Domestic Frugalness - Bicarbonate of Soda

This does absolutely EVERYTHING!!!!There are lots of books and websites with hints and tips on how to use this minor miracle:

Baking Soda: Over 500 Fabulous, Fun, and Frugal Uses You've Probably Never Thought of

http://www.bakingsodabook.co.uk/ (Highly comprehensive website on the subject)

Here are the ones I have used it for:

1. Cleaning a stainless steel hob - wet sponge, bit of time and very little elbow grease = great result!! works on bathroom tiles, most surfaces too: I have sensitive skin - see post No 1. - and whenever I use "Cif" (When did they replace the J?) I get very dry hands and have to sleep with cream lathered hands in gloves (hmmm sexy!). bicarb is so gentle that you hardly notice that your hand don't give you away for the "scrubber" that you are!
2. Getting rid of horrid smells - I was sceptical about this one - a dish of powder in a room makes smells go away without making the room smell of anything other than fresh air seemed a far-out claim. It worked though! My little flat had a leak last year - the boiler decided it wasn't properly sealed and leaked through the floor boards and soaked and buckled my laminate flooring as well as my bedroom carpet. It takes a long time for the damp smell to come out - but it did - and under my wardrobe too. All my lovingly washed and ironed clothes were starting to smell so I harked back to the "book" and put a ramekin dish half full of bicarb under the wardrobe then went away for 5 days. I walked into the flat and the whole place smelled so clean and fresh i was genuinely surprised.
3. Smelly washing from an old machine? - do you or have you ever rented? Fully furnished? I have and though I still rent I'm self-furnished now. My last flat's washing machine came with a note on it "descale me" - it was also a model from the year before I was born. The machine and I didn't really like each other much. She was old and smelly and I was young and fragrant - or at least I was until I started washing my clothes in her! Stale I think is the word - or sour to be more accurate. I tried lots of things - hot wash no powder, hot was lots of powder, cold wash with bleach, hot wash with bleach, hell, I even tried de-scaling the thing! Then I read somewhere that running the machine with a "cup full" of bicarb should do the trick - 40 degree wash and a cup full of bicarb (I even bought American cup measures for this purpose - one of the best purchases ever made) as simple and basic as that - all sorted.
4. It makes cakes rise! - nuff said.

Surely 4 minor miracles is enough - if not - check out one of my favorite books on how to do everything a frugalsential - "Trade Secrets" - from the BBC2 series of little programmes of the same name. Here's the link to the UK amazon page: Trade Secrets (Revised Edition): Everything You Will Ever Need to Know About EverythingWhere to buy it in large quatities is a bit of an issue (well for me as I have no car, live in Central London and never get to cash and carry's) I'm working on some online sources - but Tesco have included a 500g pack in their "naturally" cleaning range for 99p - this is a bit better than buying little pots from the cake baking section (200g 37p on Tesco.com).

Seriously give this one a go - or be like my big sister and say "can't you buy cif for like 29p" - yeh sis - in 1974 perhaps!