Thrify Thursday: Reuse

Years ago when I started my blog we were on a tight budget as a single income family. Having always lived a modest life on a strict budget, I've always had friends and acquaintances ask for advice on financial matters. Instead of keeping the secrets to myself I developed a weekly blog post which highlighted some of the "thrifty tips" our family utilized to stretch our dollar even more...Thrifty Thursday.

With my return to the blogging world, I've had several readers ask for Thrifty Thursday to return as "a regular". Though I'd love to think things are even been with a dual income family life still remains to be thrifty, frugal or shall I say..ahem...creative. Between daycare, extra expenses such as two cars (we were a 1 car family for nearly 5 years), and the kid's growing bellies and enrichment activities, we are nearly in the same situation.

As much as I hate to say it, Americans are wasteful. We don't think twice about throwing away food, paper, broken toasters, plastic containers, etc. Often we throw away the very thing we go out and buy later. Some buy plastic containers, yet they threw away a salsa container, humus container, etc in that day's garbage. We rush out to buy the dog a new dog dish when we threw out the butter tub not even taking a minute to rinse it out to recycle.

Personally our cupboards are packed with mismatched cottage cheese, salsa, humus, and creme cheese containers and we USE them. I pack them with left-overs and pack lunches for school, sitters, and work. Plastic kids cups from restaurants are reused daily as cups, paint containers, chicken food scoops, and even glorious food dishes for our injured chicken Hailey. Drew cuts old soda bottles into funnels for paint and solvents and I've even seen the kids use plastic food lids as Frisbees when they couldn't find the "real one". Plastic yogurt containers become new life as seedlings spring to life.

Yes, reusing isn't glamorous, but it does save money and valuable resources on our Earth. So if you are our dinner guests and Drew comes to the table with fresh whipped creme for the apple crisp in an old cottage cheese container. Just smile...that is what our last dinner guests did. (Seriously, I wish I was making this up...but the Britten life is well...interesting.) We are passionate about saving money and the environment...a realistic reminder that REUSE comes before recycle.

From the little blue bungalow,
Katie Jean