Use it up, wear it out, make it do or do without!!!

I have always reused ziplock bags and I thought that was the norm.... until I got married and Jared was like why are you washing those bags?   After I said that there is no point in throwing away a perfectly good bag.  We can reuse it.   I had never though twice about it because growing up that is just what we did.   I looked at the price of the ziploc bags at the store and was surprised that it was so little.  I thought they would have been expensive because we always saved them.  This was the principle of saving things that are still good and reusing them.  No point in throwing away a perfect bag.

Now if there was meat or something really gross in it then its not worth washing.  One day Jared saved a taco shell bag and it just made me laugh.  That really would work but its kinda thin.

One trick when you are washing the bags you have to make sure they stay open so they can dry out.  If they don't have a way to stay propped open they will never dry and just go moldy.  I usually put them over a spatula or a pan handle.
Some of my bags have been used so much that the white label part is completely rubbed off.    Funny that that would make me happy or proud.  I know silly.


My dad used to always say Use it up, wear it out, make it do or do without.  As a kid I didn't always like that but now that I'm the mom and have to buy things, I LOVE IT.   I love the principle of making things last a long time.
I remember as a kid I would love to see how long I could get my pencil to last.  We used the old school pencils that you sharpened.
 I also had a chore list.  My dad would give us outside chores every week and we had a week to complete them.   We had to write them down so we would remember.  I had taken a 8 x 11.5 normal computer paper and I used it for over 100 weeks.  That is two years I kept this same paper on the fridge, and that is not because he didn't give me enough chores to do.  Trust me I had plenty.  I had just written really small and made sure to use every little space on that paper.  I wish I had taken a picture of it.  It was pretty soft and used by the end.
Its the principle of using things until the end and making use of them.  Not wasting.  This was also taught to me well when we were kids.  We had pigs and so nothing was ever wasted.  If food happened to go bad at our house, which I"m sure it rarely did with 7 of us kids eating.  We could feed the pig.

As a mom now of three small kids I have really learned the value of waste not want not.  My lunch used to consist of their left overs and after three kids ate I had a full lunch.  I have sense stopped doing this, its a terrible habit.   You dish it you eat it.  They eat it all or they save it and eat it later.