June 2009 – Page 3 – The Beehive

I purchased a bottle of mineral oil at Walgreens to condition the beautiful end grain cutting board we received as a wedding present (thanks Jen & Emory!). I noticed the tell-tale “F” next to the item on my receipt — the item is eligible for reimbursement under my Flexible Spending Account (“FSA”).

I never estimate correctly, and I am always buying tons of FSA-eligible products at the end of the year to spend down my account. If I could buy products I need for around that house, that would be hugely helpful! So I googled mineral oil to see what else I could use it for. Turns out baby oil is just mineral oil with fragrance added, so anything you do with baby oil you can do with mineral oil. It can be used to remove make-up, to treat soapstone countertops, to age clay pots, to remove sticky residue left from price tags or other adhesives, as a solvent for oil painting, and one writer I found even used it to clean and condition his kitchen cabinets.

Then I got to wondering, what other FSA-eligible products might have other household uses? I think I heard hydrogen peroxide can be used to brighten tile grout, so I looked this one up too. Turns out good old H2O2 can whiten your white laundry, sanitize kitchen surfaces, kill bathroom germs, remove pesticides from fruits and veggies, or be used as plant spray. And it seemed like there were many more options.

Any other amazing alternative uses for FSA-eligible products?

**Note that I haven’t tested any of the above ideas for safety or efficacy. This post is just meant as “food for thought.”

Flat surfaces in a house tend to be problematic because they collect stuff. Every day, when we get home from work, a pile of mail, a purse, and messenger bag gets dropped on the kitchen table. Often some shoes end up underneath it as well. We needed a spot for this stuff to keep it from cluttering up the living area. Enter the entryway. We have a pretty large entryway with a big blank wall pretty much equidistant from the front door, where most visitors enter, and the garage door, where we usually come in from the car.

We added a shoe rack that I got from Ikea years ago. I’ve never actually used it as a shoe rack before. In fact, it’s been a TV stand for most of it’s life, with baskets in the compartments holding stuff. Ikea also happens to have a matching hat rack, so I picked that up and assembled it, and up on the wall it went. Here’s the finished product:

We thought it would be a pretty simple task. My dad (and my mom, and my brother) was even here and he helped us out with it. The pre-drilled holes, however, were not spaced at 16 inch intervals like the studs, so we had to drill some new holes. One that was done, we drilled the holes in the wall and unfortunately were off by about and inch so we didn’t hit the studs. Measure twice, cut/drill once, people! Anyway, after some trial and error, it made it up there.

I bet you are wondering why there are no purses, coats, etc. hanging on it to dress it up. Well, we only had 1.5 inch screws, and as it turns out, that’s not long enough to get into the studs. Oops! So although it’s up and it looks nice, until we can get to HD and get some 2 inch screws, it’s not strong enough to hold anything and it will remain bare. Sigh! Hopefully we will be better prepared next time we tackle a project.

Month: June 2009

How Flexible is a FSA?

Operation Hang Your Hat