Every Friday, Lynda Steele dips into the viewer mailbag to answer your questions. This week, Steele on Your Side looks at the cleaning power of the onion and paying more for lotto purchases.
Cleaning power of the onion
Sylvia wrote CTV News after watching the story about an Alberta woman who ended up in hospital after swallowing a wire from a BBQ brush. Sylvia's advice is to use an onion to clean your grill instead.
An onion is actually a non-toxic way to clean your grill.
To start, heat up your BBQ so it will be easier for the mess to burn and scrape off.
Then, cut an onion in half. Stab one half of the onion with a fork and with the flat end of the onion pointing facedown, use the veggie to rub down the grate.
The onion acts as a natural disinfectant and will help clean your grill without any chemicals.
Paying more for lotto tickets
Every couple of weeks Steele on Your Side receives questions about purchasing lotto tickets with a credit card. This week Dashmesh wrote to as why he was charged a cash advance charge on his credit card bill for purchasing lotto tickets.
The charge on Dashmesh's credit card stems from how the lotto kiosk merchant is set up to take credit cards purchases and has nothing to do with the type of credit card you use.
Some lottery ticket kiosks are classified as "quasi-cash merchants". That means credit card purchases from those merchants are processed as cash advances and will include an extra charge.
Next time you buy a lotto ticket at a kiosk it's worth asking if you'll be charged a fee to use your card.
