We all love a good cup of coffee to start off the morning, but this beverage can be used in several other ways. Just like coffee is good for our bodies, it has other benefits that can make our lives easier.

Next time you think about throwing those used coffee grounds away, think again. They can be recycled and used throughout your home or garden. Here are 10 creative ways to enjoy coffee besides drinking it.

10 Insect Repellent

Mosquitoes are pesky and annoying. The little bloodsuckers can ruin a relaxing night outdoors. You will find yourself busy swatting them away instead of enjoying the time with friends and family.

Coffee grounds are an unusual solution to this annoying little problem. According to the EPA, coffee grounds are a safe and effective way to repel mosquitoes and other troublesome insects. A study also showed that coffee grounds and caffeine could kill larvae by preventing the development of adult mosquitoes. The insects were not able to build a resistance to coffee.

To burn coffee grounds to use as a repellent, start by grabbing your used grounds and placing them in a bowl covered in foil. Once the grounds have dried, burn them like incense. It is best to choose a spot upwind of your location, and you can add fresh bay leaves to the fire for extra repellent.^[1]

This is a cheap and effective way to prevent those bothersome insects from ruining your night.

9 Stain Wood Furniture

Everyone is always looking for DIY projects around their house. Staining wood furniture is one of the many projects that people attempt to tackle. There are a lot of manufactured wood stain products on the market, but you won’t need to buy any of them if you have coffee at home. The method of staining wood with coffee is natural and chemical-free, and the finish is exceptional. The coat will also get darker as it becomes older.

To stain wood with coffee, simply start by brewing a pot of coffee. Then allow it to cool. The stronger you brew, the darker the stain will be. Use fine sandpaper to sand the surface that you plan to stain. Pour the cool coffee into a plastic container along with alum to help it adhere to the wood.

Use your sponge, rag, or cloth to spread the coffee over the wood surface. Don’t worry about using too much because it will absorb. Let the wood sit for 10–15 minutes, and you can repeat if you would like the wood to be darker.^[2]

How satisfying is it to know that you stained your wood furniture with a natural and nonchemical substance found in your home!

8 Create Air Freshener

We are always coming into contact with unpleasant smells, whether it is from the kitchen, bathroom, living room, or even your vehicle. Sometimes, you have to freshen up those areas with an air freshener.

Don’t have one handy? Make it yourself from coffee found in your home. Most air fresheners only cover up the odor, but an air freshener made from coffee can absorb the odor to keep it away.

Coffee beans act like baking soda does in a fridge. They help to absorb the smell and eliminate it. An air freshener can be easily made from coffee grounds to help any area smell better. All you need is a pair of old socks, your favorite brew, and a tall glass or cup.

Stick the sock down in the glass, and roll the excess over the outside of the glass. Then pour some coffee grounds or beans into the sock, pull the sock out, and tie it in a knot. Stick the air freshener anywhere that needs some help. For those who want to get fancy, you can stick the sock in a decorative bowl to hide it.^[3]

7 Dry Rubs For Steak Or Chili

We all love to consume our favorite coffee in drink form, but did you know that it is also delicious to eat? If you have extra brewed joe or grounds lying around, you can spice up almost any food. Coffee is a spice that brings rich, deep, and earthy flavors to food. You’ll mostly find it on red meats and desserts to add an espresso-like taste.

Coffee can be added to a marinade for roast meat, braising liquid for beef short ribs, barbecue sauce for grilled chicken, a sauce for fried eggs, or a pancake topper. You can even mix it with your favorite spices to create an amazing dry rub for burgers, spice-crusted pork, or lamb.

Using coffee while cooking can really add the extra flavor to make many dishes pop. There are several recipes available if you are looking to experiment with cooking with coffee.^[4]

6 Exfoliate Your Skin

Not only does coffee have some great benefits for the inside of your body, but it is also valuable for your skin. The grounds can help balance the pH of the skin. Coffee is loaded with antioxidants that battle free radicals and is a great product to exfoliate the skin. It helps you to shed dead and dry skin to reveal a glow, and it adds extra shine to your hair.^[5]

Many of the ingredients you need to make a face mask or exfoliating face scrub are found in your home. Making a scrub with natural properties will be beneficial to your skin as it eliminates lines and dry skin. Coffee can also be mixed to create body scrubs, hair masks, and foot scrubs.

