Recycling to save money :-D

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Registered: 12-05-2004
Recycling to save money :-D
7
Sat, 10-29-2005 - 1:54pm

I have to admit that I used to just toss things out when they broke or needed fixing, but now that I'm watching my pennies, I'm finding it's sometimes easier just to fix things rather than replacing them (such as my 15 year old vacuum that just needed a new belt and my 10 year old dryer that needed a new start switch). Things I can't fix, like an old hot/cold countertop water dispenser (the type you put the large 3 and 5 gallon water jugs on top of), I got out the pliers and a screwdriver, and I took every last screw, nut, bolt, and washer off it it. My Dh works with wood in his workshop, so I figured he might be able to recycle them in a project of some sort. I think I got about 50+ screws off of it.

Last night, we bought four glasses at a local dollar store and the cashier wrapped each glass in about 4-5 sheets of tissue paper, and when I took the glasses out of the bag this morning to wash them, I saw that the tissue paper was in great shape (no tears), had great prints on it (even a baby one!), and were a great size (12" x 12" square). So I flattened them all out nicely and stored them away for future use. They'll be great in a small gift bag at holiday time! :-D

A penny saved is a penny earned! :-D

Has anyone else recycled an item to save money?

Pat :-D

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Registered: 03-26-2005
Sat, 10-29-2005 - 6:42pm

Pat,

Those are some great ideas! I do it a different way, but it works for me. I like getting a second use out of things by buying secondhand. I really buy most of our clothes that way, and a fair amount of our furniture or household fixtures.

The thing that has saved us recently is accepting things from people. I've made it clear that I'd like anyone's hand-me-downs at any time. Sometimes, I get things I don't want, and I pass those on. But for the price of sorting (and sometimes picking something up from a friend's house), I get new-to-me treasures. I buy my son's toys for either 25 cents on sale at a certain secondhand store, or for $2-$4 for the really nice namebrand toys at that store. When he's done playing with them, I'll lend them to friends, and then accept them back when my next child reaches that age.

I lent out all of my maternity clothes to a pregnant friend, and I was rewarded for it. . . I'm getting my clothes back for my next pregnancy, and she's letting me borrow the maternity clothes that she bought. I will have a better variety of clothes for my next pregnancy! Yay!

The other thing is, I've started buying fewer "throw-away" items. I don't really mean disposable items like toilet paper or whatnot, but toys or clothes. I've taken to buying quality, so I can pass them on and get them back eventually.

I've found that I save a LOT of money by sharing my items. Sometimes, something is ruined, but it's a small price to pay in exchange for fewer resources used and less money spent (because I use friends' castoffs or items borrowed from friends, too).

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Registered: 03-19-2003
Sat, 10-29-2005 - 8:23pm

I'm not nearly as good as I should be but we did "doctor up" our dryer instead of getting a new one several years ago and it has worked great since.

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Registered: 03-27-2003
Sun, 10-30-2005 - 2:57pm

I am so glad to see this post! You guys have great ideas, and it warms my heart to see people taking these steps.

I know being in debt isn't fun always, but every problem holds a gift in its hand, and one of the gifts I've learned from being "poor" is the gift of thrift. And one of the gifts of thrift is a gift to the environment--for every item we reuse, buy already-used, fix, or pass on to someone else for use, is one less item that has to be manufactured, shipped, and eventually thrown in a landfill.

I am always looking for uses for mundane items like soup cans (I made halloween luminaries with them this year--they're gorgeous--just clean them out really well, remove the labels, punch holes with an electric drill, place a tealight inside, and watch the lights play against the walls or grass where you've placed them along your outdoor walkway) and individual-sized milk cartons (I'm up for ideas on this one--my neighbor gave me two crates of chocolate milk left over from the school lunches she caters and I hate to throw away all those cartons!).

We re-use plastic baggies. If they are fairly clean, we rinse them, turn them inside out, then put them away when they're dry. If they had meat in them we throw them away (but since we eat very little of that, it's happening less and less). If they are stained or have been used several times already, I put them in a bag to use for mixing up my cat's food (he eats a home-prepared raw-food diet, and plastic bags are the easiest way to mix and then--placed in a hot water bath--warm his food to room temp).

The only out-and-out disposable product we buy is toilet paper. We use old diapers and rags for nearly everything else, and cloth napkins I've obtained at yard sales for napkins.

