Strengthen your abdominal muscles with this easy sitting exercise. Strengthening your muscles like this is also a great way to promote good skin tone all over your body.

Sit on the floor, knees bent, arms around knees.  Lean backwards slowly, using your arms around your knees to support your weight.

Use your arm muscles to pull back into sitting position.

Rest for five seconds.

Repeat ten times.

As your abdominal muscles gain in strength you can reduce the effort made by the hands and arms until you can perform the exercise ten times without holding your knees.

Clear clogged drains in 5 minutes, guaranteed

Pour a little baking soda down the drain with some vinegar, let it sit for five minutes and wash down with warm water.

How to make ink and cigarette stains disappear

Horror! You’ve discovered an ink stain on the sofa and there’s a nasty cigarette stain on the carpet.

No problem.

Just spray the ink stain with hairspray before cleaning, and attack the cigarette stain by dousing with a little milk and letting it soak in, then rubbing the area with a raw potato. Afterwards wash as normal, and the stain should vanish like a puff of smoke.

To get rid of grease spots from wallpaper

Hold several white paper towels over the spot. Then press with a warm iron until the grease is absorbed.

Use fabric softener to clean burnt pots and pans

If you have something stuck to the bottom, and you can't remove it, pour a centimetre of fabric softener into the pan. Leave to soak overnight, and it will clean up easily the next
day.

In the name of health!
 

Pascale Barrow
Managing Editor of Personal & Finance Confidential