Try making a homemade mask or scrub one day, and you will be amazed at how well it treats your skin.

5 Compost And Fertilizer

Instead of letting your old coffee grounds end up in a landfill, use them in your garden and compost pile. Using coffee grounds in your garden helps to add nitrogen to your compost pile.

You can simply throw the grounds into your compost pile, or they can be used as a fertilizer. Using grounds as a fertilizer adds an organic material to your soil, which improves drainage, water retention, and aeration in the soil.

Coffee grounds can even repel slugs and snails in the garden. If you want to add coffee grounds to your compost or fertilizer, stop by your local Starbucks. Participating stores give out free bags of used coffee grounds as part of their Grounds For Your Garden program.^[6]

The company does this to recycle and help reduce waste. Use this organic resource in your garden to help reduce the amount of products going to a landfill.

4 Clean Out Garbage Disposal

Since coffee is a great deodorizer like baking soda, it can be used to freshen up garbage disposals. They often start to release an unpleasant smell, and coffee grounds are an excellent solution to this problem. You don’t have to waste good coffee for this little DIY trick. Used grounds are just fine.

To make a garbage disposal cleaning pad, you will need coffee grounds, Epsom salts, baking soda, and vinegar.^[7] Once you properly mix the ingredients, you will use a measuring spoon to create the small cleaners and allow them to dry overnight. Then you can drop one in your garbage disposal when needed. Turn on the disposal and water to enjoy a wonderful new smell coming from your kitchen sink.

3 Coat Sidewalks During Winter

If you live in areas that experience a lot of snow during the winter, then you probably know all about using salt on your sidewalks. Salt is effective in melting the ice to prevent slipping, but it can be destructive to the environment. Salt can also restrict plants from absorbing the proper amount of water and nutrition. If you are looking for a safer alternative to salt, try using coffee.^[8]

You probably had a hot cup of brew to help keep you warm on those winter days. Save the coffee grounds, and generously sprinkle them across the snowy sidewalk as you would salt. The grounds work just as sand or salt would and give you the opportunity to walk across the sidewalk. The acid of the coffee even helps to melt away the snow more quickly.

Save those coffee grounds to stay environmentally friendly during those snowy days!

2 Wash Your Hair

Instead of drinking coffee, try throwing it on your hair during a shower. There are many advantages to washing your hair with coffee because it has a lower pH than water. The rough grounds exfoliate the scalp and stimulate hair follicles to help growth. Coffee is found in many shampoos now because of the benefits it provides.

The caffeine in the coffee is great for your hair, too. It helps stimulate the hair roots and may deter baldness and hair loss. The caffeine will block the effects of dihydrotestosterone (DHT) and enables hair shafts to grow faster.

It also has a way of making your hair shine more. You can use coffee to make a hair rinse to enhance hair color and texture, a hair mask to make it softer and shinier, and a hair oil to stimulate the roots of the hair.^[9]

1 Protect Dog From Fleas

Everybody loves a good cup of coffee, except fleas. They hate coffee, but they do love your dog. If you notice that your dog is itching from those pesky fleas, then save your coffee grounds from that cup of joe you had this morning. The grounds can help to get rid of the fleas when mixed with the dog’s shampoo.

Start by giving your dog a bath as usual. After you have shampooed Spot, generously rub the coffee grounds through the dog’s hair. Then rinse the grounds from the animal’s hair and be sure to look for those loose grounds that haven’t shaken off. The coffee will act as a natural repellent and help remove the fleas that were annoying your dog.^[10]

I’m just another bearded guy trying to write my way through life. Visit me at www.MDavidScott.com

I think everyone has been in a similar situation; your enthusiastic best friend/colleague/sibling is ranting and raving about this amazing film that “you need to watch. Right now!” You have no intention of watching it, especially given that the last recommendation they gave you was rubbish. More to the point, this film features what? Figure Skating?

