Hillbilly Laptop - photo by FunnyPart.com
Our ancestors were continually looking for ways to reuse and repurpose things. For example, if they hadn’t been so clever about saving fabric scraps and creatively stitching them together, there would be no patchwork quilts. Meat scraps were turned into sausage, sour milk was used for baking, and scraps of wool were cut in strips and hooked into rugs.
Look around, and see what resource you could repurpose in a new way. For example:
- Instead of throwing it away, turn an old, worn t-shirt or tube sock into a rag. In our great-grandmother’s day, nearly every household had a rag bag — and they didn’t need jumbo 8-packs of paper towels, either.
- Use the last few pieces of bread to make croutons or bread crumbs. If you have tortillas that are past their prime, turn ‘em into homemade chips.
- Don’t throw away the red mesh bag that the onions came in; use it as a Salad Spinner to dry washed salad greens. Or take it with you to the farmers’ market and use it to carry home your produce.
- Use newspaper to wash your windows. Or use it to make homemade kitty litter.
Find a practical use for something you might otherwise have thrown away, and be sure to let us know what you do!
P.S. In case you’ve just joined us, the January Money Diet is a challenge to take a 31-day break from nonessential spending. You can learn more about the money diet here — and jump right in!
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Win a Deluxe Happy Simple Living Gift Basket
In honor of the January Money Diet, I’ll be giving away a gift basket chock-full of home and garden goodies plus several books at the end of the month. On January 31, 2012, I’ll draw one random name from everyone who commented during the month and that lucky person will win the gift basket. I hope you’ll stop by often this month and share your own ideas, thoughts and experiences about taking a 31-day break from nonessential spending.
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We use old socks for rags all the time. My favorite thing is we use those plastic containers that you get snacks in to store my grandson’s Legos. He has a ton of Legos and they work really well to separate the sizes. We also use broken crayons melted down to make unique ones. We don’t use our newspapers here at home, they go to the school for recycling to make money for the school. That’s all I can think of right now.
Great ideas, Linda – and thanks for all of your great comments during the diet.
A while ago our bird feeder broke. We took an old soda bottle and an adaptor that came with a science curriculum we had once used and made a new one. Last year we counted at least 10 different species of birds that came to the feeder. It gives my daughter and I much joy to see what we can spot out there!
I love this idea! I also think it’s fun that you’ve kept track of how many species visited your repurposed bird feeder.
My hubby loves to BUY…I’ve taught him that good old paper TP tubes stuffed with lint are a good substitute for store bought firestarters and we’re always looking for downed limbs to stock our woodpile
Teaching my daughters how to sew we’ve used Freecycled cotton fabric to make pretty Cloth Napkins
Leftovers go into Soups and casseroles
These are all great ideas, Colleen. Thanks so much!
I’ve heard that the thrifty French housewives save vegetable trimmings to use in making stock for soups, so I save them in a freezer bag until I have enough to make stock and it adds flavor and nutrients which would have been tossed in the garbage otherwise. Or composted!
Great idea, “Betty.” No wonder your soups are so great!
(Love you, Mom.)
xoxo
We re-purposed today! We reorganized and found no use for our DVD rack and made a shelf for our daughters bedroom and a shoe rack for our mudroom. My husband and I really enjoyed the projects this weekend!
Wow, good for you! It sounds like you found two really practical uses for that unused rack. Kudos!