7 Old-Fashioned Ways to Use What You Already Have at Home

I’m a late 30’s father of five kids— still young-ish, but officially in my late 30s! Growing up, I remember a time before Amazon was founded, before two-day delivery, and before nearly every item in our life was made out of plastic. My personal leaning is towards gratitude for the time we live in, and the conveniences that technology affords us.

But I understand the nostalgia for our less wasteful “old fashioned” ways. Since then, a lot has changed in our economy that has made buying stuff easier and cheaper than ever before. Reusability and sustainability aren’t always prioritized like they once were. And it might even be that the convenience of shopping has made tradeoffs in our sense of community and neighborhood life. It’s a complicated picture.

While I don’t have a firm sense of what this all means for society, I do know that my own family has struggled more than ever with accumulating stuff and generating more waste. To counter this, we’ve made a conscious effort to use what we have as much as possible. This means, as strange as it sounds, finding value in things that appear to be post-use, and finding new ways to use the things we’re already using. It’s nothing fancy, but a fun project for our family, and one I hope leaves a small mark on our community.

Here are some of the old-fashioned ways we’re seeking to use what we already have at home:

Grocery bags for trash bags

Grocery bags have begun to go away with the invention of reusable, cloth grocery bags. But as long as we still have them in our household, we plan to use them fully before discarding. One helpful way we do that is by placing them in smaller trash cans throughout the house— like in our bathrooms, bedrooms, and our hall closet.

Plastic containers for storage

As a large family of six, we have a wide range of food-related storage needs— including a large deep freezer in our basement that we use to stock up on meat. To help organize that space, we will use a collection of plastic containers that we’ve accumulated from various food purchases. For example, one of our favorite local grocers sells large tubs of ice cream in big, plastic white containers. We save those and reuse them, as necessary.

Mason jars for cups

We don’t drink a ton of soda, but one brand we do enjoy sells their product in old fashioned glass mason jars. We occasionally buy a few packs for special events, and once the drinks are finished, we wash out the jars and keep them for storing our own drinks. The jars are a perfect size and quite easy to clean.

Junk mail for fire kindling

My wife and I really enjoy having fires on our back patio during the warmer months of the year. And recently, we switched from propane to a wood burning firepit. We had our neighbor’s old tree cut down and mulched, and have been burning the pieces like a couple of frugal scavengers. One thing we’ve learned is that starting a wood fire is much easier with a bunch of lightweight kindling. Thankfully, even though we try hard to keep it out, junk mail has a way of arriving in our mailbox, and we found it to be perfect for this very purpose.

Broken ceramics for garden drainage

I’m not a vegetable gardener myself, but I have several friends that enjoy this wonderful pastime. If you read gardening blogs, you’ll eventually discover that one of the first things you need to do is ensure good drainage. This prevents plants from being waterlogged which will kill them quicker than just about anything. An old piece of wisdom, that is still helpful today, is to place a few larger pieces of broken ceramic or stone at the bottom of your pots before laying your soil down. It will leave just enough room for the water to escape, without all the dirt slipping through.

Old clothes for rags

With four kids and a small puppy in our home, you can imagine the number of spills that take place inside our walls. It’s never ending, and sometimes quite large. Of course, we have our share of paper and washable cloth towels, but our favorite way to accumulate rags is to simply cut up old clothing for that purpose. You might be surprised that we’d even have old clothes in a house with four growing kids, but once a piece of clothing gets stained or ripped, it’s no longer of much use— except for soaking up messes.

Jar lids for coasters

Without a doubt, one of my pet peeves is seeing, or worse, leaving behind a large water ring on a piece of nice furniture. I mostly see it happen on our wooden kitchen table, but occasionally it’s happened on other pieces of furniture in our home. While we do own a small set of coasters, they aren’t always nearby and one can be tempted to just set a glass down “for a second” which almost always ends in frustration. One clever way we’ve countered this is to use ordinary, non-porous jar lids as coasters. They fit many of our drink containers, and simply provide another way to protect the wood.

I still have a hopeful nostalgia for the past… the way things were done when frugality and reusability were the norms. The world we live in is much different, but I don’t think everything has to change. In our own families and communities, let’s continue to embrace the values of using what we have and not being so quick to throw things away. I encourage you to find small ways to adapt these ideas into your modern lifestyle.