Among Friends

[GrailSeeker]

My own frugal habit is not throwing aluminum foil away if it is a rather large piece and has no food stuck to it.  Sometimes I have washed a piece if it is only "lightly" used.

I also have a thing about glass jars.  I have in the last year put two large boxes out for recycling, but if its a round jar, I can barely part with them, thinking I might make a snow globe out of one someday.....

For a while, I could not part with round oatmeal or salt boxes.  My grandmother showed me many years ago how to cut them and make them into a little chair, or a doll cradle. 

I've never got around to doing these "craft projects", just saved the boxes and jars thinking someday I will show my grandchildren how to do these, but honestly, kids aren't in to that kind of thing much anymore.  

[GrailSeeker]

Oh, and those little packets of dessicant you find inside of shoeboxes or the pockets of a leather coat, etc.  Cannot throw those away.  After about 10 years, had enough to fill a plastic container and dried some flowers.  OK, now what to do with those flowers.....  Still, cannot throw those things away.

[Another new name Sue]

Plastic bags are such a problem to the environment. I don't use any in the trash cans. Unfortunately I have a lot of plastic bags saved from the grocery store. I just don't know what to do with them. I wish they would give me paper. I do reuse ziplock bags. 

it takes one and a half gallons of water to get hot water to my kitchen sink. I collect the warm-up water put it under a tree just outside the kitchen door. We are in California where we don't have enough water. I keep the sprinklers off as much as possible, but I've seen neighbors run theirs in the rain. 

I use the newspaper plastic bag to pick up dog poop.  Plastic food containers as scoops, seed starters. Anyway I can recycle them. There is too much disposable stuff in our world

@GrailSeeker I save aluminum foil too if it's clean. Can wrap up bones or other messy trash. As for a glass jars, I agree with you on that, it's hard to throw them away. Often they are beautifully designed. Fortunately our trash company recycles glass, but I do save the smaller jars to collect kitchen grease, start plants in water and other uses. I can use lids under small pots to protect surfaces, plastic lids good for that too. 

[wagirl]

the one thing I always do--is scrape every bit of stuff out of the can things i use and scrape the bowls to get everything out of them as well as measuring cups---drives me insane when you see the chefs on TV just sort of get the stuff out and leave a huge amount in the bowls---Martha Stewart does the same thing I do----my own little quirky thing, i guess.

[KingstonsMom]

@GrailSeeker 

I throw those silica packets into the dust bags or pillow cases that house my leather handbags to help guarantee no moisture, while allowing the leather to 'breathe'.

[SeaMaiden]

I do frugal things mostly to help lessen my footprint of garbage...not really to save money...

reuse ziplock bags when I can

reuse foil  and plastic wrap when I can

repurpose paper towels before throwing away...

recycle EVERYTHING I can

I do is a "Spatty" to  get out everything from tubes and bottles.. similar to using a Bobby pin I guess!

I cut toothpaste containers  and other makeup, tubes like sunscreen,in half to get it all out

I collect  and reuse twisty ties and use them all the time...also plastic lids for different things and when done recycle.

I could go on and on!

[Another new name Sue]

When you use tubes of lotion like sunscreen, when you can't get any more out, cut it open. It's usually surprising how much is still left in there.

[gidgetgh]

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@GrailSeeker wrote:

My son's second grade teacher told me that her husband insisted on unwrapping bars of soap and sitting them on a shelf to thoroughly dry out before use. He claimed the soap lasted longer by doing that.  She asked me, "Now, how much money do you think we saved doing that?"

My mother's 90 year old millionaire neighbor would not pay for trash pickup.  Instead, he loaded his trashbags into his car and put them in a grocery store's dumpster.  Illegal, but at the time, he would have saved about $100 a year doing that. 

My mother-in-law, a fourth grade teacher at a Catholic school, picked styrofoam cups out of the trash after a school party, brought them home and washed them, saying there was not a thing wrong with them. 

All these folks were older and grew up during the depression. 

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I'd rather pay the $100 a year for trash pickup than cheat, which is what you mothers neighbor did.

[SeaMaiden]

Most Billion and Million Aires are CHEAP. That is why they are so rich.

They also give less  to others than poorer people do....  

I guess they think they can take it with them...but they find out,

No you can not take it with you and they die and rot just like us poor people do

[GrailSeeker]

We had one patient at the podiatrist's office where I worked who we noticed never had an appointment that he didn't want something free in return.

He started out asking if we had a partial box of Kleenex that he could have.  We did that once, but everytime he would come in, he would ask for Kleenex.  When we turned him down, he asked if he could take a pen out of the cup at the counter.  (A lot of people wanted to take our pens, so finally one of the girls taped a big plastic flower on one pen, so that people wouldn't walk off with it.)

Finally told him that the doctor had to pay for all his supplies, they weren't freely supplied by anyone.  Then, he asked us if we had a cup of coffee he could have.