Here are my week's five environmentally helpful and/or non-wasteful frugal Friday items.
This week we had our older son and DIL staying with us for 3 1/2 days which made us and the dog quite happy, celebrated my 73rd birthday with two outings/meals out and experienced some of the hottest weather of the year.
1. Plastic bags! We have to bag our trash in plastic bags which seems wasteful but protects the workers. Poop bags are necessary too. I’m making an effort to use every plastic bag that comes into our life for trash/poop purposes. The LLBean packaging from my slipper order & the plastic grocery bags left by older son after last visit = kitchen trash bags. Bread, produce, toilet paper or waffle bags = poop bags. I did finally find the right size trash bags for a high price at CVS and used a 30% off coupon to stock up for 3 months.
2. The plantation shutters in the dining room lost a connecting wire but Hubby found it, watched some YouTubes for solutions and fixed it.
3. Used all of our ceiling fans to help the AC run as little as possible during our heatwave which continues into the middle of next week.
4. Served pasta salad with lots of veggies, tuna salad and leftover cornbread the night son and DIL arrived. Easy to flex as they were driving from LA airport at rush hour. Also frugal and used up raw veggie bits.
5. I really cleaned up our patio including removing or pruning plants. I cut a couple pieces off the succulent we like and am trying to turn them into two more plants to fill the bed.
Frugal Fail: Found close to Trader Joe’s an environmentally sound (recycles water) local car wash that also cleans the car interior. $22.95 plus tip later my car was sparkling clean for the first time in many months. Next time the weather will be cooler and I’ll do the inside and go to the $8.95 one a bit further away. The drought means we can’t wash it ourselves as we have almost always done.
I absolutely hate wasting plastic trash bags. We use plastic grocery bags in our small waste baskets around the house. I have had to repeatedly tell the cleaning service at work NOT to empty the trash at my desk; I wait till it is very full, and then empty it myself. I'm sure this is helped by the fact that no paper goes in it, as we shred all paper in the office. Even if it doesn't have private information on it, we put it in our locked shredder boxes as the shredder company recycles all paper once shredded. So not wasting plastic bags and making sure paper gets recycled are my two minor contributions.
ReplyDeleteOh! And HAPPY BIRTHDAY! :)
ReplyDeleteAll my years in Germany we could not wash it ourselves because the law is the water needs to go I to a recycling drain. You could wash it yourself but in a special self wash place with such a drain not in the yard or driveway.
ReplyDeleteWe have valet trash and must use bags. I've been donating lots of stuff lately and wondering if I could just put it in boxes or some such rather than a trash bag.
I save every plastic bag as well. In my city many stores are no longer using plastic bags so I am even considering saving the cereal bags as they are plastic coated.
ReplyDeleteGod bless.