The beauty of yard sales is I can buy really nice quality items that I could never afford new. Also, my son treats yard sales like a low-cost toy library--he buys two or three new toys a week, and trades them out for something in his play room. This costs us less than $5 a week, and he always has something new and exciting to play with. This weekend, we bought a stack of games taller than he is for $2.50. A couple of them had missing pieces, but most of them are complete and ready to play. A couple others have turned out not to be that fun, but for $2.50 we still have about five games that we both enjoy and that have all the pieces (or at least enough to still be playable and fun).

I can think of only a VERY few things we buy new. Underwear is one, business pants and skirts is another (because they are difficult to find in the right size and in good condition--although I probably should try some of the local upscale consignment stores for this). Even food we often buy "second-hand"--from the salvage store where I get overstock from local restaurants, etc. (Although, actually, now that we're eating primarily locally produced and/or organic foods, I'm having to shop mostly at the farmer's market and the health food store--it's getting very expensive, alas).

One of the things that helps me the most with re-using and recycling, is just a frame of mind. Any time we "need" something or something breaks, I think first about what we already have that could work. When my plants need tying up, I think hard about what we already have that could work instead of running out to buy plant ties (it happens that there are about three dozen things that can work for this--twist ties from produce, which I save; yarn which I have literally about 80 pounds of; fabric scraps torn into strips; ribbon; twine; rubber bands; etc.). When the kids want to do an art project in a magazine, I think about what we already have that could work in place of the materials listed in the project. This last one has been great because it's instilled in my four-year-old the habit of always looking for what we already have to fill a need--so much so that when he wants something in a catalog, he'll often suggest that we make it, and he'll come up with all kinds of creative ideas for what we could use to make it.

When the peg went missing from a bookshelf so that the shelf wouldn't stay up, I discovered that a particular piece from the lego set was just the right diameter, and replaced the peg nicely without a trip to the hardware store.

I re-use the leaves from my trees as mulch on the garden.

But perhaps the most important thing I can say is that I no longer think of re-using things as something we do to save money. It's just a way of life. I can't imagine throwing away perfectly good resources, even if I became a billionaire. It's a certain respect we've developed for the value of the materials and resources we've been blessed with.

Thanks for bringing up this topic. It's so great to hear about other people doing this! If everyone started doing this, we could revolutionize the world, save our planet. :) :)

Blessings,

Heather

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Registered: 03-27-2003
Sun, 10-30-2005 - 4:04pm

That's a pretty comprehensive list so I can't think of anything we do beyond that....I agree that it becomes a different way of thinking...I love watching Moving Up on TLC. If you've never seen it the show features 3 families moving into each other's houses, renovating and then the couple who sold it comes back to see the house. I enjoy the ideas, etc. but oh my gosh...the stuff they throw away that could be reused or you could just learn to live with it. I saw them heave a perfectly good jacuzzi tub out a window because they felt it was too big for the bathroom. Are you kidding me? You could freecycle that tub in no time!

Or take Flylady which I try to do...she's so big on 27 fling boogie...I have such a hard time coming up with 27 items I would throw away! I had to start counting the recycling tubs as my fling!

I do want to do a better job with composting-I start half-heartedly and just don't do a good job. I've thought about worm composting. DD really wants a pet...would that count?

Taleyna

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Registered: 01-25-2005
Sun, 10-30-2005 - 7:14pm

this is an important topic and I have been thinking alot along these lines lately. Since I quit my job to become a Stay at home mom, you could say that I have spent the last year researching how to be frugal, but Heather is right, it does then just turn into a different mindset! I just read the book Miserly Moms recently, and she said in there, "nothing gets wasted". I am right there with Heather too, in that I try to think of things I can use instead of buying everything new to get a job done(plus i figure, that little doo dad that i have to run to the start to get to fix the whatchamacallit is going to cost me a fortune, b/c while there i will decide i need 20 other things!) . I try to recycle or save things if I can, we use a whole house wood burner, and we get our wood for free from a farmer we know who lets us cut up his dead trees in the woods, and i save newspapers and junk mail for fire starting. I just discovered freecycle and I check it every day, and i gave away a few things, that felt good! I read the book "Simple Abundance" several years ago and It hit such a cord with me about how simplicity is so much better, so I am forever going through what we have and giving away to Goodwill what we do not need anymore- you have to do that to keep things flowing into your life as well. Garage Sales and Rummage sales!! Oh i love them so much. I can't afford brand new some of the things i have bought this year at them for my daughter, really nice little tikes products and things for $1 apiece, when each would have easily been $40 or more. I get sick if i have to buy something for more than a price i have set in my mind- i can try freecycle, then goodwill, then a sale. I think i would be this way even if i had money and no dept, but I don't think i would have learned this mindset if I didn't need to find a way out of debt. It makes me happy to find ways to save money without being deprived.
When I think about all of the packaging that goes into all of the products we buy, it is really sad to me. I used to not want to be bothered recycling something as simple as a soup can and now i do. And the biggest recycler of all is my 9 year old son!!! He spent the whole entire summer snatching up every gallon jug or empty spaghetti sauce jar he could to make homes for the bugs he caught!!!!! He had so much fun! ( He still doesn't like garage sales much, i didn't start him on them early enough!)

