Now you’re probably wondering what would possess someone to buy such a huge bottle of vinegar and the answer would be, “Because it was on sale, of course!”  You might also assume that this is also the reason that I bought this monstrous bottle of vinegar, being the ultimate deal junkie that I am. But you’d be wrong! The real reason? My mom…

You see, I was over at her house on the weekend and she had decided to clean out her pantry of items she knew she wasn’t going to use. I learned most of my frugality from my mother who taught me some basic lessons on saving money;  the most important one being –  always stock up on items when they go on sale. Unfortunately the other part of this lesson that you’re supposed to follow is to only stock up on items that you will actually use and not just purchase something because it’s “such a great deal” even though you know you will never use it.  Well, my mother obviously broke this rule and while digging through the pantry, she came across this gigantic bottle of vinegar and realized that she would never be able to finish it in her lifetime. She shamefully admitted she bought it at Costco only because it was “such a great deal!” Don’t worry, I forgive you Mom!

She asked if I would have any use for it and I said “Sure,” thinking that I would challenge myself at finding some fun and useful ways to use up this bottle of vinegar before it went bad (Turns out that vinegar is actually a product of wine gone bad. In fact the word “vinegar” is from the French words vin aigre which translates to “sour wine.” Now there’s a little bit of useless trivia that you will probably never get to use, but don’t you already feel smarter now that you know this!!!)

I started asking my friend Mr. Google for ways of using up this monstrous bottle of sour wine (if only you could just drink it like wine! Heck, that bottle would be gone by Friday in this house!) and turns out there are a ton of ways vinegar can be used in your daily life.  Here are some of the ones I thought were useful and/or surprising:

1. Cleaning your house. Turns out vinegar is a main ingredient in most of the daily household cleaners we can make at home.  More and more these days, people are trying to find ways of staying away from harsh chemicals and saving money and so making your own homemade cleaners has become really popular.  You can use vinegar to clean your fridge (using equal parts water and vinegar), clean your mirrors and windows (2 cups of water, 1/4 cup of white distilled vinegar, and 1/2 teaspoon of liquid soap) and even clean your dishwasher (run 1 cup of vinegar through the whole cycle once a month.) As well, you can clean soap scum and mildew from your bathtub and shower tiles by simply wiping the surface with vinegar and washing it off with water. And imagine how much money you’ll save by eliminating all those expensive and harmful chemicals from your shopping list each month. Not to mention the excess shelf space minus a dozen bottles of cleaners!

2. Helping your garden.  I had no idea there were so many things you can use vinegar for in your garden. For instance, who knew you could kill grass and weeds on driveways and sidewalks by simply pouring vinegar directly on them?  Same goes for unwanted weeds in your backyard and in your garden.  This is such a safer way to kill weeds and  the expensive weed killing products you buy are really toxic and can be harmful to animals. Or what about that beautiful bouquet of flowers that you husband buys you each week? (Okay, so that may be just a fantasy of mine but a girl can dream, can’t she?  Hint, Hint Hubbie!) You can increase the lifespan of them by simply adding tablespoons of vinegar and 1 teaspoon of sugar to each quart of water.

3. Useful as beauty products.  Now don’t worry, I’m not suggesting you use vinegar in place of your favorite perfume or cologne (unless your significant other has a thing for fish and chips and then, by all means, dab a little behind the ears for a saucy evening! Lol)  But you can use vinegar to wash your hair. If you have dandruff, just rinse your hair with vinegar and 2 cups of water after shampooing.  Or if you’re a brunette, you can add highlights to your hair by rinsing your hair with 1 cup vinegar and warm water after shampooing. You can also use vinegar to relieve dry and itchy skin by adding two tablespoons to your bathwater. And don’t worry; with all of these uses, the vinegar smell will disappear when your hair or skin dries.

4. Miscellaneous and rather odd uses.  There’s a bunch of ways to use vinegar that I had never heard of but could be useful to some people.  Like, did you know that if you sprinkling a little bit of vinegar on your food can help dampen your appetite so you don’t over eat? “Pass the vinegar please.”

And we’ve all heard that if you get stung by a jellyfish, the only cure for the pain is have a soon-to-be ex-friend pee on you ( I say ex-friend because you’ll never be able to look your friend in the eye again after something like this) but luckily you can save your friendship by pouring vinegar on the wound instead. Whew!  Now I’m sure that’s a load off of your minds since we’ve all wondered when we’d have to step up and pee on our friend’s jellyfish stung leg, right? Uh, um, anyhoo….

This is a very strange one but if you have ever wanted to turn a chicken bone into rubber, turns out YOU CAN!  You soak it in vinegar for 3 days and the bone will bend like rubber.  Now there’s a fun science experiment to do with the kiddies this weekend… Just kidding…unless you’ve REALLY run out of things to do and happen to have a chicken bone just lying around the house! You never know!

And my favorite use for my giant bottle of vinegar is to just eat more delicious fish and chips for the next few months because you can’t have fish and chips without vinegar…that would be sacrilege!  So I will promise you that this gigantic bottle of vinegar will not go to waste whether I use it to clean my house, my garden or myself…or just simply gain 10 pounds eating yummy, greasy fish and chips…Think I’ll start right now with the fish and chips task!  Mmmmmmm! If you have any other good uses for vinegar, I’d love to hear them.

Coupon tip of the week:  This was a discussion on one of my coupon facebook groups recently which I thought I would highlight. A lot of times, companies will place coupon peelies or stickers on products which you are supposed to use once you’ve bought the product.  But unfortunately there are some people out there who will simply peel the sticker off the product and take it without purchasing the product. This is just poor coupon etiquette and essentially stealing so please refrain from doing this as it only puts a bad rap on couponers and makes it disappointing for the next customer wanting to buy that product.  Trust me; good coupon karma goes a long way!