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When it comes to coffee, saving money is important. You will see the most experienced baristas make use of every single microscopic ground in order not to waste—after all, coffee’s expensive. The more money we save, the more coffee we can drink!
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One of the best ways to get the most bang for your back is to reuse coffee. This, of course, doesn’t mean to brew coffee twice from the same grounds, but to use those grounds for something else.
You’d be surprised! Coffee can come quite handy around your home and will help you save a bit of money by replacing some household products.
Coffee grounds in the kitchen
Coffee is like a sponge. It will absorb any and all odors it comes into contact with—good and bad. That’s why it is perfect for getting rid of smells, something that comes in particularly handy in the kitchen.
For your sink
The sink is the usual suspect whenever your kitchen starts to smell. If your sink starts to smell, for example, simply use a handful or two of wet, freshly used coffee grounds to scrub. Leave there for a few hours, then rinse.
It can also be used to clean the surrounding areas, before using your regular cleaning products, to get rid of anything that might be stuck and particularly to get rid of any smells.
For your fridge
Smelly fridge? Odds are that you have one. It can happen for all sorts of reasons, even if you didn’t leave any container open or something didn’t go bad inside the fridge: it can still happen, just because of all the smells that come together.
While there are many tricks to get rid of a smelly fridge, this one’s probably the cheapest and the most delicious. After drying the grounds, place them in a bowl and that goes inside the fridge. Uncovered.
After just one day, not only will your fridge not smell funky anymore, it will have a delicious coffee smell.
How great is that?
For pots and pans
What about pots and pans? It happens that you use a certain pan to cook something that can make your pot stink.
Seafood, in particular, will stink up your pots and pans and no amount of soap and water will help.
However, if you throw a few tablespoons of used coffee grounds in there and let them “cook” for a few minutes, all of that smell will be gone.
Oh, it’s also great for stains.
Worry not about tomato stains; coffee gets them right off in no more than a few seconds.
Simply add a tablespoon of coffee and scrub a few times. Stains = gone.
This also works with small containers or tupperware that may be smelling for whatever reasons, or that have stains (looking at you, pasta containers!).
Simply let them soak with a little bit of water, coffee grounds, and just a few drops of soap.
Sit back and let the coffee work its magic in removing all trace of smell and even stains for your kitchenware.
Coffee grounds in the bathroom
Did you know that caffeine stimulates blood flow? Well, it also constricts your blood vessels at the same time. It is a strange mix of effects that have made coffee a surprise ingredient in all sorts of self-care products.
As an exfoliant
Ground coffee is the perfect exfoliant agent for your face. It has the right size, which helps get all the dirt out of your pores without damaging them.
Coffee grounds also have a very small amount of caffeine—caffeine is the main ingredient in creams that help reduce redness in your cheeks and face overall.
If you suffer from redness, then using coffee as an exfoliant could be a good option for you!
Do consult with your doctor beforehand, as the acidity of coffee could prove a little too much for sensitive skin.
When using coffee on your face, scrub very gently and don’t leave it on your skin for any longer than one minute.
In general, however, coffee is rather benign for your skin and it is even an ingredient in many sorts of bath products, such as exfoliating body scrubs. You can add coffee grounds to products like body wash.
This will help you properly clean your skin, helping it shed old skin and thus rejuvenate faster!
As shampoo
Caffeine can improve caffeine circulation in the skin. As such, it has great value for those of us who may be suffering from hair loss.
Rubbing coffee grounds on your scalp will not only stimulate your follicles, but it will also greatly enhance circulation thanks to the caffeine.
For this, it’s better to let the grounds dry first after using them, and then rubbing them on your scalp for at least five minutes.
Rinse generously with warm water for better results!
This same principle also applies to other areas where you might want to stimulate hair growth. This natural home remedy is also used to stimulate body hair growth, and beard growth in particular.
Coffee grounds in the garden
For your plants
Coffee is actually almost null in terms of nutrition. It has almost no vitamins. What it does have, however, is a lot of nitrogen.
Nitrogen, coincidentally, is one of the most sought-after nutrients for plants in fertilizers.
Coffee provides natural, readily-available nitrogen that your plants can absorb right away. Mixing it with the soil and gently watering it will help your plants absorb the nitrogen almost immediately.
Nitrogen is crucial for plant growth. It helps plants grow stronger, and it is specially good for leafy greens as it helps plants grow leaves faster.
In fact, it is so good at this, that over-feeding nitrogen to plants has caused them to grow too many leaves, sacrificing flowers and fruit in the process. How interesting is that?
Coffee grounds are good for virtually all plants, as they are very safe to use and have very little risks. The only occasions in which problems happen is with artificial fertilizers. Coffee grounds are natural and very safe to use.
Still, add coffee grounds little by little and observe how each individual plant responds to it. Plants, just like people, can be very particular!
As compost
Another obvious use is to use coffee grounds in compost. As you just learned, coffee grounds are rich in nitrogen, which is a very important nutrient for most plants.
Therefore, coffee grounds in compost make a lot of sense.
Coffee grounds, particularly coarse grind, have the perfect size and texture, helping with the filtration in compost.
When using coffee grounds in your compost, be sure that they are not hot when added to your compost bin.
Coffee grounds get very hot, and this can prove detrimental to your compost, as it can kill what nutrients may be left in your compost’s leftovers.
There you have it. Coffee, quite surprisingly, is actually very useful for all sorts of things!
It can help you save money in cleaning products that you would use around the house and in the kitchen, it can help you save money in self-care products such as exfoliating scrubs and it even saves you a bit of money on fertilizers!
All money that you can put toward more coffee! Or even a new espresso machine, who knows.
Start reusing your coffee grounds and you’re sure to get the most out of your coffee!
Photo: Angela.