Folding plastic bags, flattening them, storing them in a special drawer, then forget to take them to the shops, so I inevitably need to buy new shopping bags...

Reusing bacon grease and keeping it in a coffee can in the fridge. Well grandma kept it out on the counter, but THAT grosses me out some. :D

I constantly turn lights off in our house and it annoys my husband.

Also, the title of this reminds me of Futurama.

We re-use our plastic bags from the grocery store to line our trash cans.

I also rinse and re-use plastic sandwich baggies. (this is probably the most embarrassing)

We save up massive amounts of plastic bottles to take to recycling later on (my city doesn't have a recycling pick-up service)

We pour all leftover cooking oil and grease into a plastic bottle so it doesn't go into the water.

Oh, we also unplug all appliances when they're not in use.

My husband taught me to wash the dishes a certain way so it doesn't waste water.

I turn the water off while I'm in the shower when I don't need it.

Like LauraInCancun: Unplugging small appliances, specifically the toaster. I used to think my mom was nuts: she told me some cockamaimy story about how someone burnt down their house because the toaster turned on on it's own. Then in my own apartment I left the blender plugged in and it turned itself on in the middle of the night. The toaster story doesn't seem so crazy anymore....

This came from a friend, not my Grandmother so I hope it passes muster: saving the wrapping paper from the sticks of butter. Keep them in the freezer and use them to lightly grease a frying pan, works well and is not overly greasy....

Saving plastic containers to use until they warp and reusing plastic bags until they fall apart.

Now that we can recycle plastic, it's easier to get rid of plastic containers, but I still try to use them until they are out of shape or cracked before tossing them in the bin.

I save glass jars for food storage and keep wine bottles filled with tap water in the fridge. My guests are always impressed with the elegant water service (also works great as a carafe bedside), but my boyfriend makes me keep my glass collection to a minimum. It seems that no matter how many jars I save we only have about 5 in the cabinet.

I like saving glass jars from marshmallow fluff. They have a lovely shape and oddly enough I go through a lot of marshmallow fluff. I use them from storing everything like spice mixes to odd screws and nails.

It drove me nuts as a kid that my Mom would wash and reuse Ziplock bags (surely a habit she inherited from my Depression-era Grandmother). As soon as I had to start working 4 days a week instead of 5 during this recession, guess who started doing the same thing... Yup - this girl.

I've continued my mom's daily bed-making, which seemed like a waste of time until I moved into my own home.

I reuse glass jars to organize odds and ends in the junk drawer as well as spices & foods purchased in bulk

Saving twist ties and rubber bands were an issue in the past. I read Clutter's Last Stand and that helped me with any clutter/hoarding issues. Thank goodness.

My grandma also taught me "i before e except after c". I love apt therapy, but the spell check issues are majorly distractly from content.

Touche.

I thought all girls saved platic bags and takeaway plastic containers... All the girls I know have collections! lol

My mum always is always running around cleaning and picking up just as we're headed out the door. I just realized that i've been doing it too! "o, it's just one thing! it'll be nicer when we get home if i do it now."
My boyfriend has started singing a song called "everyone's waiting on Amy"

Oh, I've got a long list:
-egg shells in the freezer for fertilizing my garden
-plastic bags to line the garbage can
-plastic containers to hold the good stinky left overs
-twisty ties and rubber bands
-zip lock bags, but not if they held meat or something greasy
-wrapping paper
-shopping bags (which I re-use by taking them apart to use as gift wrap)

My boyfriend could never understand how someone who owns a collection of LV bags could re-use zip lock bags. I tell him to mind his own business!

oh, I also turn off all the lights and turn down the heat. I "recycle" my green onions by keeping the "bulbs" of green onions that I buy from the store and replant them in my garden.

Using coffee grounds to fertilize the acid loving citrus and blueberries in the garden.

My grandma always labeled all her food - when something was put in the freezer, when she opened the jar that was in the fridge. My mom always thought she was nuts, but I've started doing the same thing! I think I tend to throw out less food because I'm guessing how long something has been in there, I know how long it's been.

I always swore I'd never suffer through the cold MN winters with a low thermostat but now that I'm in an apt. that doesn't include the heat in the rent, guess who's reprogrammed the thermostat and is piling on sweaters and blankets. I hate being cold all the time but damn, that last heat bill was high!

I save jars. I do love the marshmallow fluff jars. I store pasta and spices in them. I also save plastic food containers that are good for leftovers or to give food away I make to family members. I recycle plastic bags as garbage bags. I generally do not reuse other plastic bags or foil that have had food in them unless they are near pristine because of health issues. I also recycle some wrapping paper.

My town will only recycle newspaper, #1 and #2 and brown cardboard. I save other types of paper, plastic and cardboard so that my mom can take it with her and recycle it, because her town takes all kinds of stuff.

