What are your frugal and sustainable tips and tricks?

[LizzzyJo]

I try to live sustainably and sometimes I do and sometimes I don't! What are some of your tips or things that you can't do?

Example of things I do:
- no purposefully bought single use plastics in the home. This has been made much easier by the new variety of plant-based baggies and saran wraps!
- no spray cleaners, I use bar soap, bar shampoo, and bar conditioner (no bottles as the US doesn't really recycle plastics anymore and the pacific garbage patch is growing)
- Of course using egg cartons from friends and not buying eggs Also trying to grow as much of my own food as possible.

Examples of things I don't do :
- I still have my plastic toothbrush, floss, and toothpaste with fluoride.
- I am terrible about buying things from Amazon that comes with plastic bags.
- Chicken, dog, and rabbit food comes in plastic bags
- I still eat meat (but I grow some myself)
- I buy makeups, clothes, dog toys, and household items that aren't sustainable

What about you?

 

[BarnyardChaos]

This sounds really great! I bet your carbon footprint is really low. Not sure about the trash, but like you said it’s mostly paper. I know that styrofoam is bad to burn, but landfills are bad too. Everything else sounds like it’s great for the environment.
What types of things do you can? I can a bit, but I’m always nervous to not use vinegar so everything ends up being pickled. I prefer to freeze things, but then the freezers fill up.

There's no need to be nervous about canning fruits and vegetables. The process is pretty straightforward, but you do have to stick to proven, safe recipes and don't modify them, or you could change the acid content.

Here are a couple of the best resources I've ever found:
https://nchfp.uga.edu/publications/publications_usda.html#gsc.tab=0
and
https://www.amazon.com/Ball-21400-B...dients that make it easy to capture freshness.

I use water-bath canning for high-acid foods like tomatoes, tomato sauce, salsa, jellies and jams, most fruits, and pickled foods. I use pressure-canning for low-acid foods like green beans, corn, beets, spinach, turnips, asparagus, soups and stews. I haven't tried canning meat yet, but plan to give that a try this year.

 

[BarnyardChaos]

We recycle or reuse what we can and burn the rest. I know, bad for the ozone layer probably, but at least none of our waste goes into a landfill - and most of it is paper products, anyway; feed bags, food packaging, cardboard boxes. Our solar system produces much of our own electricity, and we burn clean LP gas for heat. We don't drive much since we're both retired and homebodies. Diesel fuel for the tractor and such takes a chunk out of our budget, though. We don't very well conserve water, since the livestock and garden use so much and it's abundant in our region anyway. I do have an HE washer that I run only on full loads, and wash dishes only on full loads, bathe 2x a week.

We buy sodas, but usually in cans or 2-liter bottles; the cans are sold with our scrap metal for recycling, and the bottles are reused for emergency water storage and ice for the chicken processing tubs. Likewise, I reuse plastic milk jugs. But mostly we drink iced tea or water in our own bottles. We grow as much of our own food as we can, including beef and pork. I spend summers canning produce and fruit, and processing chickens. I'm growing mealworms to help with the chickens, and of course no produce scraps ever go to waste. We don't have much in leftovers; I'm being more frugal about cooking, and freezing meal-sized portions if there's enough. We waste very little food.

I wish we could spend less on farm expenses, though. The tractor and bobcat repairs are crippling us financially. And we go through buckets and buckets of hydraulic oil, that gets leaked all over the damn place. (I reuse those buckets for everything!)

 

[gtaus]

I try to live sustainably and sometimes I do and sometimes I don't! What are some of your tips or things that you can't do?

I shred almost all our paper and light weight food-box type cardboard for chicken coop deep bedding litter. Works great. Using Shredded Paper for Coop Litter - As Good As Wood Chips? Lots of good comments in that thread on reusing paper products. Paper shreds go into the chicken run compost system after the coop. Then the finished chicken run compost gets added to my garden beds to grow people food.

