Save Money by Reusing Things!

Years ago, I went with a very environmentally conscious friend to the recycling center so she could drop some things off. We came away with a car load of stuff that I found from the recycling center that I could use. My friend laughed at me because she said I was the only one she had ever known who takes things home from the recycling center instead of dropping things off.

I know things have changed and more people are aware you can get things from recycling centers, usually for free, but this post is for those of you who might not know that yet.

I don’t believe the environment needs saving but I do believe in saving money and using what you have which definitely can’t hurt the environment. In one sense, I don’t believe in recycling centers. I can just see the e-mails flying now, but let me explain.

If you are being careful with your spending, reusing what you have and taking care of what you do have, there should be very little need of taking anything to a recycling center.

I use all of my paint, my cleaning supplies and other things and stretch everything as far as I can so I don’t have to buy more. Boxes, papers and packaging all get reused at my home and since I don’t buy that much stuff, I don’t ever have an overload of those things.

I don’t have to worry about recycling my plastic bottles because I buy almost nothing that comes in plastic bottles and I drink tap water. I don’t have magazine subscriptions and I share the magazines that I do happen to get, giving them to someone else to use.

Personally I think recycling centers can give people an excuse to still spend, buy and waste and, because we tell ourselves we are recycling these things, we don’t need to feel guilty about continuing to buy things we don’t need. You are still creating trash. Yes, I know much of it is trash that will be reused but why not reuse it in your own home or with someone you know, rather than sending it somewhere where it will take energy to convert it to something else? To me that is the truest form of not wasting and using our resources wisely.

To give you an idea of what you can get at a recycling center, here is a note from Tawra:

I went to the Hazardous Waste Facility to see if they had anything to remove paint that dripped on the driveway last fall when I was painting the house.

At first I didn’t find anything. Then I asked if they had something for this task. While we were looking, they brought out a cart with a bunch of new stuff on it. Here’s what I got:

1 gallon of hand soap
1 gallon of dish soap
3 gallons of mineral spirits (for the driveway)
3 gallons of laundry booster
1 gallon of car window washer with de-icer
2 bottles of stop leak for bike tires (which I just bought at Walmart and will be returning! LOL)
1 bottle of Lysol cleaner
1 gallon of deck stain

I figured I got at least $80, maybe more, worth of things we can use around the house for free! Yeah!! That was worth the trip!

      -Tawra

For more easy and practical ways to save money and get out of debt, check out Dig out Of Debt and learn more about how to keep more of your money.

 

Photo By: Derrick Coetzee