Monday, September 29, 2008

Money Saving Monday

Ditch the Disposables

Plastic sandwich bags or paper lunch bags to reusable containers/bags
I'm finding this one to be a little harder than expected. I am counting all Ziploc bags here. But I often cook up extra food (bread crumbs, hamburger meat, chicken) to freeze for convenience. I don't know what to put it in. The ziploc bags are simplest and leave the most room in the freezer.

It's not so hard to put sandwiches in something else. I can recycle bread bags.

Also, I don't want to go from using disposables to using plastics, because plastics have chemicals in them that aren't good. So I'm not sure what to do about this. Any ideas?

The paper lunch bags is easy. We can replace those with regular lunch boxes. In fact, I think I'm going to include that as a Christmas present. Maybe embroider them with their names or initials to make them extra nice.

Swiffers (or similar products) to a broom and dustpan or mop (or use reusable cloths like cloth diapers/terry inserts in your Swiffer)
Easy to do. I'm going to go ahead and finish using my swiffer, and I will use any free coupons I have. (That's part of it too, saving money, not just doing what is best for the environment, at least for me...) But I don't plan to pay for any more of them. I will use cloth diapers for my swiffer.

3 comments:

Tara H. said...

Michelle,

I reuse my ziplocs. I wash them out and reuse with sandwiches, chips, etc. I know that may not be possible with the meat stuff, but they can be washed and then become "not disposable". Other than that, you would have to find an air tight container for your meats but that would be using plastics.

Anonymous said...

http://www.wrap-n-mat.com/-for using with sandwiches and what not.

http://www.greenfeet.com/itemdesc.asp?ic=6005-04087-0000&gclid=CKSV3ZKZgpYCFQNKxwodWFkXqQ - in case you decide you want to start reusing your plastic bags this comes in handy

http://www.reusablebags.com/store/bagewash-p-51.html -this is also handy for reusing plastic bags

as far as for freezing and storing, though it may not be very space handy, i LOVE my pyrex glass storage containers. you can see whats in them without opening the lids and they work great. they come in all sizes. i have one of about every one of them!

Michelle said...

Very helpful ideas ladies. Thanks.