So, you put it off, and off, and off, until you finally give in and give it a go! And, begrudgingly, that’s right: Margot Robbie smashes it out of the park with a fantastic performance of a disgraced figure skater.

My knowledge of figure skating could be written on the back of a stamp…five times, with enough room to include the script of I, Tonya. But that got me thinking, it can’t just be me that has avoided a great film due to the sport it depicts. I present, in no particular order; 10 Sports Films You’ll Enjoy Even If You Hate Sports.

Disclaimer: I have no doubt I have left out some classics and someone’s favorite film, but I tried to get a nice, wide range of sports and movie genres at the expense of some obvious choices (Sorry, Rocky).

Related: 10 Sports Superstars Who Ruined Their Careers

10 Slap Shot

Hockey is a sport I know little about. Slightly more than figure skating, in so far as they carry a big stick, right? But I have been made to watch Paul Newman’s films for as long as I can remember, and I have enjoyed them for as long as I can remember. So, it was no surprise he put in as charming and funny a performance as usual in this movie.

The plot of Slap Shot (1977) centers on a declining town and its failing ice hockey team, who in desperation turns to violence on the ice to boost ticket sales and popularity. Special mention has to be made of the brutal Hanson brothers, who provide a lot of the laughs (and winces) as they crash, bludgeon, and batter most of their opponents. IMDb trivia states this was one of Newman’s favorite films, and it comes across on screen. He must have had a ball filming it as many parts, especially those involving the Hanson brothers, were unscripted and improvised on set.^[1]

9 Million Dollar Baby

Okay, so most of the films on this list I have watched two or more times. Not with this one. Please understand, that is not reflective of the quality of the film: It is a great film, worthy of the Oscar it received, and proof, if needed, Hilary Swank is an amazing actress and can more than hold her own against screen veterans like Morgan Freeman AND Clint Eastwood!

In the 2004 film, an old boxing trainer reluctantly agrees to train a female boxer, Maggie Fitzgerald. Despite odds stacked against her, Maggie shows endless determination and heart as she rises to every challenge put in her way.

That is where I’m going to stop talking about the story as I remember the reason I have never watched it again. The injustice of what happens will be etched firmly in the memory of the people who have seen it; it is heart-breaking. Seriously, no spoilers, but keep some tissues close by and maybe treat yourself to some ice cream—lots and lots of ice cream.^[2]

8 The Wrestler

If you are wanting the glitz and glamour of WWE (WWF for those of us past a certain age), avoid this film. The Wrestler (2008) follows an ailing wrestler at the tail end of his career as he travels between small venues and tries to survive. But not in stretched limos or flown in by helicopter. Instead, he travels with all his possessions stuffed to bursting in a car that, much like himself, has seen better days. It is a gritty tale of a man who is too old to adjust to life outside the ring, struggling with menial jobs and an alienated family.

There is a surprisingly convincing performance from Mickey Rourke as Randy the Ram, and many people have drawn parallels with his and his character’s careers. The real star of the show for me, though, is the (channeling my inner Costanza here) wonderful and understated Marisa Tomei, whose self-aware and worldly, past-her-best-days stripper makes this a great watch.^[3]

7 The Blind Side

I was going to pick Any Given Sunday for my American football choice, but you are more likely to need at least a passing interest in American football with that one. With The Blind Side (2009), you just need to be human.

This touching true story of Michael Oher is a heart-warming tale with laughs and tears in equal measures. There is a bit about American football in there, too, I guess…if that’s your thing. I am under no illusions this story may have been embellished, and some events and people might have been romanticized, but I think it is wonderful.^[4]

6 Seabiscuit

Like a lot of people in the UK, my interaction with horse racing happens once a year at the Grand National. Yep, apologies to everyone in the bookies; I will be the one holding up the line trying, poorly, to fill out a betting slip. So, what reason could hold my interest in a two-plus-hour film about horse racing?

