If you’re donating old clothing and household items, there are a few things you can do to help your local Goodwill or other donation site. Use rubber bands to help keep shoes together, and be sure to separate clothing from household items (using large trash bags is fine). Battery-operated items and those with electrical cords should be tested to make sure they work; if they don’t, toss them into the trash or take them to recycling facilities that accept such items. Any fragile items should be wrapped in newspaper and placed in boxes to prevent them from breaking.

ANDREWS MCMEEL SYNDICATION

An outdoor leak can be very hard to detect, since drips will often simply go into the ground without leaving any trace that there's a problem. To see if your outdoor faucets are leaking, wrap a balloon around the opening of the faucet and hold it in place with a tight rubber band or zip tie. Come back and check the balloon a few days later. If the balloon contains any water, you have a leak, and you will need to call a local plumber to fix it, or learn how to do it yourself by visiting a home improvement website or YouTube channel.

ANDREWS MCMEEL SYNDICATION

Which reusable water bottle material is best? It’s stainless steel. While these bottles tend to cost more than hard plastic ones, they have a lot of benefits that plastic can’t match up to. First, steel is durable: It’s corrosion-resistant and won’t leach chemicals into your water even if exposed to hot sun. And stainless steel bottles are 100% recyclable, which means your old bottles can be recycled into new steel products. When shopping, look for food-grade steel; it should be marked with an "18/8" symbol, which means it’s made with 18% chromium and 8% nickel.

ANDREWS MCMEEL SYNDICATION