What are your frugal and sustainable tips and tricks?

[BDutch]

Oh, definitely. Sometime hubby or I will buy a cheaper thing, and it will last as long as we need it, like for a one-and-done project. Other times, we just know that we need the better quality item. Sometimes it's just a guess which will better suit our needs.

Yes. This applies to us too.

If you find any, be sure to post about them here. I would love to cut way down on the plastic in my life.

I cant give examples of everything. Here’s one:

Example of a broody coop/tiny coop: Plastic vs wood

 

[BDutch]

I've recently been upgrading my plastic kitchen utensils to all-metal.

Unfortunately, we also wear *a lot* of plastics. I had a hard time finding cotton socks & pajamas locally recently. I saw a tag on one set boasting how it was partially made from recycled 2-liter bottles. The best I could find was mixed cotton and synthetic. I ended up buying from Amazon instead.

If I buy clothes online I often add organic cotton in the search. Or linen, or viscose for blouses. Unfortunately there is not much choice.

I always look at the extra info online/in the shops to be sure I dont buy acrylic/synthetic if possible. I admit socks without synthetic fibres is a no-go. And fashion is often viscose if you dont want plastics.

I don’t do fast fashion, so Im not in the need to buy much.

I never buy at Ama-zon because I don’t like Jeff Bezos. In Europe we are not so badly contaminated with his supershop or any of the new Chinees mega-shops.

 

[BDutch]

From many things I have read, it costs more to recycle plastic than just to make new plastic stuff.

We had a re-use plastic factory in the Netherlands that worked nicely when the oil prices were high. A year ago the when the price of oil lowered many customers (mainly for packaging) chose the cheaper new plastics again.
The reuse factory went bankrupt.

Reusing plastics seems only possible if plastics get a higher VAT and the reused plastic factories are set free of certain taxes.

Better if we can find alternatives to plastic in the first place.

Yes. Of course. But alternatives are sometimes more difficult to realise than reuse.

Yeah, I try to reduce the amount of plastic in my life, but I have found some good repurposing uses for some of the plastics we do buy. I think that might fall under the category of sustainable tips and tricks. I certainly don't spend extra money for plastic containers that I can reuse or repurpose.

Yes. This is what I do too, if possible.
Another example: I use large old paint buckets to store chicken feed. They are rodent proof and the feed is stored air tight.

 

[gtaus]

We had a re-use plastic factory in the Netherlands that worked nicely when the oil prices were high. A year ago the when the price of oil lowered many customers (mainly for packaging) chose the cheaper new plastics again.
The reuse factory went bankrupt.

Reusing plastics seems only possible if plastics get a higher VAT and the reused plastic factories are set free of certain taxes.

That's what I was talking about. Although it might be better to recycle and reuse that plastic, I'm not convinced that paying extra for new plastic to subsidize recycling plastic is the answer. Better if we can just find alternatives to plastic in the first place.

Too bad that reuse factory for plastics went bankrupt. But I hear stuff like that all the time. I live in timber country, and it's a lot cheaper to process new wood for paper products than to recycle and remake paper products from old paper products. At least, that is what I am told. I suspect most, if not all, of our recycle paper just gets dumped into a landfill somewhere out of sight, out of mind.

Having said that, I shred almost all our household paper and cardboard products and use the shreds as coop deep bedding litter, then it gets composted out in the chicken run to make compost for my pallet wood raised bed gardens. It has been almost 2 years since I hauled any paper products to the recycle center. At least I know that 100% of my home shredded paper is recycled and put to good use.

For anyone who has chickens, I would suggest that they consider shredding their paper products at home and using it as litter and/or as a carbon resource for composting. For those wondering if the inks used in the papers are toxic, I can tell you that all our local newspapers and magazines use soy-based inks that are recycle and environmentally friendly. I think the soy-based inks might be a state law where I live. In any case, you can shred those colored newspapers and magazines where I live.

Check out the thread Using Shredded Paper for Coop Litter - As Good As Wood Chips? for more tips and suggestions on using shredded paper for your coop litter. FWIW, I picked up a few used paper shredders at our local church Thrift Shop for less than $5.00 each. So, the cost to get into shredding paper at home for me was minimal. The value of recycling all those paper products at home is worth a lot to me as I consider it another small thing I do to keep our household "garbage" out of the landfills.

 

[BDutch]

and it's a lot cheaper to process new wood for paper products than to recycle and remake paper products from old paper products. At least, that is what I am told. I suspect most, if not all, of our recycle paper just gets dumped into a landfill somewhere out of sight, out of mind.

Here its different. The paper waste is collected separately and it gets very well recycled to low and medium quality paper. I know for sure because the largest paper factory in the Netherlands is in the next village. When I drive on the road near the factory, I often see many trucks with old paper going to the factory, and people who work in it told me about the process.

 

[gtaus]

Thrift Store Treasure Find!

I have had The Audubon Society Field Guide to North American Birds (Eastern edition) on my Amazon wish list for some time. I just did not want to pay full retail for the guide to look up the occasional new bird that might visit Dear Wife's bird feeders.

Here is the $50.00 Amazon listing of the field guide I picked up today...

The field guide I got at the Thrift Store did not have the paper sleeve cover on the front, but it looks like the exact same guide otherwise. Both have that plastic type cover and the same number of pages, etc... Other than the missing paper cover, the guide was in excellent condition.

Oh yeah, I only paid 50 cents for the field guide! Made my day.

 

[Sally PB]

99% off! SCORE!

 

[gtaus]

I never buy at Ama-zon because I don’t like Jeff Bezos. In Europe we are not so badly contaminated with his supershop or any of the new Chinees mega-shops.

I'm so old, that I remember when Amazon was an online bookstore that lost money every year!

I don't have any personal feeling towards Jeff Bezos, one way or another, but Amazon certainly has changed the way I shop. I would prefer to buy stuff locally and support our brick-and-mortar stores, but they have changed a lot, too. Now, when I go into our local big box stores, many of the things that they used to have in the store shelves are now order online only. At that point, it's just price comparison shopping to see who had the best price online. Amazon usually wins that game.

There was a time that I used to read the Amazon reviews on products. I don't do that much anymore. Too many fake/paid positive reviews. I know a young man that was working part time as a reviewer for products sold on Amazon. He was given a list of positive things to say about the product(s) and got paid for posting his reviews. All on items that he never bought or even knew anything about.

I will read the negative reviews of a product to get an idea where the product might have failed, but sometimes I think that other people are getting paid to submit negative reviews about a competitive product. I have seen a few of those negative reviews submitted by people who obviously never used the product.

If I can pick up the item in a local store and judge the quality for myself, I am willing to pay a little extra to get it that day. It's much harder to judge a product from an online posting.

 

[gtaus]

99% off! SCORE!

And I only had to wait a full year before it showed up at the Thrift Shop!

More seriously, I have some wish lists of nice things to have, someday, that I am willing to wait out to see if it passes through the Thrift Shop at a good price. If you are willing to wait, sometimes you can get great deals. If you are in hurry, of course you usually end up paying more buying full retail at a store.

 

[BDutch]

I don't have any personal feeling towards Jeff Bezos, one way or another, but Amazon certainly has changed the way I shop.

I hope he flies to the moon or mars and never returns. Same thoughts on that other even weirder interstellar super rich guy that doesn’t care for his employees.
I rather buy from real shops or web-shops that have at least a real address and a trustworthy label.

Today I bought a few bath mats made from organic cotton. The shops sells mainly to hotels and sells quality for a good price , €7 for one mat.