A Time Saving Kitchen Tip for Drinking Glasses
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You know by now that water is really important for health, right? Of course, you need to make sure that it’s filtered water, but the common thought on drinking water is that you should be drinking 8 glasses of water a day.
Remember my post on the Top 5 Tips for Healthy Eating? There was drinking clean water – right at the top. Note that I said “clean water.”
Didn’t know that tap water is full of a lot of stuff that I am sure you’d rather not be putting in your body? Well, this post is not for the timid, but check out Is Your Water Safe?
I try to keep myself and my family hydrated, but we quickly end up with glasses all over the place. And my kitchen is already cluttered enough without extra glasses all over the place (anyone else identifies with this? Please tell me I’m not the only one :-)). And in these super busy and financially tight times, who needs to spend extra time and money washing extra glasses because someone says, “I can’t remember which glass was mine!”
And if you don’t have a family, then when you have guests over, you can quickly have the same problem, right (and who wants to make a mistake of drinking out of the wrong glass during the flu season :-()?
Well, I have a simple DIY idea for you that will help you keep track of whose glass is whose and help you reduce clutter in the kitchen.
Think of this as DIY water glass “charms”. While they’re not as cute, they get the job done!
This tip gets credited to my one and one-half day helper. Due to my long struggle with adrenal fatigue / fibromyalgia symptoms, things have really piled up around the house here, so I’ve been getting some help weekly while I get caught up. And frankly, it’s been helping me pay some attention to my blog that I wouldn’t be able to do otherwise while juggling homeschooling, our whole foods lifestyle, and my special needs son.
Typically, my “helper” brings her own water bottle over, but one day we were sampling homemade sugar-free lemonade (you really need to check out that recipe!). We were trying to keep glasses straight and she said, “How about this idea?”
Just put a rubber band around each glass, with a different color for each person!
Well, I posted my little idea on Twitter in response to a blogger who said she couldn’t keep glasses straight in her home either.
Her response was, “I don’t have enough rubber bands for all the people in my family!”
So here are some ways to adapt this to make it work, no matter how many people you have in your home.
Save all the rubber bands you get (washing them first) from produce, mail, etc. That way, you end up with a lot of colors and thicknesses
Mix and match the bands so that some people are identified by combinations (e.g. oldest son’s glass has a white and a blue band on it – youngest son’s glass has two blue bands)
Use a Sharpie or other permanent marker to write initials on thicker rubber bands
Works well for me – and my youngest gets a kick out of having his own personalized glass ID band.
Maybe I need to patent this and start a new business :-).
Other Time and Money Saving Ideas Can Be Found here:
- Saving Time in the Kitchen with Measuring Tools
- Save Time and Money Cooking Pasta
- The Easiest Way to Peel Garlic
How about you? Do you have a simple kitchen organization tip to share?
I didn’t read through all comments but thought I’d post this tip. We too used different cool lorded cups when kids were younger but now as adults we moved on to colored coasters on the counter. They save the counter from water spots. These coasters are actually small lids from plastic containers. If you only have clear lids you could use sharpie and initial them.
Nice tip!
Nice idea… but please write your tips in 2 forms:
1. As you have written your current one, with all the fluff and details.
2. Short, sweet and to the point for those who simply need to know the gist!
So you want me to write my tips in posts w different ways? Please clarify. Thanks.
You could sell these! Brightly colored rubber bands with flowers or moons or whatever. It could be the next craze.
I know. I see some on Amazon but most are super kiddie or related to getting drunk :(.
Thanks for the helpful hint Adrienne!
Now I hope I can send you a helpful hint.
When I read that you are a long time suffer of adrenal fatigue and fibromyalgia I couldn’t help but try to offer some help as I totally understand what you’re going through.
Please take into consideration that you may be magnesium deficient. I have been helped tremendously by taking the correct type of magnesium; a mineral that every body needs. It gets used up on a daily basis and if it isn’t replenished you become deficient. It can cause many problems including adrenal fatigue and fibromyalgia. The book that turned my health around is “The Magnesium Miracle” by Carolyn Dean, M.D., N.D. In the author’s note to the revised edition it says “Most people with chronic fatigue syndrome and fibromyalgia improve about 50 percent when they begin to use magnesium.”
