HELOISE: Helping family by paying for motel

Dear Heloise: I read your column faithfully in our local newspaper (the Bluefield Daily Telegraph in West Virginia — Heloise) and have gotten so many helpful hints.

We live in a small city, from which so many friends and neighbors have moved away. Often a deceased family member is brought back for funeral services and burial. Many times, this means that the returning family has to rent motel rooms. To help out, I have started calling local motels to find out where they are staying and paying for a night’s stay for the friends of ours.

The motel night’s stay usually is equivalent to the cost of a floral tribute, and it helps out with the extra expenses the family may have.

This gesture is greatly appreciated and quite a surprise when they check in and see that the night has been paid for.

Mary C. Cassidy, Bluefield, W.Va.

Mary, your hint is a lovely suggestion that will certainly help.

Heloise

Dear Heloise: I have several friends in a retirement center, and these are hints for using address labels. Put them on:

your scooter

walker

inside important books

wheelchair

shoes

Judith in Texas

Dear Heloise: I mail packages every month, and although bubble envelopes are good as packaging, crumpled newspapers are cheaper. For the package itself, I use boxes that also are free. I open my cracker and cereal boxes when they are empty, store them flat so they don’t take up a lot of storage space, and reassemble them inside out when I’m ready for one.

This gives me a nice, clean, plain box, which I seal with a couple of strips of package-sealing tape from the dollar store. I can’t remember the last time I purchased bubble envelopes, but of course if I receive something in a bubble envelope, I recycle it.

Donna Marquardt, Kouts, Ind.

Dear Heloise: A solution for not ruining a matching pillowcase if you apply moisturizer on your face at bedtime: Place another pillowcase over the pillow. When soiled, remove and wash.

Dorothy Perez, San Antonio

Dear Heloise: To clean dirt from under my fingernails when gardening, I use a jet stream of water from a hose sprinkler or kitchen spray head and direct it at the tips of my fingers while pulling back the finger pads. It flushes the dirt right out!

Glenn W., via e-mail

Dear Heloise: Thank you for giving me the opportunity to rant about honking car horns outside of someone’s house to get the person to come out. Please use a cell phone or common courtesy to pick someone up from his or her home. I don’t care if it is 6:30 in the morning or 6:30 at night — it’s just plain rude!

Irritated in Newbury Park, Calif.

Send a money-saving or timesaving hint to Heloise, P.O. Box 795000, San Antonio, TX 78279-5000, fax it to 210-HELOISE or e-mail it to Heloise@Heloise.com.

King Features Syndicate