Apr

Mervyn, Dunedin

by reader

Use a cake of sand soap to clean bad water spots off your glass shower. You can pay up to $100 for similar products.

Welcome to living off the smell of an oily rag. New Zealanders are joining the oily rag movement in their droves! Lots of kiwis are becoming disenchanted with the rat race. Millions of New Zealanders (OK, that may be an exaggeration!) are realising they don't have to sell their soul for the sake of a few extra dollars when they can save heaps around the home and have a better quality of life by living off the smell of an oily rag.

This site is essentially a very large library if tips sent to us over the last 20 or so years (Ok it's more than that but we don't want to admit it!) and from the oily rag books - there are more than 100k in print.

The great thing about the site is the sharing of ideas, so don't be shy about filling in the tip form - it appears on the right of every page.

And it you want to receive a weekly newsletter, join the Oily Rag Club and you will receive it free. There are lots of members - we stopped counting when the number got to 6000.
Searching tips

Searching this site could not be easier. If you want to see all posts relating to a subject just click on the topic in the list. If its not there, just enter the key words in the search panel and all of the relevant posts will come up.

If you want to see YOUR tips, just search by your pen name.

Easy!
Search the site

Search for:
Topic index
- Accommodation
- Apples
- Appliances
- Baby care
- Baked beans
- Baking
- Bananas
- Bathroom
- Beans
- Bedding
- Beverages
- Birds
- Bread
- Breakfast
- Broccoli
- Budgeting
- Bulk buying
- Burgers
- Business tips
- Butter
- Cabbage
- Cauliflower
- Celery
- Cheap meat
- Chickens
- Christmas
- Citrus
- Cleaners
- Clothing
- Coffee
- Compost
- Computers & IT
- cooking
- Corn
- Cosmetics
- Deal sites
- Debt
- DIY
- Eggs
- Electricity
- Entertaining
- Feijoa
- Fertiliser
- Figs
- Fires
- Fish
- Free
- Freezing
- Fruit
- Fun & entertainment
- Funerals
- Furniture/interiors
- Gardening
- General
- Gifts
- Hair care
- Health & fitness
- Heating
- Herbs
- Holidays
- Housing
- Hummus
- Ice blocks
- Ice cream
- Insulation
- Kids
- Kitchen tips
- Laundry
- Leftovers
- Lifestyle & yarns
- Lighting
- Linen
- Loquat
- Low-cost meals
- Lunch
- Milk
- Money
- Money making
- Motor vehicles
- Mottos
- Nappies
- Offal
- Oily Rag newsletter
- Onions
- Pancakes
- Pasta
- Peanut butter
- Pears
- Pests
- Pets
- Pizza
- Popcorn
- Potatoes
- Preserving
- Pumpkins
- Reader questions
- Reader tips
- Recipes
- Recycling
- Rhubarb
- Rice
- Sauces & dressing
- Sausages
- Seaweed
- Shopping
- Silver beet
- Soap
- Solar energy
- Stawberries
- Stews
- Sugar
- Tea
- Telephone
- Tofu
- Tomatoes
- Trading/exchange
- Transport
- Treats
- Vegetables
- Vegetarian recipes
- Weddings
- Yoghurt
- Yorkshire pudding
Latest Tips
- Websites
  Lorretta from Auckland suggests a couple of websites to have ...
- Mean on clean
  Lorraine from Hamilton writes
  
  Now that I’m unemployed I’ve become the ...
- Making peanut butter
  Karen from Waikato writes,
  
  I was dismayed to see that Pics ...
- Batteries
  Lorraine from Hamilton writes,
  
  I was given a battery charger with ...
- Hair washing
  Fonafrend from Lawrence in South Otago writes,
  
  Hair Washing. I wash ...
- Hot water
  Fonafrend from Lawrence in South Otago writes,
  
  Hot Water – I ...
- Phone plans
  Lorraine from Hamilton writes,
  It pays to check various plans ...
- It’s dishwashing liquid?
  Lorraine from Hamilton has these homemade dishwashing liquid recipes to ...
- Baked beans
  Kool.kats from Dunedin writes,
  
  When I open a large tin of ...
- Wholemeal Bread
  Lorraine from Hamilton writes,
  
  Countdown have a lockdown price in their ...
- Generic gift
  Yvette from Australia says,
  Generic gift: purchase 4 plastic key ...
- The perfect gift
  Polly from Auckland has this tip,
  
  The perfect gift for those ...
- Christmas gift chores
  Gaynor from Paraparaumu writes
  The gift that would mean most to me ...
- Empty jam jar
  Janene from Rotorua writes,
  
  When a jam jar is empty, fill it ...
- Appealing porridge
  Caron from the Waikato has this tip,
  
  Someone asked how to ...
Latest Questions
- Cleaning blood spots
  Gloria from Christchurch asks,
  How would I get blood spots off-white polycotton tablecloth?
- Dishwashing liquid?
  Trudy from Napier asks, “Does anyone have a recipe for dishwashing liquid?”
- Too much plastic
  JO from Waimate writes, “I have been thinking about: ‘Do we really need to use ...
- Limes
  Rosiesview from Whangarei writes,
  
  When we are lucky enough to get free Limes we juice them ...
- Porridge
  A reader has asked for suggestions on how to make porridge more appealing. If you ...

New site, a work in progress

Welcome to our new site. The site is undergoing an oily rag reconstruction. Doing it off the smell of an oily rag means we are not spending money on experts - we are doing it ourselves and learning as we go! That means the site will be a bit wonky and forms a bit cranky so bear with us. - Oily Rag Ed'
- Your name *
- Your comment *
  Please enter your tip, idea, comment, or question here.
- Where you live *
- How would you like your text to be acknowledged? Initials? Full name? Pseudonym? *
- Your email *
Verification
- Please enter any two digits *Example: 12
- This box is for spam protection - please leave it blank:
Join the Oily Rag Club to receive the FREE weekly newsletter.
- Your name *
- Your email *
- How did you hear about us? *
Verification
- Please enter any two digits *Example: 12
- This box is for spam protection - please leave it blank:
Archives