If you think magnesium could be helpful to you, consult your doctor or naturopath first before taking it.
Thanks again for the rinse tip. I like natural and safe ideas.
B.
Thanks. I am working with someone who is aware of Mg. Much appreciated!
This is a good way to use those stretchy bracelets no one ever uses! And a perfect way to end water bottle “whose is it”!
Have you ever seen name bubbles? They are personalized stickers that are dishwasher safe. I use them for my Tupperware (to make sure I get it back) and for all my kids’ daycare items. 🙂
I have a home at the beach and a ski house in Utah which means I have a continual stream of house guests all summer and winter. I’m a huge fan of color assignment. All my glasses are a different color and each color has a water glass, wine glass, coffee mug and a tumbler. That way everyone knows which drink is theirs and I know which culprit left their empty glass on the coffee table!
Towels are also a problem so I do the same thing with towels. Everyone is assigned a color and each color has a beach towel, bath towel, hand towel and several washcloths. Color assignment really cut down on loads of laundry and I quit throwing out half full drinks because people weren’t sure it was theirs so they poured themselves a new one!
I had a friend who used those rubber bracelets that the kids collect. They hosted a bible study each week, and didn’t like buying plastic cups each week. So they bought cheap tumblers and collected the wristbands. Everyone grabbed a cup and wristband each week…whallah- insta cup identifier thingys 🙂
We write names on our glasses with dry erase pens. And we also you jars, with wide mouths like our favorite peanut butter (Maranatha) as our daily drinking collection because when they break your set isn’t short.
Great tip if your lucky enough to have a lot of matching glasses. I have a fetish for glass so having children who regularly broke glasses was a devilish letdown. I soon adjusted and just bought odd glasses from the op shop that I liked so if they broke it didn’t matter. The side benefit was the fact that everyone knew which glass was theirs because they were all different! Blessings are so often disguised aren’t they?
More and more our glasses don’t match either–since that post tons have been broken :-). I like mason jars anyway :).
We used to drink out of Mason jars and just put a strip of masking tape on the side and wrote our names. Worked for us! Now, my husband and I use plastic BPA-free quart bottles with tops! We love them! Cheeryshirley
Great tip! thanks for sharing your idea with the Gallery of Favorites!
Thanks, Alea!
I shared this tip today on my site.
Thanks for sharing and for your kind words! I read your post! 🙂
What a great idea! Thank you for sharing this post with the Hearth and Soul hop. Hope you had a lovely Christmas!
What a great idea! Thank you for sharing this post with the Hearth and Soul hop. Hope you had a lovely Christmas!
Thanks, April! We are having a very slow Christmas. One gift per day. Mama needs to slow down a bit :-). Hope yours was wonderful too.
What a lovely simple idea for marking whose glass is whose! I love it!
Thanks for linking to a Round Tuit!
Best wishes for a fabulous New Year 2012!
Jill @ Creating my way to Success
https://www.jembellish.blogspot.com/
Hello Jill! Happy New Year to you too!
Those rubber cause bracelts work well too. I write on them with sharpie and then everyone knows whose is whose.
That’s a great idea if they’ll fit around my glasses! I just threw out a few :-(. My son used to use them like ammunition :-). But then, he’d use anything like ammunition if I’d let him… And if you have enough “cause” bracelets then you’re set even without the Sharpie!
I really needed this tip today! I have been struggling too with low energy etc. and have the same problem with drinking glasses esp. with 7 kids and a child that I babysit. God Bless!
I am so glad to have helped. I’d be happy to talk w/ you about your energy levels. Have you read my adrenal fatigue posts? Take care of yourself. :-).
great idea! i’m sitting here at the dining room table staring at no less than 7 cups/glasses, some still full of water…and have no idea who belongs to what! i love simple solutions!
Glad to have helped!
I like this idea. When my family comes to visit we’ve all used plastic cups marked with a sharpie, but I would prefer to use real glasses. This makes it possible.
Yea, Eileen! I never like using plastic when I think about it all piling up in a landfill. I know it sounds extreme, but I am even hoping to get portable silverware so that I don’t have to use plastic when we go out. I think I found a kind that I will review in the New Year! Take care!