I use heavy cardboard as floor mats to work under our cars. Makes a good surface to paint things on. Can be used as a weed barrier for pathways, etc... Use it also for covering the compost in my pallet wood compost bins. Soiled or dirty cardboard will be saved and used in a fire pit when I burn out a stump.

I bag all my grass clippings and dump them into the chicken run compost. The chickens will eat some fresh greens, and the rest will be mixed in with the compost and breakdown over time.

All my tree leaves get mowed up and tossed into the chicken run.

Most of my branches and fallen trees either get chipped up to make wood chips for the chickens or if too big, they get used in a hügelkultur raised garden bed.

Kitchen scraps and leftovers get fed to the chickens. If something gets moldy, then I dump it into the pallet wood compost bins. Very little food products ever get tossed into our trash.

We try to buy grocery products with minimal packing, or if possible, in reusable plastic containers. We buy some products in Tupperware-like containers that we use over and over again until they break and fall apart.

I save the plastic lids from food containers to use to mix up epoxy and stuff like that. Get one more use out of them before throwing them away in the trash.

We take advantage of our local recycling bins to discard our plastics, metals, and glass that we can't find a second life at home.

Between reusing whatever we can at home, and recycling excess materials, we have gone from about 3 kitchen sized garbage bags per week to maybe 2 or 3 bags per month. That's how I measure our progress.

Last summer I started making pallet wood projects. Show Me Your Pallet Projects! Lots of good ideas on using pallet wood and reclaimed lumber. I am mainly building garden beds and planters, but others have built lots of other projects. Instead of hauling off used lumber to the landfill, I reclaim and reuse most of the wood I get. It takes some time, but I think it's worth it. The odd bits and pieces of lumber that I cannot use, I burn in a fire pit when I burn out stumps. So nothing gets tossed into a landfill.

What we don't do well: Dear Wife insists on buying plastic bottled water and will not consider using a reusable drink container or refilling the plastic bottles. It's a shame because we have a fresh water well that provides fantastic drinking water. But she has bought into the notion that drinking water has to come in a bottle.

My mansplaining to her about that issue has had no effect. If I had any idea of how to use those empty water bottles, I would not feel so bad. However, the empties currently get tossed into the plastic recycle bin.

Ditto for most of our plastic food bottles which don't get reused. Glass jars don't have much of a second life around here, either. But, fortunately, all that stuff is put into our recycle bins.

I save and reuse my feed bags for all kinds of things.

I need suggestions of ways to reuse my feed bags. I have 3+ years of saved feed bags to put to use. Currently, I just cut them open and use them as a workbench covering when I am doing a glue up project, painting, or working with something oily. I have lots of feed bags to be used for something.

The leftover water I save for plants.

That sounds like a good idea. I live on a lake, but if you lived somewhere with water ration concerns, no need to waste all that water.

I reuse the water from cooking vegetables and eggs for my plants, no salt of course.

I started going to a Senior Citizen's cooking class. Our instructor suggested that we save all the juice from canned vegetables, put it in a container in the freezer, and then use all that vegetable juice for homemade soups. Like she says, you paid for all that juice, you might as well use it in something good to eat. Anyways, I have made one homemade vegetable soup using the saved juices from canned vegetables and it was fantastic. No more straining out the juice down the kitchen drain.

If we have canned fruit that we need to strain, we strain it into a glass and drink it later. Works great for the Pineapple juice and fruit cocktail cans.

Even though I work at home I still have a car and it’s not a hybrid.

I am semi-retired, and don't have to use my car very often. I am currently driving my 1993 Ford Explorer, which only gets about 13 mpg. But I only put on maybe 100 miles per month. So, I figure I do more for the environment by keeping the old car in service and not having to have a new car manufactured to replace it. Also, maintaining the old car keeps it out of the dead car dumps. I'll probably drive that Explorer until I can't fix it anymore. I got my money's worth out of it years ago, so no tears if/when I have to send it off.

If I end up getting another job, then I'll have to get a different car. I just don't want to get into a situation where I need a job to pay for a car that I need to get me to my job. Did that as a teenager...