Well, I’ll give you three reasons: Tobey Maguire, Jeff Bridges, and Chris Cooper. Seabiscuit (2003) offers flawless performances and a tale that covers loss, redemption, and overcoming adversity. This is what makes these two hours and twenty minutes fly by. Side note, I think this is one of the best performances of Chris Cooper, second to his July Johnson in Lonesome Dove.^[5]

5 Purely Belter

One of the two football films that made this list. And, as it happened with I, Tonya, another example of me being proved wrong.

One night I was coerced into watching this 2000 film by a friend who supported, of all teams, Sunderland. It puzzled me why a Sunderland fan would want to watch the struggle of two young kids trying to score tickets to watch their beloved Newcastle United. Not long into the film, it becomes clear; genuinely hilarious, affectionately made, and good acting from the child stars make a feel-good film you won’t be sorry you watched.^[6]

4 The Boxer

Less to do with boxing and more to do with the Troubles. Daniel Day-Lewis is a newly released prisoner who shuns his old world of violence to open a non-sectarian boxing gym in a divided Belfast.

Watching this 1997 film again, I was reminded of the absolute, heavyweight cast of Daniel Day-Lewis, Ken Stott, Brian Cox, and Emily Watson, who proves she has always been able to act in tough, challenging parts the entire length of her career.

Boxing legend Barry McGuigan was on set and had the job of training Daniel Day-Lewis to look and move like a fighter. Day-Lewis immersed himself fully in the role and committed to the training so sincerely that McGuigan stated he could fight professionally.^[7]

3 Looking for Eric

I love this film, and for the life of me, I cannot understand why more people have not seen it. Regardless of your preference of sport, allegiance to a football team, or locality in the world, there is something for you to enjoy in this film. People might be put off by the main character being an obsessive Manchester United fan; however, this film has very little to do with football and more to do with love, friendship, poverty, class, loneliness, family, mental health… Trust me, there is no way this can be pigeonholed as just a sports film.

Naturally being set in a poor community in Manchester, the 2009 film drew a comparison from critics to other northern dramas such as Brassed Off and The Full Monty. However, Looking for Eric is in a league of its own (I know, I’m sorry) and isn’t scared to touch on the subject matter the previous films mentioned shied away from.

Steve Evets doesn’t put one foot wrong in the lead role and delivers some cracking lines: “I’m up to here with your philosophy. I’m still getting over the f**king seagulls!”^[8]

2 The Big Lebowski

I know, I know, tenuous at best to call this a sports film, but it does feature bowling and a bowling ball features on the cover… So, I guess we’re okay? Full disclosure on this one, I have not seen the film in years, and I only saw it once, so I am hoping it is as good as I remember. If not, please go and watch Looking for Eric instead.

It’s kind of hard to explain the plot, but in short, a guy named Jeff “The Dude” Lebowski (Jeff Bridges’s second showing on the list) is mistaken for a millionaire who wants to get reimbursed for a rug that got ruined at the same time as retrieving his namesake’s missing wife. As one reviewer explains it, The Big Lebowski (1198) is a “stoner crime comedy about bowling, Vietnam, and the critical importance of having that one interior-design element that ties the whole room together.”

As I remember, it is as bizarre as it sounds, and one thing I do remember is a foul-mouthed John Turturro stealing the scenes in the bowling alley.^[9]

1 The Descent

Okay, okay, I know! And you thought we were stretching it with the last one. I did want another obscure sport, and I did want to add a horror movie to the mix; we have covered a lot of sports and genres so far. Now, let’s all agree caving/spelunking/potholing is a sport for this list. Or at least sport-adjacent!

In this 2006 film, a group of friends decides to go caving. Unfortunately, things are not good from the start as betrayals start to surface, accidents happen, and it ultimately seems the group is not alone in the darkness.

I don’t know about you, but I am not a fan of being stuck in small spaces, in the dark, with potentially deadly creatures. Goodness knows why I watched this in the first place, and I’m not too sure why it is on this list. But, now and then, I do like a good scare, and this certainly fits the bill.

I am led to believe the U.S. and UK versions have different endings; however, not wanting to watch this in a hurry, please can someone add the difference in the comments.^[10]