Part of being frugal is also reusing things that are normally thrown away. Most everything has a second use if you look. Reusing things is great for the environment and your budget and can be done easily.
While it is easy to find uses for things like plastic shopping bags, glass pasta jars and toilet paper rolls, you might be missing out on using other things that you are throwing out.
Here are 10 items you can reuse and great ways to do just that:
1. Aluminum foil: Use a rolled up piece of aluminum foil to scrub pots and pans. Don’t use them on nonstick surfaces, but these are great for shining up copper bottom pans as well as glass baking dishes.
2. Pickle juice: Don’t toss it! Instead, use it for marinades that call for vinegar for an extra burst of flavor. You could also use it in a vinaigrette salad dressing.
3. Bread Bags: Use for coating or seasoning food such as chicken or pork chops instead of zipper bags. If you enjoy fishing, take some with you to put your catch in. Take some with you when you go berry picking as well. Anything you would use a zipper bag for, you could pretty much use a bread bag for.
4. Old towels with holes: These can be used for rags. Just cut them up and use them for cleaning as you normally would. You could also use olf t-shirt and sweats in the same way, Since they are so cheap, if you clean something particularly nasty, you can just toss it.
5. Ends of carrots, onion peels, celery stalks: Make your own vegetable stock for soups and sauces. Just place them in the freezer until you have a good amount. Add water to a large pot and your vegetable odds and ends along with some seasoning such as salt, peppercorns and thyme. Boil and then simmer to reduce it. After several hours (you would also do this in a slow cookers!), strain. If you have a chicken or turkey carcass, add that as well and you have poultry stock!
6. Broken Crayons: Peel of the papers and place in an old muffin tin. Place in the oven to melt. Allow to cool and you have some fun toddler crayons that color in rainbow patterns. Alternatively, you can melt same colors in a small slow cooker and dip white candles in them for wedding and party favors and decorations.
7. Use Ketchup bottles as a pancake mix dispenser. Just clean well and fill with homemade or store bought pancake mix and replace cap. You can easily squeeze the amount you need on a griddle or even make fun shapes.
8. Kleenex boxes are great for holding plastic grocery bags to reuse. If you are feeling extra creative, you would even decorate it with some contact paper or washi tape.
9. Old carpet scraps can be made into a cat’s scratching paradise. Simply nail a piece down to some wood and your cat will love you forever. To get kitty interested, rub some catnip on it.
10. Old prescription pill bottles: Clean well and remove labels. They are great for storing bulk herbs and spices. You can also use them for storing any small things like beads, buttons and pins.
As my family gets more green I can use any idea out there and this list is great! I drink pickle juice for leg cramps…but now I will use it instead of vinegar…so smart! I love that idea!
I must say I’m pretty good at reusing things like this but mostly because I hate throwing stuff away. lol
LOVE these ideas, especially the ketchup bottle one!
Ketchup bottle as a Pancake dispenser…genius! I definitely need to do that.
my husband lives these ideas. not loves, lives. although i guess he loves them. any time i toss an old stained ANYTHING i find it in his rag pile. i draw the line at repurposing old underpants. no way, man. lol
I totally use my bread bags like that – my grandma used to do bread her chicken like that and that’s where I learned it from! I reuse yogurt containers that have lids for nearly everything, I love those things.
Most of all I liked the idea with broken crayons! I would never have thought that things I`m throwing away almost every day, can be really useful. And as for the idea of leftovers of vegetables, it is really worthy.
Great tips. I like to brine chicken in pickle juice and then bread and fry it. Yum!
What great ideas! I never throw away sandwich bags. I use them (and the bags my newspaper comes in too) to put the clumped cat litter in. I’ve also heard you can donated old towels and blankets to animal shelters for the pets to snuggle in. I hate throwing things away, so I always reuse as much as I can.
Wow, thanks for the ideas!