And I thought I was cheap/frugal

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It's taken me years, but I've finally gotten my family to really make an effort to recycle. We now strip away any paper or plastic from any food packaging and that goes in the recycling cans. Same goes for glass or metal containers, but there seemsvto he fewer and feewer of those as time marches on.

Where we used to put out a full garbage can or two twice a week for regular garbage puck up, but now we only put out one, and it's often not filled. However, our recycling cans are always overflowing. I just put out 2 completely full 50 gallon "garbage" cans for recycling, along with another large box of just paper goods.

I'm looking forward to see how my neighbors respond. They are all very snooty and terribly competitive, so no to be outdone by us, I hope they start to recycle more as well (simply because they are better than us, of course. Lol).

Getting back to frugality, I keep and reuse almost all plastic containers from takeout food or whayever container that has a decently tight fitting lid. I use them to store leftovers, or to bring food in to work, or even to use for marinating food if they're large enough.

Why buy tupperware, or especially those cheap Glad brand containers that never seem to have petfectly matching lids, when you get better sealing containers for free from takeout?
 
I do the same, Bucky. I re-use until they get too warped from microwave use and then they hit the recycle bin.
 
I compost any vegetation and egg shells, and recycle glass, metal/tin, paper, cardboard, and plastics. We have a wonderful trash service even out here in the sticks. The company provides a massive trash can, along with a small container for recycling. We usually have one partially filled grocery bag a week to go in the bottom of the massive trash can. Mostly filled with used kleenex.

One of our neighbors must order from Amazon every day. When we go by their house on our walks before garbage day, they have at least 5 big trash bags along with a full trash can, and a whole bunch of cardboard boxes. I've never seen their recycling bin out, they just throw everything away. And there's only two of them.
 
I never use plastic in the microwave that isnt microwave save, so if it has been ice cream in the plastic tub, it will be filled with something cold and then head to freezer or fridge and I use a glass or porcelain bowl to reheat food.
 
Oh and when it comes to the rest, I live in an apartment , I have to recycle, I have 5 bins under my sink and two by the door, just I wont get a fine.
 
I compost any vegetation and egg shells, and recycle glass, metal/tin, paper, cardboard, and plastics. We have a wonderful trash service even out here in the sticks. The company provides a massive trash can, along with a small container for recycling. We usually have one partially filled grocery bag a week to go in the bottom of the massive trash can. Mostly filled with used kleenex.

One of our neighbors must order from Amazon every day. When we go by their house on our walks before garbage day, they have at least 5 big trash bags along with a full trash can, and a whole bunch of cardboard boxes. I've never seen their recycling bin out, they just throw everything away. And there's only two of them.

Wow, what wasteful people they are. Sounds like my wife's best friend whose husband buys everything on Amazon. He even bought a huge yard waste plastic trash bin from Amazon. He drives past 5 or 6 stores that sell general merchandise like that on his way home.

It came in a massive cardboard box. I was over there helping them move in, and I saw it. I think he even bought a lawnmower from Amazon. And they bought their 55" TV there too. I'd be afraid the fragile stuff would be handled roughly by the delivery people.

On the rare occasions we buy things online, I take the cardboard down to the local recycling center in our small town, or I keep the boxes to re-use for when I sell stuff on ebay.
 
I made "poor man's dinner" the other night. I was surfing around on YouTube and came across a video of someone's 90 year old grandmother making it. He and his friends love it, so she makes it for them when they go to visit her. She said her mother would make it back during the depression years, and she learned how to make it then as a teenager because she'd have to help out.

You basically peel and slice potatoes and put them in a skillet with a little oil, then add some diced onions, salt/pepper. Then slice up hot dogs (or kielbasa, sausages) and put them in along with a can of drained green beans. A little water and some tomato sauce (or pasta sauce). I used Old Bay seasoning and cooked it in the crockpot all day. It was yummy.

But his grandmother used a cast iron skillet and cooked it on the stovetop. She cut her taters really small so they cooked faster.
 
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It's taken me years, but I've finally gotten my family to really make an effort to recycle. We now strip away any paper or plastic from any food packaging and that goes in the recycling cans. Same goes for glass or metal containers, but there seemsvto he fewer and feewer of those as time marches on.

Where we used to put out a full garbage can or two twice a week for regular garbage puck up, but now we only put out one, and it's often not filled. However, our recycling cans are always overflowing. I just put out 2 completely full 50 gallon "garbage" cans for recycling, along with another large box of just paper goods.

I'm looking forward to see how my neighbors respond. They are all very snooty and terribly competitive, so no to be outdone by us, I hope they start to recycle more as well (simply because they are better than us, of course. Lol).

Getting back to frugality, I keep and reuse almost all plastic containers from takeout food or whayever container that has a decently tight fitting lid. I use them to store leftovers, or to bring food in to work, or even to use for marinating food if they're large enough.

Why buy tupperware, or especially those cheap Glad brand containers that never seem to have petfectly matching lids, when you get better sealing containers for free from takeout?

Bravo, bucky!

We live out, literally, in the sticks and there is no recycling available but in a nearby town I pass about every two weeks, and all that consists of is a big recycling roll-off container at the YMCA. So...

About two years ago, I began an aggressive "green" campaign in our house. All vegetable matter went into the compost area, saved the egg shells for gardening, the appropriate protein waste went into our canine garbage disposal, Harley, then all glass, plastic, metals and paper/cardboard went to the recycling center.