Also, I take care of my belongings and they tend to last a long time. I guess that results in less need for new products and therefore maybe helps the environment in a small way. It sure reduces the amount of stuff that we throw away each year.

I hope this thread takes off because I am saving way more items than I currently have ideas on how to reuse them.

 

[saysfaa]

One of my favorite sustainability things is cast iron cookware. Properly seasoned, it is as "no stick" as teflon.

Water picks replace dental floss. My dentist said they are more effective than dental floss unless a person is unusually good with the floss.

The fail that bothers most is feed bags. I wish feed still came in burlap bags.

 

[saysfaa]

...As far as clothing that’s sustainable bamboo and whatever else…it’s not something that’s really available on a wide scale here. So is it better to order it online and ship it, or just buy whatever’s available and already here on a store shelf? I dunno…

The growing of the bamboo may be more sustainable than other options but you might look at what is done to process it into thread.

I choose local stores over shipping whenever possible. I don't think it makes much difference sustainability unless the product is produced locally but I want to have an option of local later and I don't want Amazon to get more of a monopoly.

 

[igorsMistress]

This is a great idea, I’d love to get some tips as well.

I save and reuse my feed bags for all kinds of things. We recycle everything we can via our community recycling program. We grow as much food as we can, buy refill packs for cleaners and soaps if available, reuse plastic food tubs and containers to organize small items in the house and garage. The dog food is in a recyclable bag and we save the UPCs to send in and the company plants trees in return. All of our grocery bags are reusable, including the produce bags. I’ve recently begun sous vide as a cooking method, using reusable silicone bags and canning jars. The leftover water I save for plants. This really helps keep our temps inside the house down which is huge in summer. I also do a lot of solar cooking and the instant pot of course. We use buckets to catch water while we’re waiting for it to warm up. I reuse the water from cooking vegetables and eggs for my plants, no salt of course. All of our hoses have nozzles on the ends so there’s no wasted water. We don’t have a large patch of grass, just enough for the dogs to have a nice spot to go potty and all of the plants, trees and shrubs are appropriate for the climate we are in, plus I have added a bunch of trees to keep our microclimate as cool as possible.

I still use liquid soap for laundry, liquid shampoo, and my deodorant and toothpaste and mouthwash all come in plastic. I use plastic containers for storage and while some are reused I have a whole set of them that aren’t. Even though I work at home I still have a car and it’s not a hybrid. Also, we take medication on a regular basis and that all comes in plastic bottles. You can only reuse so many of those.

As far as clothing that’s sustainable bamboo and whatever else…it’s not something that’s really available on a wide scale here. So is it better to order it online and ship it, or just buy whatever’s available and already here on a store shelf? I dunno…

 

[Mother-Hen-Michele]

Feed bags! I keep seeing people say they don't have need of them, gosh I wish we were neighbors!

Ok, first, they line (or are) my laundry hampers. I have a few because my spouse leaves clothes EVERYWHERE so I need them in many rooms

Next, they are windproofing for the chicken coop, and I will staple them to surfaces that will be 'poop-ed' on to make cleaning easier.

Next they are liners for garden boxes because you should not plant into wood containers if you use recycled wood, or cedar, or treated wood (etc etc) as they leach into the soil. Regular plastic is less durable to me, the Purina feed bags I have the picture eventually comes off, but so far the bag stays good.

By the way, toothbrushes come in wood now, so plastic is not necessary. I have been using them for a while and they work fine. (It is a low bar for a toothbrush to meet )

I use recycled plastic containers for all the chicken bowls. I reuse glass jars to make sprouts. (Half fill the jars w grain and put them on a shelf. Then fill a water when needed, 24 hrs (or 48 if you forget, which I do often) drain out the water. Rinse out daily, they sprout and then feed to the girls in various stages of sprouts. Having many going is easier and the small jars pre-filled goes faster than trying to do it in basins and buckets. I find I get less mold or other issues in glass jars anyway. The odd time you forget one and it spoils you only lost a cup or two of grain.