I also have a habit of turning the light off when I leave the room which drives my bf nuts.

This is so funny! I save plastic bags from stores and supermarkets. And...I reuse the plastic wrap or Saran on covered foods, if they're basically clean. I also save the rubber bands used on covered produce, paper clips, safety pins and the little twisties to reuse on open bags of frozen food.

all about cleaning in the morning!

using those asian scrub cloths in the shower.

soaking beans overnight.

she was an excellent seamstress and sewed alot of her own clothes/ tailored her storebought clothes to fit well.

she'd put a huge pot of water on the floor heater as a humidifier.

taking clipping of plants and starting new ones.

In the spring, when I plant, I've used banana peels to put in the soil...and the plants love them!

@ Junklover. So this trick really does work? I've heard that it also keeps aphids away. What kind of plants do you have in your garden?

that photo really grosses me out.

Saving the ketchup packets and hot sauce packets from fast food joints. They always give you too much. Or they'll ask if you need any and you'll say no and they still give you some! They always eff you at the drive thru!

I clean and save jars and cool whip containers for storing things later. I have a cabinet half full, just in case!

My dad actually re-uses bags from lunch meat from the deli. He washes them by hand and puts them to dry in the dishwasher since his is broken. Pretty gross, but it works for him. I was all for re-using tin foil until I realized my husband was actually using it to keep the cats off the counter, and then folding it up and putting it back in the drawer to use for food. GROSS.

I always complained about how cold my mam's house was. Now, everyone thinks I'm crazy for keeping the thermostat so low and even if the middle of Chicago winter I often turn the heating off completely at night...

Just wondering: if you have a drawer full of them, does that mean you're using new pieces instead of reusing the ones you're saving?

@ Pamela L...I throw a peel in or a cut up peels when I plant annuals, whatever I feel like planting that year. I've also used them on my perennials, such as shrubs or ornamental grasses. Every spring I try to renew or amend the soil with fresh organic soil, and Plant Tone dried organic fertilizer, along with the peels and saved, used ground coffee. Just mix in. For the peels, just dig a little hole by the shrub and cover, or when you dig a hole for annuals, just put the peel in. Overall, it just makes the soil healthier with nutients and potassium, which also attracts the worms (yeah..a little gross) to feed. You can also freeze banana peels for later use. As far as aphids, I didn't know about that....but it can't hurt.

Whenever I'm at a fast-food restaurant where they have grab-your-own napkins...I always grab a few (well...a lot) more than I need, and then use them at home. I haven't had to buy napkins for a really long time. Is that wrong?

I'm not embarrassed to admit that I re-use Fabreze candle glasses as wine glasses. My guests always comment on them and they're the perfect shape. Plus, they are not flimsy/as easily breakable as my traditional stemmed wine glasses. The moral of the story is really I should by better wine glasses but, by now, I've got 7 Fabreze candle glasses and I like using 'em.

[This is on-topic because my mother taught me to freeze grocery bought candles in glasses once they've burnt down to the end; freezing helps make the wax come out (usually) in one piece. Then the glass can be thrown in recycling.]

A sad epilogue: they've since changed the shape of newer Fabreze candles to an odd, square shape that prohibits their after-use as drinking glasses.

:(

sometimes I ask myself WTH

I reuse plastic shopping bags to clean out the litter boxes.

you can probably cut down on scraps of this and that by using truly reusable material and products, rather than trying to save disposable ones. i guess i'm parroting what mtlyorel has already indicated; make a balance between saving materials/money and hygiene. something you can save and reuse, and somethings you can't or shouldn't for hygienic purposes. in that case, you should think about what the material is used for, where you got it in the first place, and try to find truly reusable material instead and avoid products that generate the excess material in the first place.

My grandmother saved stick butter wrappers to use when you needed to coat a pan for baking and I thought she was a genius. She had a LOT of others but that's the one that I would have never thought of myself.

Not only did my parents hand down the post-depression skills, I grew up among the PA Dutch, and then I went to live a few years in Africa. I have read nothing I was not taught, so I will only add a few oddities I have not read:

We heated with wood. WE had a "Defiant" brand wood stove. My Dad was the head of a college campus maintence department: whenever a tree had to be felled, he would have them leave it on the ground for he and his helpers (us kids) to come and cut up on the weekend.

Vent the clothes drier INTO the house in the winter for the heat (filtered with a stocking). I just rigged this up myself. that is if you are not hang-drying everying.

I wash out zip-lock baggies. Save grocery baggies for everythign from dog doo to covering the salad (no re-use on this one).

I save the big breathable bags that I buy spinach in in the winter for my garden greens in the summer.

I compost. alot.

I think most of what I do has already been posted.

