 - 00:19:15:18
Speaker 2
But once you get it, once you get the hang of it, I promise you it'll probably turn into a standard practice of how you get all your sodas off the shelf.

00:19:15:24 - 00:19:31:05
Speaker 1
Yes, sodas. Let's go with sodas. And with us right now is Mark, who's going to give us some life hacks on some handymen slash household things that he has found work for him very much. Tell us a little bit more about your life hacks, because I'm really interested.

00:19:31:13 - 00:19:47:09
Speaker 2
Oh, yeah, no problem. I've moved a few times and any time you move into somebody else's house and you start to get used to it, you find a lot of things that aren't quite working right. You try and do some improvements and you run into a couple of roadblocks. So I have a few tips from things that I've learned myself.

00:19:47:13 - 00:20:03:18
Speaker 2
Specifically, I know I've gone and I've had to change like light fixtures or bathroom vans, and you're getting in there and you realize the person who installed it before you actually stripped out all the screws. Oh, so it makes it real hard to get those out. Right. So how do you get a screw out that's already been stripped?

00:20:04:05 - 00:20:20:21
Speaker 2
Well, something that I've done in the past that helps out is I actually get some rubber bands. Put that over the head of the strip screw. And when you take your screwdriver and push it in. What actually happened is the rubber band will fill in some of the holes of the strip screw and the friction from the rubber rock should give it some grip.

00:20:21:06 - 00:20:31:17
Speaker 2
So when you start to turn, you'll be able to loosen that enough that you can kind of finish it. That's my first tip right there. That's way better than just grabbing it with pliers and cussing until it comes loose.

00:20:32:23 - 00:20:33:24
Speaker 1
I'd say that that's.

00:20:34:04 - 00:20:53:14
Speaker 2
I know that's my time. Tested the rubber bands anyway. Yeah, I'm sure I've done your method a few times. This is what my next tip has to do. Is cabinet door inches. You know, I've moved into a new house that was built 20 years before, and you're in the kitchen and you're opening the doors and you can feel the door rubbing on the rest of the cabinet.

00:20:53:14 - 00:21:11:17
Speaker 2
It's misaligned. It's making noises. What's often happened is just the hinges are loose. The screw that's holding it ends loose. Then you get a screwdriver and you go to turn it. But because no one fixed it when they should have, that hole has actually white and that screw is just turning completely loose. It's not going to tighten. So how do you fix that?

00:21:11:18 - 00:21:30:22
Speaker 2
You don't want to just replace all your kitchen cabinets. Not everybody can afford to do that. So here's my tip. If that holds too big now, what you just need to do is fill it in with other pieces of wood. I take a toothpick or two, push it into the hole, break it off. Once I have that hole filled in with toothpicks, then I put the screw back in and start turning it.

00:21:30:22 - 00:21:48:06
Speaker 2
The screw will actually break the toothpick. When that happens, it'll fill in the hole and put more wood in where it should be. And it'll actually hold the door hinge on. I find that that tip works for about one or two years and then it will start to loosen again. I want you to get some more toothpicks and do it again.

00:21:48:07 - 00:21:51:16
Speaker 2
It's a great way to fix an annoying problem without having to spend a whole bunch of money.

00:21:51:18 - 00:21:52:12
Speaker 1
Right. Nice.

00:21:53:04 - 00:22:19:16
Speaker 2
Third one. Okay. So my wife, she grew up in a house full of beige, beige and beige. So when we have our house, is she likes color, but things still need to match. Different rooms sometimes require different finishes of paint. Like if you had a room that had water, like a kitchen or bathroom might need a satin finish, maybe a bedroom's eggshell, some other rooms you might have flat so that you're not showing the imperfections on the wall.

00:22:20:00 - 00:22:37:11
Speaker 2
If you have them be the same color, it's really important to know which cans access, paint, go to which rooms, if you ever have have like a ding on the wall because, hey, you know, kids run into walls, they hit things and you go in, need to do a touch up. It would be terrible for you to touch out with the SAT and paint on a wall.

00:22:37:11 - 00:22:58:02
Speaker 2
That's all eggshell. So a little tip that I do every excess paint. Can I take the paint chip that it was made with? And I write on it what room it is I know right off the bat, and I just make sure that the finish is also written on top of it. So if I ever need it again, I have plenty of things to double check if the paint cans dried out and I can't use it for a touch up, I have the info I need to go get it.

00:22:58:02 - 00:23:00:13
Speaker 1
A new one now. Smart.

00:23:00:13 - 00:23:17:16
Speaker 2
The last hack that I have, It's not so much for home maintenance, but because I try to be a handyman at home. The kids, you know, see me doing it and they want to do it too, and have fun. We do a few projects together. We really like Home Depot. They have kids clinics on Saturdays, and once a month you get little kits can work on things.

00:23:17:16 - 00:23:41:16
Speaker 2
There are a lot of fun, but those are made for kids. Those aren't made for dads to really help out. Specifically dads with fat Homer Simpson fingers. I have. Okay. It's hard to hold those little nails and actually hammer them in. I'm really going to hurt myself. So something that I've learned to kind of help out my Homer Simpson fingers is in order to hold those tiny little nails and those kids, I go borrow bobby pin or two from my daughters.

00:23:42:06 - 00:24:04:16
Speaker 2
The bobby pin is something that is intended to be tied tightly or close tightly, and it has grooves in there where you can actually put in a small nail is hold it by the bobby pin, get it gone with the hammer and you're good, your fingers are good, job done and you look like an awesome dad. Yeah, it gives you at least a hammer heads width of clearance away from your fingers.

00:24:04:16 - 00:24:07:20
Speaker 2
So. Yeah, I like that. I like my fingers will like it even more.

