Old style things that 'only you' do...

ceridwen

Re the toothbrushes - this is one of the few places that I find the £ shops come into their own. I want soft, compact head toothbrushes and find that the best way to get them actually is to buy them as a pack of childrens toothbrushes (5 or 6 a time:D) from one of these discount shops and the dental hygienist I go to said I was "doing a good job" with these actually - so I'm paying about a tenth of the price (or less) of buying a toothbrush from Boots actually and I find these little toothbrushes rather more easily manoeuvrable actually too:D

They obviously look like childrens toothbrushes actually - with the "jokey" sorta style they come in...but hey... if they do the job then I'll ignore that point..

Primrose

If I'm on my own and only have one cup of tea, I'll save the teabag in a little dish for next time.
I pull the fluff out of my vacuum cleaner bag & compost it to save buying new ones.
I empty shampoos and washing up liquid into hand pumps. This method uses much less soap.
My OH is always losing white shirt buttons so I bought a 50p shirt from a "reduced rail" in a charity shop and cut off all the white buttons, rather than buying a card of new white buttons in a haberdashery shop for £2.75
I whirligig washing line is always radorned with washed plastic bags.
The backs of white used envelopes are cut into squares to go into our little box of paper for making notes.

Primrose

I grow my own peas, and instead of throwing the shucks onto the compost heap I turn them them into a delicious peapod soup. Also the thick inedible ends of asparagus or broccoli, as well as the white ribbed parts of cauliflower and their stalks are always saved for soup.

Thats_Me_3

All odds, ends, manky bits of veg go into soups. We grow our own veg and all the mis shaped veg, like forked carrots etc are still used, I cut them up as evenly as possible then all the really manky stuff is souped. Re hand wash, I refill a smart price hand wash bottle (I think it cost about 20p at some time ago) with all the little bits of leftover shampoo, wash up liquid, shower gel plus I buy really cheap (smart price) bath foam and dilute and decant that into nicer bottle for shower gel. I swear the older I get, the tighter I get!

valk_scot

I save onion skins (yellow only) because they can be used to dye wool.

I have a bag in the freezer for tipping small amounts of vegetable leftovers into...when there's a bag full I use them to make soup. A second bag is for edible raw trimmings like broccolli stalks. I compost all the rest of my veg trimmings.

I wash woolen jumpers in value type shampoo. It's cheaper than laundry liquid specially made for woolens and sheep hair can't be more delicate than mine, surely?

We have a paper guillotine and I chop down old scrap paper that's only been used on one side into rectangles, then punch holes in the corners and thread a pile onto a piece of string to make a notepad.

I shred newspapers and junk mail to put in the compost bin.

I put the hoover bag contents into the composter too...it's mostly cat and human hair anyway.

I cut down plastic milk bottles into plant labels. You need an indelible marker to write on these but that's still a lot cheaper than buying the couple of hundred labels I need every year.

NualaBuala

valk_scot wrote: »

I save onion skins (yellow only) because they can be used to dye wool.

I have a bag in the freezer for tipping small amounts of vegetable leftovers into...when there's a bag full I use them to make soup. A second bag is for edible raw trimmings like broccolli stalks. I compost all the rest of my veg trimmings.
.

I do the same with my peelings and trimmings too. Once it's whizzed up you'd never know it wasn't from "proper veg".

I love the idea of using onion skins for dye, it reminds me of Tom and Barbara in The Good Life in their green outfits when they made their own green dye with nettles.

JulieGeorgiana

This is the best thread I have ever read... I just went thought the recycling bin and removed the following:

4 loo roll tubs (I filled them with Hay or Dandelion leaves and placed in the rabbit run)
1 Frubes box (again filled with hey)
Egg box (Filled with chopped carrots and topped with hay)
2 Juice bottles (Washed and set aside for planters or just watered down juice for outings)
Bubble Wrap Envelope (for when I need it)
Magazine (to go with the newspapers to line the rabbit hutch)

Lets just say my Rabbits are having a great time today... they seem very happy with their new toys and don't seem to realise it's the same amount/type of food they always eat!!!

Yet it's nearly god hours earlier then normal!!!

gcgcg

Ceridwen - that's pure genius - I never thought of children's toothbrushes yet I buyt them for the kids and they'll be small and soft enough - thank you

NewLeaf_2

empty loo rolls can be stuffed with lint to make amazingly good firelighters

Fruball

:rotfl:I am on page 24 of this thread (which has had me in fits of laughter) and one thing that nobody has admitted to (yet) is snapping the stalk off brocolli before bagging it up and putting in the trolley

I know others do it coz i've seen the stalks left over

(I used to make sure nobody was around when I did this, but I don't care anymore!) :rotfl: