Looking For Ways To Save? 'Mommy Hacks' Make Use Of What You Already Have

NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) -- Before you throw out your child's dried up markers or an empty tissue box, you might be able to stretch their use.

"Mommy hacks" are tricks to cutting corners and as CBS 2's Weijia Jiang reported, are some of on moms' favorite ways to save.

Lisa Osbourne of Los Angeles is a mom to 2-year-old named Pearl and wife to a husband named Jack. She's also the vision behind raddestmom.com, a budget-conscious blog with creative ideas called "mom hacks," ways to milk everything you can out of something you already have.

"I really believe that moms, whenever they become a mother, you also become a little bit sort of a hustler. You kind of make a dollar out of 15 cents every time you can," Osbourne said.

One way is turning old dried out markers into new water colors.

"All you do is take the old marker and you dip it in some water and instantly it starts to bleed out the rest of the old ink," Osbourne said. "So you basically just turn it into water color."

To keep your little one from falling out of the big kid bed, Osbourne has a rather simple solution.

"You take three pool noodles; they're like a dollar each and you tape them up at the ends right here," Osbourne said, demonstrating. "Put these under one side of the fitted sheet underneath and it really does not look that noticeable and keeps the kid in the bed. It's like an invisible bumper."

Here's something you might already have in the kitchen – storage bags.

"Glad Press and Seal has a lot of uses if you just use this as an art smock. I'm going to stick it on the front of Mark here's shirt and show you that it works perfectly for art accidents," Osbourne said.

"Just take a nice size sheet, peel it off and you just stick it to the front of your kids' shirt like this. And then I'll show you how well this works, and then whenever the kids (are) done, rip it off and toss it," she added.

There's even a way to battle kids making a racket.

"If you're tired of your kids slamming doors, a great way to silence those doors is by placing a rubber band around one side of the handle, twisting it around the other side," Osbourne said. "Whenever the door slams it doesn't have that locking slam. It will just kind of bounce back. So that's a great way to silence the door."

Osbourne has an ice pack hack for bumps and bruises.

"I like to use a simple kitchen sponge and then I just wet it and then leave it in the freezer. And these are really great because after it freezes, they still get a little crunchy and moldable so they're really good for like knees and elbows," Osbourne said.

She even has a hack for wine.

"The best way to do that is wet a couple of paper towels, fold them together, wrap it around the bottle and we're going to put it in the freezer for about 15 minutes," she said.

Your wine will be perfectly chilled. Osbourne said be creative by repurposing the things you already have.

"Don't throw away anything until you know for sure that it's totally cashed out and you can't do anything else with it," she said.

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