Shannon




Edited 10/30/2005 8:18 pm ET by mom_shannon08
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Registered: 03-27-2003
Mon, 10-31-2005 - 12:07pm

You all have great ideas!

I live in an apt with limited outside space, so we never saved our soda cans before. We do now! I have a huge recepticle in my kitchen--have to move it around to do anything in there, but I look at it like a giant piggy-bank! We got it for free at bottlesandcans.com, it was for an office, but DH had it sent to his work (he's the VP).

Recently needed an actual chair for the computer desk as we were using an old dinner table chair from my mom, but DS outgrew the highchair and needed a booster seat. I went to our local Goodwill and found a desk chair for $4.99.

I have always saved baggies and margerine/butter containers. Both sets of grandparents went through the Depression, and I learned a lot about being frugal from them. One grandmother used to set either a potato or an onion in a dish on the windowsill, I think to stimulate growth of "eyes" to bud a new one?! Anyone else seen this done?

I buy Dish detergent (liquid for handwashing), water it down and use it for hand soap. I love the smells of the commercial liquid handsoap, but this is WAY cheaper and goes a long way. I buy the cheap paper towels and napkins--we just throw them away anyway, but I have started using old cloth diapers and burp cloths for windows and furniture polishing. Same with old t-shirts from DH, and old socks from everyone in family.

How's this for recycling?? My brother is "inheriting" a car from an in-law family member, and is giving us his 12 y.o. truck for our oldest DD. Yeah, it's pretty beat-up inside, could use a paint job and new seats, but it's transportation. And it was FREE. With two toddlers around, it's going to be nice for her to be able to drive herself to school, though she can't until Fall 2006--you have to be in 11th grade to park in the lot at school, but she'll get her license in Feb, so she can get a PT job to help with fuel and insurance on the car!

Had girlfriends that got together with all baby clothes, sorted, boxed and labled, then moved them around as necessary. Last one with the clothes took to thrift store.

Kathy

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Registered: 10-10-2003
Mon, 10-31-2005 - 12:31pm

I am by nature frugal, and lived this way even before I had debt.

Most of my kids clothes come form consignment stores. I almost only by designer names, and at a fraction of a cost, so that it is not unreasonalble to buy one or two nice new things. I find that the brand name stuff is more durable, and since I have two boys and can had everything down, durability is good!

I am an avid auction goer! We were at an auction yesterday and purchased 3 big leaf rakes for $1, and a big workbench for my husbands shop for $10. Lots of our furniture has come from auctions. I find that they are a great place to get value, and FUN!

We often make the round of yard sales when we have time, and will pick up toys and books inexpensively. I am an avid reader and go to the library regularly, and share books wiht friends. Picking up books at yard sales saves me tonnes of money.

I am one of the moderators of the local freecycle group. If you haven't experience freecycle, check it out!!

I will admit that there are some household products I am not good at recycling, but I do look for the least expensive, that is functional. For example plastic baggies, I just don't have the time or energy to wash them out. However, a couple if years ago I started using the inexpensive ones from the dollar store, instead of the Ziploc ones. So I am throwing less money away.

I think it is important to challenge your assumptions about things. Does it make you feel good/important/ succesful to have brand name stuff?? Why not buy used! Do you always use the smae brand of gargabe bags?? Try the less expensive alternative......

There are lots of ways to save money, many are just hidden by our pre-concieved notions. CHALLENGE EVERYTHING!