Old clothes are rags (of course) super useful for washing out chicken coops and you can let them dry and put them in the fireplace when they are no longer washable.

Everything chicken poo is the best compost EVER, if you have issues w smell or flies or volume, put the poo in a bucket, cover w water, in a few days it will ferment and you can use it to water on a plant without burning the roots. I don't know about pathogens, so I use it on plants not currently being eaten (fruit trees when they are not making fruit, flowers, or garden beds not currently growing anything, or far from time of consumption)

Gosh, I am full of ideas, so if you have a pile of something, just tell me and I'll give you ideas I am great at reuse.

By the way, feel free to offer barter to people. My spouse fixes tractors and such (he grew up on a farm, this wasn't his living, he just does it whenever needed), he would and does trade for other materials in a heartbeat but few people think to offer.

Oh! And you can plant in feed bags too! Or put leaf bedding and a little water + grains and it will sprout!

 

[saysfaa]

I used canvas shopping bags for years. Lately, I discovered it is often easier as well as better to not use any kind of bagging or boxing. If I get a few things, I can just carry them. If I get a lot of things, I take the cart to the car anyway. I usually have some sort of container in the car from other activities to put the smallest or most fragile things in.

I've been moving toward making more food at home. Things like seasoning packets and condiments that go into or with homemade meals.

Most of our durable things came from the resale market. Different forms of resale work better in different areas. It was garage sales in two regions, estate sales and craigslist in another. Goodwill type stores vary a lot in how worthwhile they are. Cost and use are the main benefits but an added benefit is seeing the aftermath of other people choices. That aftermath helps me keep a better perspective on how much stuff I accummulate.

I use how many garbage bags I need as a measuring stick too. Three years ago, I discovered the garbage service has a by-the-bag option. We break even with the standard, unlimited amount option if we use two bags per week. We've gone from one every other week to one every three or four weeks. Not all of it is the garbage we are currently generating; some of is decluttering.

 

[igorsMistress]

I shred almost all our paper and light weight food-box type cardboard for chicken coop deep bedding litter. Works great. Using Shredded Paper for Coop Litter - As Good As Wood Chips? Lots of good comments in that thread on reusing paper products. Paper shreds go into the chicken run compost system after the coop. Then the finished chicken run compost gets added to my garden beds to grow people food.

I use heavy cardboard as floor mats to work under our cars. Makes a good surface to paint things on. Can be used as a weed barrier for pathways, etc... Use it also for covering the compost in my pallet wood compost bins. Soiled or dirty cardboard will be saved and used in a fire pit when I burn out a stump.

I bag all my grass clippings and dump them into the chicken run compost. The chickens will eat some fresh greens, and the rest will be mixed in with the compost and breakdown over time.

All my tree leaves get mowed up and tossed into the chicken run.

Most of my branches and fallen trees either get chipped up to make wood chips for the chickens or if too big, they get used in a hügelkultur raised garden bed.

Kitchen scraps and leftovers get fed to the chickens. If something gets moldy, then I dump it into the pallet wood compost bins. Very little food products ever get tossed into our trash.

We try to buy grocery products with minimal packing, or if possible, in reusable plastic containers. We buy some products in Tupperware-like containers that we use over and over again until they break and fall apart.

I save the plastic lids from food containers to use to mix up epoxy and stuff like that. Get one more use out of them before throwing them away in the trash.

We take advantage of our local recycling bins to discard our plastics, metals, and glass that we can't find a second life at home.

Between reusing whatever we can at home, and recycling excess materials, we have gone from about 3 kitchen sized garbage bags per week to maybe 2 or 3 bags per month. That's how I measure our progress.

Last summer I started making pallet wood projects. Show Me Your Pallet Projects! Lots of good ideas on using pallet wood and reclaimed lumber. I am mainly building garden beds and planters, but others have built lots of other projects. Instead of hauling off used lumber to the landfill, I reclaim and reuse most of the wood I get. It takes some time, but I think it's worth it. The odd bits and pieces of lumber that I cannot use, I burn in a fire pit when I burn out stumps. So nothing gets tossed into a landfill.