Oh, my, how I used to *hate* that my mom washed out sandwich and freezer bags for re-use. She actually teased me about it when she was at my house. "You used to hate when I washed those out. It's so funny that you do it now." And she was surprised to see that I had paper towels - I never bought them until I had a kid. Until he's past the toddler stage, I'm sticking with those. So much easier!

Other things I do/save/re-use:
*Freeze the peels, ends and other bits of veggies for later use in stock.
*On the rare occasions that I cook chicken (whole), I pick off every bit of meat, use leftovers for sandwiches, then I boil up the carcass for soup. I also keep a frozen stash of the heart, liver, etc., for gravies and soups.
*Glass jars, glass jars, glass jars. I save them like crazy.
*I have worms under my sink. Vermiculture!
*I put a bucket in the shower to fill up while I'm in there, then use it to water my plants.
*"Clean up one mess before you start another." Oh, I hated that line. It's like my motto now.
*The whole making the bed thing. I thought it was a waste of time, until a friend told me that just doing that will make you feel like a real adult. It does! I get so much done when I make my bed.
*Wash the dishes right away. My poor husband always tells me to leave them; he'll do them. I always say, "When?" I need them done now.
*Plastic grocery bags (though I try not to bring them in the house at all) are bathroom garbage liners. We used to use them in the kitchen can, too, but it was always so messy.
*I don't use too many squares of toilet paper.
*I write on the backs of bill envelopes - we pay online, so they're my scrap paper.
*Totally make new plants from clippings. If I go to someone's house and see a plant I like, I always ask for a piece of it.
*I keep plastic containers from yogurt, takeout, etc. Leftovers.
*I keep *all* leftovers, no matter how little is left. It's compulsive.
*I crochet. I mend clothes.

I'm now more uptight about waste and frugality than my mom was.

My great Aunt Elizabeth would not only re-use teabags (endlessly) but she would also rinse off ice cubes and put them back in the freezer! Aghhhhhhhhhh!

@ melle- My thoughts exactly!

But here's a gross one-
My grandma would re-use tissue. For example, if she needed to blow/wipe her nose "just a bit" and the tissue wasn't fully soiled, she would re-use it many times for her nose, and, here's the gross part, to wipe with after using the toilet!
Needless to say, I have not adopted that one.

Lauraincancun...this is gonna sound silly....but would you mind sharing your husbands wisdom about washing the dishes more efficiently?...i would love to know, because even though we have a dishwasher i enjoy washing them by hand but everytime i do i feel slightly guilty about the water usage....thanks

I try to just avoid using things that need to be thrown away. Clean foil can be tossed in the recycle bin where I live.

Hahah, my grandma would always wash out paper towels after using them to wipe the table or the counter or something and then let them dry on the edge of the sink or the dish rack... I can't say I've adopted this wholeheartedly, but once I started trying to cut back on paper towels I realized that every now and then... I can use it again! :)

It never bothered me that my grandparents reused and saved things...as long as they really were going to reuse them and weren't just hoarding. But what they really taught me was to be open to low-tech ways of doing things and I dare say that I use less disposable things than they do. I use very little aluminum foil and plastic wrap. One thing I do to cut down is to either use a container that seals to store foods or place a plate on top of the original container. I use bowls with lids rather than baggies when I can.

My mom was a teacher. Teachers can be so very resourceful and remarkable at re-purposing items … they had to be due to limited classroom budgets. I remember her re-using, re-purposing nearly everything for home and work. It’s ingrained in me … perhaps that’s the reason for my fascination with Real Simple’s lists of new uses for old things. But, Real Simple had nothing on Mom. Here’s a few of her habits …

• Boxes - Cover cardboard boxes with contact paper for pretty storage
• Magazines – used to make collages, scrapbooks
• Scrap paper – unwanted papers were cut in half & stapled together to make little packets of scrap paper. She kept these near the phone in the kitchen.
• Old Towels – old towels used for washing/drying the car or cut up into smaller rags for dusting. in the garage (to wash/dry the car, rags, etc.)
• Hang plastic bag on doorknob for garbage during clean up
• Brown paper grocery bags – used to create dress patterns
• Coffee grounds & eggshells – used in garden & houseplants
• Succotash – leftover cooked veggies & meats were combined to make succotash.
• Egg & produce cartons – used for seed starting

I always thought the things my grandma and grandpa do are crazy cause they're uber thrifty. I now find myself saving the twist ties from bread and bagels! They come in handy cause believe it or not I think that's the most common misplaced item in the kitchen...I'm glad I have my stash!

I never feel guilty choosing, 'plastic please', at the grocery store...I recycle using the bags for storing 'willsmellfast' food items for trash day/double wrapping frozen fish and chicken breasts/stuffing around glass on a moving day/bringing in lunch to work/putting under a paint can/around a paint can/very useful for many things!..especially if they didn't come with a hole in the bottom..;)

I am apparently also your grandma!

I have a rubber band ball. :-)