Coffee heat rising

Cheap, easy spot remover

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The new laundry detergents may be ecofriendly but they’re none too housekeeper-friendly. Though they wash the stale B.O. out, they scarcely touch grease stains. If you use table linens and ecofriendly cloth napkins—or occasionally spill a little food on your clothes or get grease-splatters on you while you’re cooking—you’ll find that Costco’s Kirkland liquid detergent doesn’t get the spots out, even if you soak the spot in undiluted detergent. Nor does the new version of Spray-‘n’-Wash.

After the Christmas feast, my tablecloth came out of the laundry with a big grease spot. Three washings did nothing to remove the stain. As I was about to resign myself to either buying a new tablecloth or just getting used to the spot, I recalled the folk household hint that used to say Windex would work to remove spots from carpets and furniture.

Hmm. In the course of cooking up our own glass cleaner, we discovered that the main ingredients of Windex are varieties of alcohol, a solvent. I still had half a bottle of isopropyl alcohol purchased to make the DIY window and tile cleaner, so…..

I tested it first on a similarly stained napkin. Pouring straight rubbing alcohol on the stain and popping the napkin into the wash took out the grease and did not seem to remove the dye, as straight Kirkland’s laundry detergent has been known to do. So, yesterday evening I slopped some more of the alcohol on the tablecloth’s stain, let it sit for 15 or 20 minutes, and then ran it through the washer.

Hallelujah! The stain is GONE!

Score one for the frugalist: rubbing alcohol works to remove grease stains from fabric.

Remember that the stuff is flammable—don’t wave a cigarette around while you’re using it, and if your washer is right next to a gas water heater (as mine is), you might want to take the item somewhere else for the stand-and-soak step. I don’t think I’d use it on washable silk without first trying it on an old piece that I was about to throw out anyway. But it works fine on cotton.

A modest proposal…

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Over at The Simple Dollar, Trent is kicking himself for what he calls “Seven Huge Financial Mistakes” he made while he was in college. Most of these, such as “Going into College without a Clue,” “Not Taking My Classes with Enough Seriousness,” and “Signing Up for a Credit Card—Then Using It with Reckless Abandon,” are functions of youth. No one should be surprised when a young person does exactly these things and all the other alleged missteps Trent describes.

Youth, after all, is wasted on the young.

As a veteran of 15 years of university teaching, I’d like to trot out a radical idea that has silently lurked inside my mind for a long time:

Students should not be allowed to go directly from their senior year in high school to their freshman year in college without passing “Go.” Given the staggering cost of a college or university education, its importance to a young person’s future, and the number of financial predators waiting to prey on the kids the instant they’re set loose with no real responsibilities and no parents to watch over them, America should make it an expectation that everyone will work or do paid community service for two years before enrolling in any form of higher education.

We should set up a national service program for young people, one that could send high school graduates anywhere in the U.S. and to parts of the world that are relatively safe for Americans to live and work. This program should provide jobs that pay more than minimum wage (possibly through a matching tuition savings plan) and build real-world, salable skills.

Then we should give high-school graduates three options:

a. join the military;
b. sign up for a national service program; or
c. get a job in the real world.

In addition to paying young people a salary, the national service program could provide something like a 401(k) for prospective college students, into which pre-tax dollars could be contributed—and employers would match this—to build a fund to help pay college tuition. Actually, for people under, say, 26 years of age, all private, municipal, and state employers could offer a 401(k)-style college tuition fund, with matching contributions. Since soldiers, sailors, Marines, and airmen risk their lives in the service of their country, the military should provide a benefit like the GI Bill with more generous provisions than the proposed tuition fund. The latter would apply only to the national service program and to real-world employment.

This scheme would have a number of advantages.

First, it would expose kids to a period of responsibility at a time when they need to build maturity…and at a time when, as Trent’s post so accurately reveals, many young people are simply not ready for college.

Second, it would allow the students themselves to earn a portion of their college tuition, even it it’s only a small portion. This would help them to appreciate what is entailed in earning the amount a university education costsbefore they rack up a lifetime of student debt, take some of the burden off parents’ shoulders, and give students time to learn responsible financial habits.

Third, it would get kids out of an environment where they can easily be exploited by credit-card mongers and others who make a business of ripping off college students. By the time the young people return to campus life, they will be two years older, more mature, and smarter. The difference between a 19-year-old and a 21-year-old is significant, particularly if that 21-year-old has been earning a living for a while.

Is a national service program socialism?

Yup. So are public universities and community colleges. So is federal support of research at private universities such as Harvard and Princeton. So are city roads, state routes, and interstate highways.

We work together to make life better.

It should be so. There’s nothing wrong with creating a program to employ young people productively and give them time to grow up before completing the final part of their education, when it ultimately will repay us all with a better-educated, wiser, and smarter workforce.

Amazon gift certificate on offer

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Hey, check this out: Mrs. Micah offers a lead to her friend Adam’s site, Your Money Relationship, whose proprietor is hustling up some readers and some publicity by offering chances at a free $50 gift Amazon.com certificate in exchange for a wide variety of lagniappes you can do for him.

