I've always enjoyed reading household hints books that share clever uses for inexpensive household items. I recently read "Extraordinary Uses for Ordinary Things" (Readers Digest, 2007), which included more than 2,000 ways to save time and money.

Although I haven't tested every tip yet, I have enjoyed finding clever ways to use common grocery bargains. Here are a few of my favorite tips:

According to the book, 90 percent of North American households have ketchup. Our family uses a lot of ketchup, so when it is on sale with a coupon at my store, I get several bottles for 25 cents each. In fact, it is ketchup sale/coupon season again, and I still have a bottle or two left on my shelf from last year.

The editors at Readers Digest suggested using ketchup to polish copper pots and pans. Since I haven't polished my copper pans in the last decade, I thought I'd give this one a try. Ketchup is also cheaper and less toxic than commercial copper cleaners, and it is safe to apply without gloves. Coat the copper surface with a thin, even layer of ketchup and let it sit for up to 30 minutes. Acids in the ketchup will remove the tarnish. Then rinse the ketchup off the pan and polish it dry. The results I had were pretty good (although not perfect) but would certainly work in a pinch.

This is also the time of year when you may see Kool-Aid packets on sale for about a dime each. If the inside of your dishwasher is rusty and brown, this book recommends dumping a packet of unsweetened lemonade-flavored Kool-Aid into the soap drawer and running the dishwasher on the hot-water cycle.

Once completed, the inside of the dishwasher should be free of any rust stains. Make sure to use the lemonade flavor, as other flavors will not work as well. The 10-cent cost of the Kool-Aid is also much less than the $3 to $4 for commercial dishwasher cleaners.

How about all those tubes of toothpaste you bought on sale with a coupon? You can use toothpaste to clean and polish your bathroom without spraying toxic cleaning fumes everywhere.

Use non-gel toothpastes to scrub your sink with a sponge. You can also shine bathroom chrome by smearing the toothpaste on the chrome and polishing with a soft dry cloth. Try using it to remove scuffs from leather shoes and to clean the white, rubber part of your sneakers.

The book also suggests using dry kitchen sponges to keep produce fresh longer. Get the most out of your garden's bounty by placing the sponges in the bottom of your refrigerator's produce bin. They collect excess moisture to help keep your produce fresh longer. When you notice the sponges are wet, wring them out and put them back in the refrigerator.

I suggest that you put the sponge in the microwave for 60 to 90 seconds to kill bacteria and dry the sponge before putting it back in the refrigerator. The book also suggests using a sponge in the shower to prolong the life of your bar soap. The sponge will absorb moisture so the soap can dry out instead of becoming a slimy mess.