One of the biggest things I've learned from frugal living is that I need to be creative & look at the possibilities of absolutely everything we have & try to maximize its use. Here are a few "creative" ways to get the max out of things before they go to the trash.
Save cereal crumbs for yogurt--I save the tail end, yucky in milk cereal, for yummy crunch in yogurt. Bug & I both love it & it's certainly cheaper than buying/making granola for that purpose.
I've also heard of people saving the lining from their cereal to use in lieu of waxed paper. If you use waxed paper, let me know what you think of this frugal method.
Hold on to your butter wrappers--Once you finish a stick of butter hang on to the wrapper until you need to grease a baking dish. Simply rub the wrapper on the dish & you're good to go.
Freeze & reuse shredded cheese bags--Save these in the freezer & reuse them as wrappers for chunk cheese. I only reuse these once, but it still saves needing to use a ziploc.
Reuse bread & tortilla bags--Rather than throw these out, save them for wrapping up pizza, double bagging things for the freezer, etc.
Hold on to those bags--We bring our own bags to the grocery store, so we frequently run low on bags for small trash cans. Last time in Texas I hit up my gram for some of her bags & she gave me the bag that held their toilet paper, which I thought was brilliant. We don't go through tp super often, but this method can be applied to any number of exterior product bags.
While I can't avoid creating waste entirely, it makes me feel better to delay or re-purpose things on their way to the bin. Any of you lovelies have any other ideas?
Save cereal crumbs for yogurt--I save the tail end, yucky in milk cereal, for yummy crunch in yogurt. Bug & I both love it & it's certainly cheaper than buying/making granola for that purpose.
I've also heard of people saving the lining from their cereal to use in lieu of waxed paper. If you use waxed paper, let me know what you think of this frugal method.
Hold on to your butter wrappers--Once you finish a stick of butter hang on to the wrapper until you need to grease a baking dish. Simply rub the wrapper on the dish & you're good to go.
Freeze & reuse shredded cheese bags--Save these in the freezer & reuse them as wrappers for chunk cheese. I only reuse these once, but it still saves needing to use a ziploc.
Reuse bread & tortilla bags--Rather than throw these out, save them for wrapping up pizza, double bagging things for the freezer, etc.
Hold on to those bags--We bring our own bags to the grocery store, so we frequently run low on bags for small trash cans. Last time in Texas I hit up my gram for some of her bags & she gave me the bag that held their toilet paper, which I thought was brilliant. We don't go through tp super often, but this method can be applied to any number of exterior product bags.
While I can't avoid creating waste entirely, it makes me feel better to delay or re-purpose things on their way to the bin. Any of you lovelies have any other ideas?
Wow, you really try hard to find solutions to reducing your consumer waste.
ReplyDeleteMy minimalism tendencies would keep me from keeping any packaging beyond it's initial use for fear of my brain exploding (I can't watch an episode of Hoarders without running through my house looking for anything I can sell, discard. recycle, throw out, etc).
I have gotten farther & farther away from using so many Ziploc bags of yore, instead I just use glass containers (Mason jars, Pyrex, etc) for just about everything. I also don't stock up on foods that would necessitate storing anything in the freezer "for later". Again, that's just my minimalism tendencies at work there.
I cook just what we can or are willing to eat for the day (with leftovers the following lunch) & move on to another meal. SInce it's just me & the husband - that's an easy option. I grocery shop weekly so I only buy what I need for the upcoming week & don't typically buy perishable foods in bulk (despite the Costco membership).
I've never heard of using cereal packaging to replace waxed paper...but then again, I cannot recall the last time I used waxed paper for anything. Now unbleached parchment paper...that stuff I adore.....and used parchment paper makes good firestarter kindling.