Besides committing a smart move here, Adam has an interesting site. A freshly minted master of financial planning, he should know what he’s talking about when it comes to money management.

Read that contract!

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One of our Copyeditor’s Desk clients asked us to sign a contract to cover whatever work we do for them in 2009.

Ohhh-kay. It looked fairly benign. I started to read through it and was about to fill in our names and sign it when I came across this little gem:

15. ATTORNEY’S FEES: Should Contractor not abide by the terms and conditions set forth in this Agreement and it becomes necessary for the Company to engage the services of an attorney or mediator to resolve any such dispute, Contractor agrees to pay all Company costs associated with this action, including, but not limited to, attorney, mediator, and process server fees. All legal action will be initiated in a Maricopa County, Arizona court.

Even though the dreaded word does not appear, this is an indemnity clause.

Never sign something like this. The paragraph above isn’t as drastic as many; in some contracts the language says you agree to indemnify the other party against (i.e., pay for) any action associated with your work that comes up at any time and in any place. It puts you at horrific risk.

What the paragraph above says is that if a dispute arises between you and the client, you had bloody well better knuckle under to anything the client demands or you will be paying lawyer’s and court fees. Doesn’t matter whether you’re in the right; doesn’t matter whether the client is reasonable or unreasonable: whatever comes up, you get to pay for it. And that’s not fair to you.

People will sue for anything and nothing. Years ago the Associated Press Stylebook and Libel Manual offered as an example of this fact the story of a woman who spotted a photo published in a book showing a crowded beach scene; she decided to sue because her kids were visible and she hadn’t been asked for permission to print their images. She sued everyone—the writer, the publisher, the photographer, everyone in sight. Eventually the writer, who had had no say in what images would appear in the published volume, was let off the hook, but not before he had been forced to hire and pay for a lawyer. Lawyers cost as much as doctors.

Clauses like these often occur in publishing contracts. You’ll see them in book contracts and, even worse, in assignments for freelance magazine articles where the writer earns all of $300 for two or three weeks’ worth of work. They’re often promulgated against people who are underpaid and don’t know any better, as though you were earning the kind of money that you could afford to pay for a publisher’s lawyers.

It’s hard enough to avoid being made to foot the bill for things you shouldn’t have to pay for. Don’t agree to do so just to make a few shekels here or there.

Always, always read every contract before you sign it.
The sequel to this tale appears here.

DIY Window Cleaner: Pro and con

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The budget’s a little low after Christmas. I need glass cleaner, but tours of Costco, Safeway, and Target in search of Windex and its knockoffs yield the same result: the stuff costs a great deal more than it’s worth. With $64 left to last till next Tuesday and gasoline and several key food items remaining to purchase, I can’t afford it.Vinegar works well for most glass-cleaning purposes, but it doesn’t cut grease very well—for that, you need something stronger.

The classic old-time formula for household window cleaner combines ammonia, alcohol, and water in equal quantities. So, to make a little less than a quart, you’d mix 1 cup of ammonia, one cup of rubbing alcohol, and one cup of water. Use the clear, nonsudsing variety of ammonia.

I suspect you don’t need that much ammonia. And in fact, a newer version shows 1 cup rubbing alcohol, 1 cup water, 1 Tbsp nonsudsing ammonia. An ammonia-free variant contains1 cup water, 1 cup rubbing alcohol, and 1 Tbsp vinegar. Having used the mostly alcohol variant, I’d make the formula with a little less alcohol—maybe a half to three-quarters cup to one cup of water—and add a very small amount of ammonia. And be careful not to get it on the woodwork!

So…are these home-made concoctions greener or more user-friendly than the commercial cleansers? Let’s investigate:

Windex contains butoxyethanol, which the State of California lists as a hazardous substance; it has been shown to cause reduced fertility, birth defects, and embryo death in animals. Windex-type cleaners also contain isopropanol, a type of alcohol that, like any alcohol, is flammable; exposure causes flushing, headache, dizziness, central nervous system depression, nausea, vomiting, anaesthesia, and coma; inhaling it or absorbing it through your skin can cause toxic effects. Always use it in a well-ventilated place. And Windex contains ethylene, a solvent that in small quantities is relatively benign.

But just because you’re making your own doesn’t mean it’s green or safe. Ordinary household chemicals such as ammonia and rubbing alcohol also have dangerous characteristics. By comparison, your home-made glass cleaner isn’t a big improvement, in the green department, over the expensive blue stuff.

In the U.S., rubbing alcohol is usually isopropyl alcohol but it may also be a mix of ethanol and water. It is toxic and can be fatal if ingested. Do not drink or breathe it, and keep it away from any products containing chlorine. Keep it way out of reach of children and alcoholics.

Ammonia functions as a solvent. It is irritating to the eyes, mucous membranes, and skin. Limit your exposure to it, and use rubber gloves when using it as a cleaning compound. Do not mix it with chlorine in any form: this means household products such as scouring powder and toilet cleaners that contain chlorine. The resulting gas is extremely poisonous.

Making your own glass cleaner is cheaper than buying a commercial product, but unless all you’re using is vinegar and water, don’t imagine it’s safer or greener than Windex-y products.