Creative ways to save money
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Creative ways to save money
| Sun, 05-18-2008 - 6:00am |
Just about all of us know the "usual" advice for saving money - like using coupons or turning down the thermostat.
Is there anything that you do that is a bit out of the box?

Robyn:
I don't have anything great to share but I already started putting my extra aluminum foil and bags in a basket that was already sitting (empty) on the top of the fridge. That's a great idea! I can't stand having things lying around, but always felt guilty about throwing away things that could easily be re-used.
Have a great week,
Dee
I feel that guilt, too, Dee.
I make my own compost (and maintain a vegetable garden). It's really easy. I just use grass clippings and bags of leaves. Because I live in a brand new (less than 10 year old) former cornfield subdivision, I don't have any decent size trees of my own yet to make leaves, so I have to go "steal" them from other subdivisions. LOL.. I store bags in my shed over the winter so I have them in the spring.
Savings:
1) I use these leaves to mulch my garden (instead of buying straw at several dollars a bale)
2)
Hi, Marie.
I had read about composting through a book called "The Square Foot Garden" and it seemed really complicated to me.
It is really easy to make compost. Remember: Nature WANTS to decompose. We are just helping the process along. Compost doesn't smell if done properly (well, it will smell earthy like a forest floor, but not unpleasant).
Here's the process in a nutshell:
In general, you want your pile to be like a 3' cube minimum so you can get a little heat built up.
You need a mix of greens and browns. Greens are fresh type things (coffee grounds, kitchen vegetable scraps, grass clippings, weed trimmings, etc.). Browns are "dried" type things (shredded paper, fall leaves, hay, straw, etc.). DO NOT put grease, meat trimmings, fat, etc. into the pile (that's what would attract rodents/critters). You can also include things like wood chips and small branches, but they will break down much faster if you cut them into short small pieces. In general, the smaller the pieces going into the compost bin, the faster it will turn into compost.
Build it up