My Great Grandma Alma was a young woman during the Great Depression and a young mother during WWII. Her daughter, my grandma was a housewife, my mom was a housewife and now I am too. Although all of us housewives have to make sacrifices to afford to stay home, we also save a fortune if we do it right.
Great grandma taught me some of the essentials of being a great housewife when I was just a pre-teen and how she survived the Great Depression by being smart with what she had. Here are 9 things my grandma never threw away. Save money and live greener with these clever vintage housewife tips....
Worn clothes/towels/sheets
Never pitch fabric because you can always use it for something new. In grandma's time, ladies sewed dresses from beautifully printed feed and flour sacks or whipped up a little girl's dress from her mother's old dress.
A man's suit could be cut and sewn to make one for a lady and any remaining scraps would become an heirloom quilt. Today, most of us won't be hacking up hubby's old suit to make one for ourselves but we can still apply this make-do and mend mentality. Learn basic sewing repairs to extend your family's wardrobe.
I've rescued so many pairs of my husband's jeans with a new zipper or hem, darned a favorite sweater for myself and my sister and made a big stack of great dish rags with threadbare towels. Even an old sheet can be sewn into new pillow cases or a little summer dress.
I used old sheets and scrap fabric to make some much loved Christmas gifts for my kids last fall and they didn't cost a penny. I made giant Nessie stuffed animals, softie dolls, furnished a dollhouse and sewed the entire 1959 Barbie wardrobe with a bunch of fabric scraps.
Aluminum foil
Depending on the first-time use, some foil may be beyond a second life but if it can be rinsed off, use it again! Re-use foil to cover left overs more than once or wad it up, stick it in a potato or onion bag and you have a great pan scrubber that you didn't have to buy.
One winter, our car wouldn't start so my husband popped the hood to find that the battery terminals weren't looking so hot. He used a small wad of tin foil to scrub the corrosion off the terminals and the car fired right up and ran without any problems.
Buttons on shirts
Even in 2016, buttons are expensive! With a 50% off coupon, I'll easily spend $1 or more for a lousy pack of 4 buttons. Thanks to grandma, I never throw away worn clothes that still have their buttons.
Re-use buttons on clothes you've sewn yourself or to replace lost buttons. I also take zippers from worn jeans, pants and dresses. With a good stock of buttons in a jar, you'll rarely need to buy any, which brings me to our next no-pitch item
Jars, boxes, jugs or any container
Great grandma must have been quite the jar hoarder because the jar obsession has passed down to my grandma, my mother and now me. We rarely pitch a jar, be it glass or plastic, big or small!
Use jars for spices and grains in the kitchen, to hold your hair ties, q-tips and cotton balls in the bathroom. My husband has jars of screws and nails in his workshop and I use them in my sewing room, cleaning cabinet and of course, one with holes in the lid so the kids can catch critters in the summer. Decorate jars so you can keep them out in the open and no one will guess that they may have deemed them ready for the trash can.
Mason jars are now selling for a pretty penny, especially the colored vintage looking ones. Color your own for a trendy look on a dime store budget. My mom made her own Moroccan inspired lanterns from old spaghetti sauce jars.
Save boxes as well. Shoe boxes are worth their weight in gold in my house. We use them for our craft supplies, snack organizers in the pantry, holiday decor storage and kids school projects. Break boxes down to store flat, if you're low on space.
Bones from a chicken or cut of meat | Veggie Scraps
My family loves a rotisserie chicken or nice roast for dinner and the left-over bones make wonderful stock. A box of chicken stock costs around $2-3 at my local grocery stores but it's easy to make your own for free.
a freezer bag in the freezer and toss veggie scraps and chicken carcasses in the bag. When you're ready for a great soup this winter, toss the contents in a pot of water, season with herbs, salt and pepper. In the Great Depression house, not a scrap of food was wasted.
A Diaper
This one won't be for everyone but the truth is, Great grandma never threw away a diaper because she used cloth. When my daughter was born, I was a stay at home mom with plenty of extra time for laundry so we decided to give it a shot and try cloth diapers to save money like grandma used to do.
Just shake solids into the toilet and flush away and have enough on hand to wash about every two days. Stains are quickly bleached away by hanging in the sun. We saved a fortune and we never added a diaper to the landfills. And a fluffy cloth diapered butt is so cute!
Now that my kids have outgrown their diapers, we've sold the ones in good shape on Craigslist and saved the rest for great cleaning rags.
