From Twitter trolls to cyber bullying and more besides, we all know there are lots of negative things associated with the internet., writes Sheena Grant.

But there are also things online that can empower us.

And I’ve found just such a thing. As it’s been election week I’d like to be able to say my online discovery is a highfalutin kind of thing of great import to humanity. But in all honesty, it’s not.

It is, however, a discovery that has made a big difference to my humdrum every-day life and saved me quite a bit of money. It might be the sort of infor-mation that could do the same for you.

This tale involves a clip on a video-sharing website and my dishwasher, a thing that first came into my life about seven years ago and has grown to become something I rely on to get me through the day nearly as much as chocolate, tea and the promise of summer.

Hence my inner panic when the dishwasher malfunctioned. I was facing a return to the bad old days of dry, calloused hands steeped in never-ending bowls of grimy dishwater, or yet another costly repair bill (to add to the one I had a couple of weeks ago when my car broke down).

After two days of scrubbing the dinner plates by hand I was prepared to do anything to avoid unending years of domestic drudgery at the kitchen sink. And if that meant calling in a costly specialist so be it. But then I remembered the time I managed to fix some blown electrics with the help of my Reader’s Digest DIY manual and a bit of fuse wire and determined that I couldn’t give in without at least trying to find out what ailed my unhappy domestic saviour.

And that’s where the online clip came in. A quick search for a diagnosis of the problem revealed two minutes 12 seconds of pure gold - a video of a dishwasher exactly like mine and equally as unhappy. The cause? A blockage in the waste pump, cleared with the help of a generous sprinkling of soda crystals and liberal application of a sink plunger.

Not exactly revolutionary but we’ve all got to start somewhere.

Email sheena.grant@eadt.co.uk or tweet using #ThriftyLiving.