What we don't do well: Dear Wife insists on buying plastic bottled water and will not consider using a reusable drink container or refilling the plastic bottles. It's a shame because we have a fresh water well that provides fantastic drinking water. But she has bought into the notion that drinking water has to come in a bottle.

My mansplaining to her about that issue has had no effect. If I had any idea of how to use those empty water bottles, I would not feel so bad. However, the empties currently get tossed into the plastic recycle bin.

Ditto for most of our plastic food bottles which don't get reused. Glass jars don't have much of a second life around here, either. But, fortunately, all that stuff is put into our recycle bins.




I need suggestions of ways to reuse my feed bags. I have 3+ years of saved feed bags to put to use. Currently, I just cut them open and use them as a workbench covering when I am doing a glue up project, painting, or working with something oily. I have lots of feed bags to be used for something.



That sounds like a good idea. I live on a lake, but if you lived somewhere with water ration concerns, no need to waste all that water.



I started going to a Senior Citizen's cooking class. Our instructor suggested that we save all the juice from canned vegetables, put it in a container in the freezer, and then use all that vegetable juice for homemade soups. Like she says, you paid for all that juice, you might as well use it in something good to eat. Anyways, I have made one homemade vegetable soup using the saved juices from canned vegetables and it was fantastic. No more straining out the juice down the kitchen drain.

If we have canned fruit that we need to strain, we strain it into a glass and drink it later. Works great for the Pineapple juice and fruit cocktail cans.



I am semi-retired, and don't have to use my car very often. I am currently driving my 1993 Ford Explorer, which only gets about 13 mpg. But I only put on maybe 100 miles per month. So, I figure I do more for the environment by keeping the old car in service and not having to have a new car manufactured to replace it. Also, maintaining the old car keeps it out of the dead car dumps. I'll probably drive that Explorer until I can't fix it anymore. I got my money's worth out of it years ago, so no tears if/when I have to send it off.

If I end up getting another job, then I'll have to get a different car. I just don't want to get into a situation where I need a job to pay for a car that I need to get me to my job. Did that as a teenager...

Also, I take care of my belongings and they tend to last a long time. I guess that results in less need for new products and therefore maybe helps the environment in a small way. It sure reduces the amount of stuff that we throw away each year.

I hope this thread takes off because I am saving way more items than I currently have ideas on how to reuse them.

Love these ideas! I hadn’t thought about saving the water in the veggies, that’s a good one! Hubs shreds our important stuff but takes it to work to put in their shred bins. I keep telling him the chickens can’t read and don’t have QVC but he’s adamant that it go to the “secure location .” My car is newer, 2017, but the one before completely died and it wasn’t worth fixing. Even so, I only have 25k miles on it, less than that actually. It tells me when maintenance is due, it is 429 days past when the car started telling me I need an oil change and I haven’t put on 5k miles. I do like that I can get into a nice car when I have to leave, but I often use my bike or my golf cart if I’m just running to the store. Depends on the volume of groceries I buy.

For feed bags I use them as trash bags outside, usually for dog poop, but we don’t buy extra bags for that can. We use them under small paint and glue projects, and for storage quite a bit actually. I used several under a plant stand when I stained it. They hold rags, small pieces of lumber left over from projects that might still come in handy, etc. You can use them as grow bags in the garden, ours only last one season but that’s how long a grow bag purchased from the store will last anyway in our sun. We partially filled a bunch of them with lemons and gave those out to coworkers and neighbors since we don’t have the grocery store bags. I use one to cover my garden shredder to keep the sun and rain off it, I’ve used them over the “door” of my shed to block sun and rain with a couple of magnets. I also attached them to garden stakes to provide afternoon shade to tender plants in summer. I’ve read that people use them as wind blocks for their coops over windows and around their runs.