Bacon fat
To this day, many of my family members hang on to bacon fat. Oil and lard costs money so why pitch that flavorful, wonderful bacon grease? Keep one of those recycled glass jars in the kitchen to store bacon fat. Add it to gravy, soup, cornbread, potato salad and potato cakes. Bacon fat keeps in the fridge for a month.
Newspaper
My home was built in 1930 and we've found old newspaper in the walls as insulation! Grandma may have used newspaper for : gift wrap (use the funnies!) glass cleaner, storing breakables, compost, starting seeds, make a pinata, packaging material in the mail, pet cage liner or to start a fire
Soap scraps
Those pointless little slivers from a soap bar can still be put to use. Put the scraps of bar soap in an old pantyhose leg or worn out stocking and tie it off. Stick it by the sink for kids (who, in my house use way too much liquid soap) or next to the garden sink.
Fantastic tips!!! I really need to step up my game and incorporate some of these steps into my routine!!!
ReplyDeleteThis is good stuff! We also reuse ziploc bags. We couldn't get any on Africa, so we always washed and reused them. They were gold! The extra fun part is after washing, when they're wet, they will stick to a wall and dry that way.
ReplyDeletemy mom re-uses ziploc bags too and she's gotten me to start also. They're definitely good for more than one use, most of them time!
DeleteI love this post! My beau and I were just talking about his grandfather and how growing up during the depression shaped the way he was as an adult. Like your great grandmother, he saved most everything and found uses for most everything he saved. There is so much that we can learn from folks of that generation, not just to save money but to live more mindfully and without so much waste.
ReplyDeleteI'm surprised at how many of these things I already do, like saving jars and buttons and bacon fat, and I am excited to give the others a try!
When I had guinea pigs, I lined their cages with newspaper and shredded it up for bedding. I had to change it more often than the store bought bedding because it wasn't as absorbent, but it was worth not having to buy any at the pet store. That can get expensive
ReplyDeleteinstead of trashing the used paper when you clean out the pet cages, lay it around your garden plants and cover with mulch. Voila, fertilizer and weed prevention!
DeleteGreat advice!
ReplyDeleteThis is the true spirit of home economics and I really wish it would make a come back. Nice post.
ReplyDeleteThese are great tips! When I go camping, they use those laundry tablet nets with soap slivers in them in a similar way!x
ReplyDeleteSoap scraps are great for marking fabric when you're sewing. Let them get dry and they leave a nice thin line that always washes out.
ReplyDeleteThat's a spectacular idea!! Thank you for sharing!
DeleteLove this. We started saving jars too, especially the peanut butter ones. They are awesome to reuse for paint and spices we buy in bulk.
ReplyDeleteI just threw a sheet out. I wish I had seen this first. :(
These tips are really fantastic, and I just adore the dollhouse and barbie outfit you made!
ReplyDeleteGreat tips.. We are so wasteful in this generation we live in.
ReplyDeleteYou can also-- when your soap gets almost used up..just a thin sliver, lay it on top of your new bar of soap[wet the new bar first] .Lay in your soap dish, and the next day, it has stuck to it. I didn't come up with this, I read it on another blog. But since doing this, I have not thrown away any soap..
Love the things you made from scraps.Adorable.
Terrific post and trip down memory lane. My grandmothers, numerous elderly relatives and neighbours alike all came rushing back to me (I should mention, thankfully, both of my grandmas are still alive) in this list. On top of the sorts of things mentioned here, some others that I firmly remember these people in my life saving.reusing when I was a child include any sort of resemble food tin (such as Christmas cookie tin), zip-lock bags, the plastic tabs on loaves of bread, twist ties and rubber bands, paper bags, and hotel toiletries.
ReplyDelete♥ Jessica
Fantastic tips! I keep my bacon fat in the freezer, and it keeps pretty well for quite a long time. It lends too tasty a flavor to just pitch it!
ReplyDeleteI am now the Grandma and I save everything.Jars,boxes,bags,etc.I bought a 'soap saver' to remake soap slivers into bars.I am probably the one buying your used diapers at yard sales and online since my daughter uses disposable.Nothing beats a good old fashioned diaper for dusting!
ReplyDeleteI just stumbled upon your blog through Pinterest and I am really loving it! I feel like we're long lost vintage friends :) We are doing a year of not spending this year (eek!) so these tips are very helpful. Thank you! http://www.superbusyathome.com/welcome/2016/12/16/the-year-of-notspending
ReplyDeleteMy Momma always saved soap scraps. She would wet it a little & fill holes in the wall long before Pinterest. Also, shed take some with us wherever we went because some restrooms didn't have soap. Also, she saved her bacon grease, buttons, & old socks, tee shirts etc for grease rags for my Dad outside, cleaning rags inside,& any mess you just wanted to scoop up & throw away.
