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Use What You Have; Fix What You Can

January 14th, 2025 at 08:13 pm

Recycle and reuse has been something that we've heard over and over. And then news reports come out stating that a lot of the things we were encouraged to recycle weren't really recycled. One thing I miss living out in the country was the recycling program that the small city had. I'm trying to be more creative and reuse stuff.

We both drink coffee so we go through quite a bit. I miss those metal coffee cans, but am trying to reuse the plastic ones we get. I washed one and then put waxed paper in it to give DH's grandson some cookies when we visited him at college. A large one I  washed and decoupaged some scrap material on it and use it store my cookie cutters. I've been looking at Pinterest to find other ways to use them. 

This grandson stayed with us during part of his college break and he saw I had baked some cookies and had them in one of those clamshell containers. He asked if he could have a cookie and I told him to help himself and he did, and proceeded to head to the garbage with the container. A perfectly reusable container. I asked him nicely not to throw it away and said I'd wash it and reuse it and I could tell he thought I was nuts. I had some of these before Christmas and I used them to take cookies in for our church bazaar. It saved us a little money by not using plastic bags and I felt like I at least got another use for them. 

Years ago there was a Paula Deen show (before she became famous) where she and a camera crew would go to someone's house and use whatever the person had in their fridge, freezer, and pantry and make dinner. I imagine it was planned a head of time to make sure someone had something in their house beforehand, but after reading some of the frugal sites on Facebook, I'm wondering how many people keep some food on hand because one person posted about making biscuits with what she had and how some of her friends couldn't imagine how she did that. She said she always has flour, baking powder, some sort of butter or oil, and some time of milk whether it is refrigerated, condensed, or powdered and her friends seemed amazed. 

Last night it was cold and neither of us wants a super fancy meal. I had made chicken noodle soup from scratch a couple of days ago, I had baked bread that afternoon. I asked DH if he wanted a slice of bread with his soup and he said yes, if I put some jam or jelly on it. What a blessing to head to the basement and the storage room where I have some of the stuff I canned and choose a small jar of homemade jam. Not a fancy meal, but a cozy one on a cold night. 

Are you reusing or repurposing things around your house to save money? Are you fixing things to get a little more wear out of them? DH is quite handy so he has fixed and repaired a few things. Sadly there is something called planned obsolescence where manufacturers are making things harder to repair, get parts, so people are forced to replace instead of continuing to use after a repair. So, that is limiting; I get that selling is what they are all about, but even if you can find someone who can fix stuff, sometimes it is impossible to fix. 

7 Responses to “Use What You Have; Fix What You Can”

  1. Tabs Says:
    1737000382

    Oh yeah, I vaguely remember those Paula Deen shows. I thought she was rather clever and resourceful that way.

  2. LivingAlmostLarge Says:
    1737049660

    Me. We try to pull something from the pantry weekly and use it. It doesn't always happen but it make us more aware so then we do use it.

  3. anonymous Says:
    1737050504

    I love the idea of repurposing things. I repurpose coffee cans, and other things, to use in my garden. I cover up plants with them if a surprise freeze is coming. Otherwise, my plants may die. At one time, the Folgers website had a template that you could download that you could use to create pretty canisters like for coffee, sugar, flour, etc. There are a lot of other ideas. Check websites like hometalk.com for more.

    Ever since the beginning of COVID, I have kept extra food in the house. I have a pantry that has at least one of every item I use a lot, and some that I do use, but not as much. So, I have at least 1 package of t.p., paper towels, bags of dry beans, jars of salsa and ketchup, boxes of tea, dish soap, bath soap, dental floss, and a bunch of other things. I like to get things on sale, like the $5.00 off when you buy 5 of certain items.

  4. patientsaver Says:
    1737672357

    This is a topic close to my soul. In my town they are making a hard push to have residents recycle more after one of the state's incinerators had to shut down. Right now we are forced to truck some of our waste to states like Ohio and PA, and I guess that is very expensive. So they are encouraging everyone to recycle their kitchen waste at the transfer station, and they may start a pay as you go program next year for other waste. Which is all fine by me. They give you 2 large trash bags each week for free and if you use more, you have to pay a nominal fee for them (enough to make certain people complain loudly).

    My cat was a very fussy eat and I would throw out uneaten canned food daily, which I hated, plus the dirty cat litter was actually quite heavy (not to mention stinky).

    Now, I routinely take a single bag that's about one-fifth full to the transfer station weekly. What goes in there, after recycling cardboard, plastic containers, metal, glass and plastic bags is a very small amount of unrecycable stuff. Like, they can't recycle black plastic containers, and some bags with stickers on them should not be recycled.

    But what frustrates me is the volume of plastic containers I bring to the transfer station. Because, like you, I wonder how much is actually going to be recycled, and I'd much rather they were used somehow.

  5. mumof2 Says:
    1737796508

    just wondering don't you guys have recycling and green bins?? here in australia we have 3 bins, one is general rubbish (goes out weekly) and then we have recycling which goes to a recycling plant to reuse and we also have a green waste bin (these are picked up on different weeks fortnightly/bi-weekly) which you put your garden waste in and they mulch it down and use it on community gardens...do they not do that in the US?

    we reuse a lot of jars/tins etc and have for many years

  6. patientsaver Says:
    1737814858

    Mum, yes we all have recycling of cardboard, paper, metal and plastic, but news is that much of what we THINK is plastic being recycled is, in fact, not recycled, due to contamination and other issues, I think. Many people compost on their own, but they also have compost bins at the transfer station in my town. The problem, when you get right down to it, is plastic. The market for recycled plastic is just not strong enough to reuse the billions of pieces of plastic we all use every day.

  7. rob62521 Says:
    1737824813

    Sadly, living where we live, we don't have recycling bins. That's why I'm on the mission to reuse what I can. But like Patient Saver says, we can't recycle enough plastic for the way we have it everywhere. I miss metal coffee cans and glass jars.

    Good job to all of you reusing and recycling where you can!

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