00:24:08:06 - 00:24:21:18
Speaker 1
Great. Mark, thank you very much for being with us. We really appreciate the hacks. So with us now, we have Jennifer, who's going to give us a couple of life hacks on a topic that I very much enjoy, which is wine. And Jennifer, thank you for joining us today. How are you?

00:24:22:12 - 00:24:23:18
Speaker 3
Good. How are you? Thank you.

00:24:24:03 - 00:24:28:00
Speaker 1
I'm doing excellent. I'll be doing even better once you tell me what this life is about.

00:24:28:00 - 00:24:46:05
Speaker 3
So I ended up Googling this because after I wrote my house in the middle of the pandemic, we couldn't have, like, a housewarming party for, like a year or two. And I had this huge bottle of wine and I was trying to figure out how to chill it because I don't have a big ice bucket or a cooler or anything.

00:24:46:05 - 00:25:10:16
Speaker 3
And I just want to align. And they were like, If you want a paper towel, bring it out. So it's still wrapping around the bottle of wine, throw it in the freezer for 15 minutes. It'll chill it that quickly. So I tried it and it worked. And then I also found the grape thing because my boyfriend's father is Italian and he's very particular about how wine is consumed.

00:25:10:16 - 00:25:27:12
Speaker 3
And he always gave his wife grief because she would drink boxful and put ice cubes and so on. But if you freeze grapes, it works as an ice cube, but it doesn't want the wine down. So you keep the flavor and keep it cool. And he seemed to like that. So it worked out.

00:25:27:20 - 00:25:38:03
Speaker 2
I don't know what it says about my life choices or habits, but beverage related life hacks really have been my favorite one.

00:25:38:03 - 00:25:50:06
Speaker 3
I was glad I found no paper towel hack because I've read the thing before about putting salt in the water makes it chill. Fans really. You need to chill beer bones like I don't. I don't fall in cooler.

00:25:50:11 - 00:25:51:00
Speaker 2
I feel.

00:25:51:14 - 00:25:55:02
Speaker 3
So. And then I saw the paper towel thing and I was like, Oh, that's even easier.

00:25:55:12 - 00:26:06:21
Speaker 2
The one. I was like was to put it in a a cooler or a container with ice and water, and then you just spin it out. It'll chill in about 5 minutes. If you just spin it in there.

00:26:06:21 - 00:26:07:15
Speaker 1
I like that.

00:26:07:24 - 00:26:20:00
Speaker 2
And frozen grapes, honestly, are a pretty good snack just by themselves. Yeah. Knowing that they can perform double duty to keep my watch without watering it down just raises their stock even higher.

00:26:21:07 - 00:26:24:05
Speaker 1
That's certainly going to raise their stock in my house this weekend.

00:26:24:05 - 00:26:31:19
Speaker 3
So yeah, sense, you know, you're like when you finally read about it and do it, you're like, Why haven't I been doing this for years?

00:26:32:05 - 00:26:37:14
Speaker 1
I've had a lot of that over the last few recordings. These we've done.

00:26:37:17 - 00:26:46:16
Speaker 2
Every time somebody shares one, it's like, Yeah, kind of mad. I wasn't already doing that because that makes a lot of sense and. MM should have thought of that on my own. Yeah.

00:26:47:14 - 00:26:51:11
Speaker 1
That's why we have this episode. So again, thanks Jennifer, for sharing your life hacks with us.

00:26:52:02 - 00:27:12:06
Speaker 2
We also had a couple of hacks shared by people that we weren't able to schedule with, but I wanted to give a shout out to another Brian here at Mosher that gave us some outdoor camping fire starting life hacks. Your spent toilet paper tubes, just the cardboard tube, dryer, lint and any newspapers or paper like circular store ads that you get in the mail.

00:27:12:15 - 00:27:33:08
Speaker 2
If you keep those and you stuff the inside of the toilet paper tube with the dryer lids and wrap a couple of layers of paper around it and then tuck the excess paper into the tube to hold the lens. You can make a really dandy fire starter that is very portable and it's, you know, you're using stuff around your house that you're going to throw out anyway.

00:27:33:12 - 00:27:50:16
Speaker 2
It's a great handy way to start a fire or, you know, your firepit when you're camping or even just in your backyard if you've got a backyard fire pits. I will add to that that if you've got stacked chips while you're camping and you're trying to start a fire, it turns out Doritos are highly flammable, which I don't think they mention in any of their adverts.

00:27:50:19 - 00:27:53:10
Speaker 1
No, no, it's not even for the fire.

00:27:53:10 - 00:28:17:07
Speaker 2
Once. Yeah, it's a hidden gem. Yeah, Even the forgot to read it. Yeah, they taste like fire, but Doritos can very easily catch fire, so if you're if you're camping or you're somewhere we have snack chips, then you're wanting to start a fire. Throw a couple of Doritos down and put flame to them and watch them go another one for camping your phone's flashlight with a bottle of water or a jug of water.

00:28:17:13 - 00:28:24:10
Speaker 2
If you put it underneath and shine up, it turns the bottle into a really nice and barely mellow lantern.

00:28:24:10 - 00:28:40:18
Speaker 1
Thank you for listening to this week's edition of ASCII Anything presented by Moser Consulting. We hope you enjoy listening to our employees talk about their life hacks and really, why not? I mean, I thought they were great. Join us next time when we continue to dive deeper with our resident experts and what they're currently working on.

00:28:40:22 - 00:29:03:08
Speaker 1
Remember to send us your ideas or topics, your social media feeds. In the meantime, please remember to give us a rating and subscribe to our feed wherever you get your podcasts. Until then, so long, everybody.