Choosing to live the frugal life also means adhering to certain lifestyle changes. These changes were discussed in a previous post here on The Frugal Lifestyle, and they all involve cutting costs on aspects like transport, food, and home maintenance. Aside from those mentioned, being resourceful is also a vital part of frugal living. If you are creative enough to think of ways to repurpose old or unusable household items into things that you can use, you have the potential to save even more money. Even those who aren’t particular crafty can learn with a little patience and inspiration. So with that in mind, here are some great recycling ideas to get you started.
Turn Wine Bottles into Garden Lights
Source: Lifehacker
It’s natural for households to spend on decorations, drinks, food, and other celebratory items during the holidays. Fortunately, you can find other purposes for these things after they’ve been used up, long after the holiday season has passed. Lifehacker shared a mood lighting project that involves old wine bottles and Christmas lights. Basic tools are needed, as you will need to drill a hole in the side of the bottle in order to insert a strand of Christmas lights. This lamp can be used for indoor mood lighting or as a porch light throughout the year.
Transform a Table Using Old CDs
Source: Imgur
There is no need to throw away old CDs when you can use them to transform an old piece of furniture. Using a strong pair of scissors, simply break the CDs into small pieces so that can be arranged into a mosaic. You can then glue these pieces onto an old table to give it a new look. After decorating his garden table with pieces of old CDs, a user called Emzul shared the finished product on Imgur. The CD-studded table looked like a brand new piece of furniture. You can take inspiration from projects like this to reduce the desire to buy new furniture and find new ways to liven up old ones that are still usable.
Repurpose an Old Suitcase as a Cabinet
Source: Adventures of Mel
Unused suitcases can take up a lot of space to store. The natural thing to do would be to throw them out or sell them. But there is also the option to repurpose them as cabinets. Now, such a project may need advanced crafting skills, so do ask for help from experienced DIY-ers if possible. In Mel Lockcuff’s suitcase medicine cabinet tutorial, she used boards, screws, L brackets, and drywall anchors. These are used to make the shelves and to keep the cabinet in place. The finished product will add a vintage flair to whichever room you hang it in.
Make Desk Organizers with Toilet Roll Tubes
Source: Pixabay
Your home office can become a chaotic mess if you don’t have proper organizers for your supplies. Luckily, you can fashion a desk organizer out of one of the most discarded household items: the toilet roll tube. Foxy Bingo’s guide to random uses for household items details how you can use toilet roll tubes to store cables. To make the tubes more attractive, you can decorate them with washi tape or paint them in the color of your choice. Aside from cables, you can also store pens, paper clips, and other crafts supplies.
Fashion a Reusable Bag Out of Old Shirts
Source: Pexels
Supermarkets may provide reusable shopping bags, but they don’t usually come for free. Instead of buying one, you can do the environment an even better favor by recycling old clothes. There are many ways to create a t-shirt bag, as clearly stated on Things We’ll Make’s post on ‘8 Ways to Make a Bag From a Shirt’. You can either do a bit of sewing or go the no-sew, fringed shirt bag route. It's also worth noting that reusable shopping bags sold by stores often use materials that are not easily washable. People almost never wash these bags as a result, thereby increasing the risk of product contamination. T-shirt bags, however, can be easily thrown into the laundry to clean.
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