Sweet Southern Belle

Reduce, Reuse and Recycle

I’ve done pretty well with recycling for a while now. I keep several bins outside my kitchen door for easy access. Even though my city only has curb-side pick up for paper I collect glass, albumin, tin, plastic and cardboard to take downtown to the recycling center any time I’m heading that way. I check out the numbers on the bottom of anything plastic and I try to only buy products that have a 1 or 2 since that’s what I can recycle. I also buy as many products as I can that are made from recycled material. Our market exists on a supply and demand basis so if we demand recycled materials more companies will use them.

However, not until pretty recently was I conscious about reducing or reusing. Reusing is even more important than recycling since it takes a great deal of energy to recycle. Before I throw anything in the trash or recycling bin I try to think of another use.  Here are a few of the things I’ve been doing lately to reduce and reuse.

1. I take notice of the packaging that anything I buy comes in and if I have several choices I try to purchase the product with less packaging.
2. I buy products in the largest possible container. I buy the largest containers I can find of products I use a lot of such as vinegar, olive oil, castile soap and honey.
3. I’m trying to reduce the amount I buy of anything and everything. The truth is I buy buy buy way too much and I need to slow down and think about the necessity of purchases.
4. I am saving all my glass jars for leftover containers (thanks to Amanda for the great idea). I have slowly been trying to weed out the use of plastic containers so saving glass jars helps me have something to put my food in.
5. I reuse glass bottles to put salad dressing or body oil in both of which I make at home and would have to purchase something to put them in otherwise.
6. I’m using both sides of paper when printing and writing.
7. I wash out plastic zip lock bags ( see above pic…not great decor but oh well)  and reuse them for as long as they hold up (usually 3-5 uses) I would like to eventually stop using them but I’m not there yet.
8. I use reusable cloth shopping bags 95 % of the time. That would be 100% if I could remember to take them out of my car ever time I get out!
9. We use wash clothes and cloth napkins instead of paper ones and I’m trying VERY hard to weed out my use of paper towel (the ones I do buy though are made of 100% recycled paper). I keep them in a high cabinet so I have to climb to get them out which makes me really think about the need. Otherwise we use rags that can be washed and re-used!

What do you do to reuse? Any new ideas?

I’ll admit that before I married my dear husband I didn’t care much about getting a deal. I bought what I wanted, when I wanted it. Whether it was on sale or not had nothing to- do with me making the purchase. Now, my dear husband is like that about some things but for the most part he loves a deal. When making major purchases (like appliances and vehicles) he prefers to get what you want/need the first time instead of having to upgrade later. However, we still wait for things to be on sale to buy. We’ve been married a little over six years now and he’s slowly converted me over to being a deal seeker too. Actually, I get so excited to get a deal and save money now that it’s almost like a high.

The risk involved with being a deal seeker is in buying stuff you don’t really need just because it’s on sale. I admit that I’m sometimes guilty of that but I try to keep myself in check. This week I’ve gotten some particularly great deals! I got a large box of diapers (126- size 4 diapers, to be exact) for $12.00. The regular retail price is $27.50. Pampers and Huggies are changing their boxes to be more eco-friendly so they have slashed their diapers in old boxes to get them off the shelves. The store had the boxes on sale for $14.00 and I had a $2.00 off coupon! I was so excited in the store I just kept telling the clerk what a great deal it was and how excited I was. I’m sure she just wanted me to hush!

And, today a friend called me to alert me of great 40-75% off sale at Dillard’s. She told me there were some dresses that “looked just like Little Belle”. It just so happened that I had just dropped Little Belle off at Mom’s Morning Out for a few hours and stopping by Dillard’s sounded much more fun than coming home to clean, since that’s what I had planned . I decided to run by there and chec out the sales. I bought myself a few things that I needed for very low prices and then I bought Little Belle a few dresses that were regularly priced at $55.00 for $8.00. Now, anyone that has seen Little Belle knows that I did not “need” to buy her these dresses since her GiGi buys her lots of clothes that keep her dressed like a princess, but I just couldn’t pass up the deal. The dresses are darling and I bought them in sizes that she can wear next year. I guess the dresses fall into the just buying them because they were on sale category but I suppose there are much worse things I could waste $24.00 on than dresses for Little Belle.