Heaven help me.......

[ginnie5]

I'm turning into my Grannie! She saved everything...and I do mean everything. When we cleaned out her house we threw away stacks and stacks of styrofoam meat trays, styrofoam cups, plastic bottles, old jars, plastic bags.....you name it. If you could wash it and save it she did. So for a while now I've been saving ketchup bottles and those parmesan cheese shakers. I just KNEW they would come in handy one day! Oh and there's a stack of styrofoam trays in the kitchen too . Well the bottles are coming in handy! I buy the big container of dish soap at Sam's. I've started watering it down and just keeping a small bottle at my sink and one of those ketchup bottles is perfect. And I only use baking soda and vinegar on my hair....so I filled the parmesan cheese bottle with baking soda and another ketchup bottle with vinegar. Perfect! Oh and those styrofoam trays?....they are perfect for sitting under small plants on the shelves! I guess growing up in it made it inevitable that one day I would save stuff!

[sisterpine]

LOL can you still walk from your kitchen to your bathroom? Just kidding was watching the hoarding program last night. sis

[NickieL]

ah, I cannot keep stuff like that...not enough room in this place to store stuff, so that makes it easy to keep away the clutter.

[soulsurvivor]

DH and I both used to hoard and save everything. It's a really tough habit to break and can't say we're entirely free of it yet. It comes from being frugal and squeezing the life out of everything before you throw it away. The key is to actually use the stuff you save and not buy anymore. We're trying to keep down the amount of packaging we buy and bring into this house. I'm glad to hear that you're using those items for your benefit ginnie5. Those are all great ideas.

[ginnie5]

well at least I'm using them! Grannie never did......she just saved them. Oh and the plastic coffee cans make great dog/chicken feed scoops...especially if they have handles on them. That way the kids aren't always taking dh's lunch dishes for scoops! I bought plastic dishes just for him since he doesn't like taking his lunch in a butter or sour cream container lol!

[Mid Tn Mama]

the styrofoam meat trays are great for mixing paints if you are painter. Also, they are good for mailing packages. Put two in an envelope instead of bubble envelope.

[Suzyq2u]

Our plastic coffee cans get used as dog water bowls lol. We have so many of them (5ish a month) they often get sent to the school for the teachers, they're usually grateful to have them for organizing.

[JuliaAnn]

We save coffee cans. It's a long-standing tradition in my family tht when you take brownies to someone to put them in a coffee can. DH puts all sorts of stuff in them. I wonder sometimes how he finds things in all those coffee cans. He also uses them to soak car and truck parts that need to be soaked in cleaner or solvent. I use them for mixing paint in, or when I want to paint woodwork or a small project I put some paint in the coffee can so I don't have to carry around the whole gallon of paint.

[Danaus29]

We have recycling that takes styrofoam and metal and plastic. I try so very hard not to keep stuff like that around. We need the room for aluminum, brass and copper.

[Buffy in Dallas]

Plastic coffee cans are great for plant seedlings. Just transplanted some watermelon seedlings out today that started in coffee cans.

Thank goodness for city recycling pickups! I would feel too guilty to throw away anything that could be recycled!

[How Do I]

We use our plastic coffee cans for storing scraps headed to the compost pile.

[Ravenlost]

LOL...my Granny used to save EVERYTHING and then tie things up with string she made from old clothing. My family accuses me of being like her (especially now that I am Granny to my grandson) but I keep telling them I'm not because I haven't started tying my stuff up with strings!

[ginnie5]

Originally Posted by Ravenlost

LOL...my Granny used to save EVERYTHING and then tie things up with string she made from old clothing. My family accuses me of being like her (especially now that I am Granny to my grandson) but I keep telling them I'm not because I haven't started tying my stuff up with strings!

lol! My Grannie used to wake up singing hymns.....the other night I woke up with one running through my head. Like her I can't sing! And I absolutely draw the line at saving plastic bags....well except for bread bags and grocery bags!

[chupang]

I only use 1 or two of the red coffee cans a month,but then i use them to death!New ones get used for milking my goats,nice size with handel.as they age,water bowls for my birds,tall enough to help keep out chicken scratch,deep enough for ducks and geese to dunk heads.if they freeze,easy to switch out and don't take alot of space in the tub,lol.if they split from freezing they still hold stuff,planter.............

[Old John]

Not a Granny story...... But, Well, my DKids' Mom, my 1st wife, use to save all sorts of things. She would even save plastic flatware, knives, forks & spoons, from everywhere, DQ, McD's and the ones she'd buy.
She'd have the DKids wash & dry them and she'd save them to re-use next time we had company........She was very frugal, in some ways.
When she walked out, the DKids helped me go through a lot of plastic stuff and throw a lot out. They were kind of embarrassed to serve food to their friends with recycled DQ or McD flatware.
She also took with her a part of her huge collection of paperback Romance novels, Harlequins, Barbara Cartlands & such. She took boxes & boxes along. But she left over 2000.........that I hauled to the Library.
The DKids & I had freed up a bit of space, in the house when that was over.
Oh, I use a few Coffee cans, in my garage, to sort my nuts & bolts into.

[ginnie5]

plastic silverware i do not keep! lol

[Use Less]

My MIL had stacks of whipped-topping containers, a cupboard full of thermos bottles missing the glasss liners, boxes of white shirt buttons, and lots of the clips & hooks & eyes removed from worn-out underwear. My aunt packed all my grandmother's stuff in boxes, which have now moved, apparently unopened, to their second new home. So the tendency to save everything 'just in case' seems to run in both our families. I am getting much better at moving stuff out. I save a couple of something, then consciously reject saving more, especially things that we can get quickly if we want some, like those styrofoam trays. it helps a lot when I can hand things along to someone else, hoping I'm not contributing to someone else's junk-OCD. Anything I can recycle is easier to let go, too. At age 60, time seems to be going so fast, and I don't want to spend what might be the best of my retirement years cleaning, saving, storing, moving, managing & worrying about stuff. I have nightmares about trying to move at this point, and dealing with all the stuff that's around here, though moving is not in the picture except vaguely, as in, becoming ill or too old to manage life in the country. Sue

[mamita]

I cleaned out our kitchen 'junk' drawer and found it filled to the brim with bread bag ties. now...I have no clue why, but hub insists on saving them. sure, sometimes even I grabbed one or two for something, but zillions? ya..noooo. yep..we save really good stuff. so I got him to stop that, but notice rubber bands collecting.....