ReplyDeleteI have always saved old pillow cases and sheets to use for sewing. Thanks for all your tips
ReplyDeleteI loved your tips. I am a plus size lady and I like to wear dresses but the price for a new dress is outranges so I buy a lot of sheets from thrift stores and I have beautiful dresses for almost nothing. I have been able to find patterns and anything else I need at thrift stores also.
ReplyDeleteI love this!!!
DeleteMy mother saved plastic bread bag to store home made tortillas, or in a pinch; she would slit the bag up one side to use to cover her head during a rain storm to get to and from the car outside. Our ancestors were the best recyclers!
ReplyDeleteI use/hunt down old sheets to crochet into rugs, place mats, baskets, etc. White ones cane be dyed colors. Or, splatter paint on them before making into stripes. If I have stains on clothes that won't come out, I paint little designs over them...a whole new look. I pretty much do most of the above also :-)
ReplyDeleteI love these! I learned so much! I have been doing some of these for most of my life, but it is always good to learn more!!!
ReplyDeleteI loved reading this! My mother was not like this AT ALL. But my father's mother was. She sewed crocheted, knitted. She could take a cheap cut of meat and cook it so it melted in your mouth!! My mother didn't get along with her to well, so I really didn't see her too often. But I have wonderful memories of her, and this brought them all back. THANKS!!
ReplyDeleteThanks for this article. Being a baby boomer, my grandma was born in the 1800s. So I inherited many things I learned from her. Now my challenge is to save the planet from all the waste especially plastic.
ReplyDeleteAlso a word about the Barbie clothes. I still have my doll but no longer have her gorgeous wardrobe that my mom sewed for my Christmas present.the tiny clothes were made from sewing scraps for clothes that she had made for my sisters and I. I would give anything to have them now. Never underestimate the value of something like that for a child.
Love these! I also have giant button bowl. Instead of matching missing buttons on cardigan, jacket or favorite blouse, next time try finding 5 or 6 very different buttons and replace all for fun, unique, eclectic look.
ReplyDeletePop the saved rinds of parmesan & romano cheese into your next pot of stew or pasta sauce. Yummy.
Any old bottle or jar or tea tin can be used to hold handful of wildflowers or garden roses to brighten up someone's day. I've even used an old blue milk of magnesia bottle (label off, lol) just because so pretty. If have small creamer with chip in it, chip will be hidden by blossoms and look pretty on sill over your kitchen or bathroom sink, or next to guest bed.
Save old worn out cotton socks (my husbands big white ones best) in your cleaning rag pile. Wear them when dusting
to get the baseboards & corners clean without bending over!
I have long cardboard box that stood on end, put criss cross cardboard liquor separator in bottom, and stand wrapping paper up it it. Fits nicely in corner of closet.
Any small scraps of wrapping paper can keep in drawer, use when need small piece to cover or wrap jewelry boxes.
Leave a big glass bowl out with coils of ribbons in it, looks pretty and don't have to hunt down the ribbon when needed.
I have large old glass vase in bedroom with all my crinkley scarfs, twisted & curled up into balls. Pretty, and is easy to find the one you want.
That's all I can think of for now.
; >
I never toss bread bags out; the bags are reused when cleaning the kitty litter. One time when I was between jobs but wanted flowers for a door wreath, I found patterns online for making them out of soda cans then painting with spare paint; I never got to do this idea because work found me. Vegetable scraps that can't be used are easy to compost; check online or YouTube where even apartment dwellers can do this and have healthy windowsill plants. I save the trimmings from my iron-on interfacing to apply to tears in pattern pieces torn from many pin sticks in the corner or rambunctious kittens playing. Getting a new house plant is easy; many common ones are easily rooted from a cutting so ask a friend, for instance, a mere leaf from an African Violet or the money plant will grow a new plant. The same idea can be used for assorted plants for the garden; ask any old-timer for a slip from their yard and I'll bet you come away with a few to get rooted. I save all my sewing patterns because fashion really does repeat but in different combinations although some exotic cuts like those in the Vogue designer pattern many not reuse well. I never toss thread from a sew project; there's usually not enough for another project but it does make great basting thread on new ones. When choosing patterns, I look for things without collars; collars seem to be the thing that dates many pieces. If the item such as a jacket must have a collar, choose the least trendy style so you can wear it for a long time. Hope these ideas help someone.
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