The results have been wonderful. Our 13-gallon kitchen waste container only has to be emptied once a month. Seriously. And, before anyone gets any icky ideas, there's nothing in it to cause any odors. As Dawg already mentioned, it contains mostly tissues and non-recyclable packaging. When I took the bag to the trash can outside at the first of this month, I could carry it with my pinkie.

Our big curbside trash container only makes its way to the street about once a month, too, sometimes barely full. I've even talked the refuse company to reduce our quarterly fee.

I take all the recycling items to the Y at the first of the each month on my way to "play" with my best friend.

Less work for everyone and we're kinder to Mother Earth. I say less work...it didn't seem like it in the beginning but it was something we had to get used to. Just a change really.
 
I don't think I've ever lived in a place where I've had to recycle. I don't think recycling became really the thing to do much until the mid 90s and then I was living on a horse boarding stable where everything just got put in the dumpster. Since then, every place I've lived at has had only a dumpster for throwing out garbage.
 
Every day, when I come home from work, I dump my pocket change into a gallon glass jar. The last time we "recycled" that jar, it had about $300.00 in it. Enough for a special treat or two.;)
 
Earlier this week I cooked some broccoli florets and saved the gigantic stems.

This morning I trimmed the broccoli stems, simmered them in a pint of ham stock I had in the freezer from the Easter ham bone and buzzed it in the blender until smooth.

The garbage can goes hungry and I get a couple of free lunches!!! :ermm::ohmy::LOL:
 
I have re cycling house as part of this apartment complex, it standard, I have bin for everything and even compost ( it becomes biogas for the the local buses, still no free rides) . It easy and well I have to or I can get a fine.
 
I don't think I've ever lived in a place where I've had to recycle. I don't think recycling became really the thing to do much until the mid 90s and then I was living on a horse boarding stable where everything just got put in the dumpster. Since then, every place I've lived at has had only a dumpster for throwing out garbage.
I used to recycle as much as possible even when it was optional long before it became complusory to separate the stuff for the council's refuse collection.
 
I don't think I've ever lived in a place where I've had to recycle. I don't think recycling became really the thing to do much until the mid 90s and then I was living on a horse boarding stable where everything just got put in the dumpster. Since then, every place I've lived at has had only a dumpster for throwing out garbage.
Most towns and cities have places where you can take items for recycling. We had one not too far from our house before the city started curbside recycling. One enterprising teenage boy started a business picking up people's recycling and taking it to the central location [emoji2]
 
My MIL saves all plastic and tin containers (like cookie tins, not cans) to pack stuff up for all the kids after family meals. I don't see anything wrong with that and actually send a lot of mine over to her...that way I am assured of leftovers! ;)

I add some of my homemade super concentrated stock (beef, chicken, ham, veggie, fish) to many dishes including ground meat. I have to use a mix of poultry and pork meat to have low fat but if I want a beef taste (i.e. for tacos) I will add beef stock. I make the stock into containers but I also freeze some as ice cubes so I have it for those "small jobs".

I don't do it because I am frugal, I do it because we need to have foods without allergens and I still want to be able to have flavour! :)

I have about three of those tins. When I am going to toss some article of clothing, I remove all the buttons. White ones in once cookie tin, black in another and the other odd ones in the third. Grandchildren love to play with those buttons.
 
Cheap Or Frugal?

Have you ever noticed the price difference in facial tissue between the different shaped boxes they come in?

Target : Expect More. Pay Less.

Target : Expect More. Pay Less.

The small cube shaped box, which goes lovely on a family room side table, under a decorative cover only has 80 tissues in that box.
Where as the larger, more unattractive box has 160 tissues.
Their the same price!! 320 total count vs. 640.... which would you buy?

002.jpg

I asked my Mother who loves to do needlework, to make me several tissue box covers that I have scattered around the house; I change them out with the seasons.
I bought a four pack of the small cube boxes, cut away the top portion and "recycle" them, in other words, I simply refill them with tissue from the larger, less attractive box that is stashed under the bathroom sink.

Cheap, Frugal or just plain smart? ;)
 
Smart, of course...because I've done that, too. :LOL: I can go one cheaper. My old microwave cabinet can accommodate a 96-count Puffs box, sliding right underneath the small upper shelf. But the almost-200 count are way cheaper. I keep refilling the shorter box with tissues when they run out rather than buying more shorter boxes.
 
When I take the meat out of the styrofoam trays to prepare for the freezer, I save three of the large ones. Wash them thoroughly, then dry. When I am going to bread some food, I use them. One for bread crumbs, one for flour, and one for the beaten eggs if there is not a lot to bread.

Saves on cleanup after use.
 
My great aunt and grandmother used to open presents using a knife - cutting where the tape help the paper together. They would save the boxes and tissue paper in the boxes, and fold the wrapping paper carefully to save and reuse also.

I always save ham, turkey, and chicken bones for soups.
 
When I take the meat out of the styrofoam trays to prepare for the freezer, I save three of the large ones. Wash them thoroughly, then dry. When I am going to bread some food, I use them. One for bread crumbs, one for flour, and one for the beaten eggs if there is not a lot to bread.

Saves on cleanup after use.
:shock: And yet you're still alive! Does Po know this? If he does, I'm surprised he hasn't give you a good what-for and how-to. NeverNEVER reuse a meat tray for another food purpose. Heck, I won't reuse them for anything other than reinforcing the bottom of my under-sink trash bag after I've washed them...and that bag goes to the garbage can every day or two.

The nitty-gritty: Do not reuse porous packaging materials such as paper, paperboard, and expanded foams (for example, styrofoam cups and foam meat trays). They have air spaces that will harbor food particles and microorganisms.
 

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