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14 Money Saving Life Hacks - mental_floss List Show (Ep.224)
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Apr 3, 2025
The money-saving life hacks in this episode of The List Show will have you scrubbing with lemons and saving on your water bill. You'll learn what household item can be used to shave with (hint: it isn't shaving cream) and how to hack your tea consumption.
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0:00
Hi, I'm John Green. Welcome to my kitchen. It's time to test some more life hacks
0:03
These life hacks are oriented toward, like, college students and other fiscally prudent people who want to save money
0:09
Wait, did I just call college students fiscally prudent? Now I have a stain
0:13
Fortunately, the internet tells me that if I just pour some sand onto my stain, I won't have to use paper towels. I can sweep it up
0:20
This is a terrible idea in every way. I mean, I guess it works, but now I have so much sand
0:30
Pass? So it works, but I'm not sure that sand is actually cheaper than paper towels
0:34
Anyway, that's the first of many money life hacks I'm going to test for you today in this
0:39
video sponsored by Wells Fargo
0:49
Here's a tip. Put a brick into your toilet tank, and you'll save money on water bills
0:56
Seems to work. Pass. Our faucet's pretty dirty, and I have half a lemon, but I don't have cleaning supplies
1:06
I think I can save some money by cleaning it with the lemon. Seems to be very effective, actually
1:15
I'm pretty impressed. I may never use cleaning supplies again, except for sand
1:19
Pass. Okay, let's say that you're almost done with your bottle of mayonnaise. You would just throw it out
1:24
But wait maybe you could make salad dressing with it All right you just take some vinegar That much Some what is this Italian seasoning Yep you don want to skimp on that
1:36
And some of this stuff. It's green. Basil. And oregano. Then close this up
1:44
That looks disgusting. Mayonnaise it. Mayonnaise-ier. Mayonnaise-ier. And let's give it a try
1:52
That's a little runnier than the average ranch dressing. Oh god! Fail! Fail! Fail
2:02
You know that $2 you spend for a month on shaving cream? Totally unnecessary
2:05
There's a lot of recipes for home shaving cream, but my favorite is peanut butter
2:09
I recommend creamy peanut butter, by the way. But yeah, so you just take out the peanut butter, just put it on the face
2:15
Oh yeah, that's nice. And shave. Big money no whammies. You know what? It's not bad
2:22
It's kind of hard to get the peanut butter off the razor. Mm-hmm. Yep. Pass
2:28
I'm also told that you can sharpen a disposable razor by rubbing it against your jeans
2:32
but I'm not wearing any pants, so I'm going to have to rub it against my shirt
2:35
You go the opposite way of the way you would shave, and this apparently sharpens the razor
2:40
I don't know if this is working, but I feel very strange. I'm going to say thank you
2:44
Here's a life hack for you. This makes 90 cups of coffee, and it costs $4
2:49
Or you can get half of a pumpkin spice latte. It's up to you. Another coffee life hack, I read on the internet that if you use half-used grounds, the coffee
2:57
will taste the same So this is coffee with entirely new grounds This is coffee with half new grounds half used Very mediocre Slightly worse I going to say marginal fail but if you desperate
3:16
it'll work. So let's say you don't drink coffee because, like, you hate justice and freedom
3:20
and so instead maybe you drink tea. Well, according to the internet, it's wasteful to use a tea bag
3:24
for a mug of tea when a single tea bag can tea-ify a gigantic thermos of tea
3:30
Oh, that's good. That's far better than the coffee pass. Many, many people have pointed out that while I am a very charming host of MennoFloss here on YouTube
3:38
I always have something wrong with my collar. But I'm told that if I use this straightening iron, which is extremely hot
3:44
on my collar it will become like ironed. So I'm going to... Ah, that is scary
3:50
Okay. I mean... First off, I think my collar today looked fantastic to start, but maybe it looks a little bit better now
3:59
I'm going to say pass. I've also read that using a straightening iron, you can iron out all the wrinkles in wrapping paper
4:04
so Mark and Meredith got me a gift so I could test it. I don't know what it is. I'm very excited
4:10
It's a box. Hey! Nice to meet you, Jester
4:23
Now back to science. Let's see if this gets the wrinkles out of wrapping pit
4:27
No I gonna say no I mean this is ridiculous This is the least efficient The amount of money you spent on electricity to heat the straightening iron would more
4:39
than cover the cost of some new wrapping paper. Now let's say that I stained my favorite mental floss t-shirt
4:44
Apparently you can use Cheez Whiz to spot stain the shirt, you know, like you would
4:47
with that fancy detergent stuff. Let's see how it works. I don't know
4:52
Do I just rub it in? Ew, boy. This is one of the worst things you've ever made me do, Meredith. Fail. Fail on so many levels
5:00
But here at last is one that works and actually saves you money. I know because I already tested it
5:05
You know those fancy ice packs? You don't need them. Three parts water, one part rubbing alcohol
5:10
This is perfect, actually, because I need to freeze my tongue to forget about the taste of that salad dressing. Mm-hmm
5:15
And lastly, if you want to save a little money by avoiding your dorm's laundry room
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I read that you can just freeze a dirty pair of jeans and it will start to smell better
5:24
so we pre-froze these, and I have to say, they do smell better than before
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I don't recommend this, but it kind of seems to work. So I guess pass
5:35
By the way, who do these jeans belong to? All right, I gotta go. I gotta put on my tiny, cold jeans
5:39
Thanks again to Wells Fargo for sponsoring today's video. Marc, can you just do all the credit-y stuff
5:43
Thank you. Goodbye. Jeans time
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