Frugal Holiday Storage Tip

If you are a household with kids, there's no doubt that you receive at least one holiday tin of popcorn each season.  You probably also get a few new Christmas ornaments each year as well.  It's always a challenge to figure out how to stow away new ornaments added to your collection. 

Since those popcorn tins are so large and decorative, I have a hard time putting them in the recycle bin.  I repurpose them for storing fragile Christmas ornaments or delicate holiday decorations.  The sturdy sides keep the breakables from getting crushed and I always know what's in them since they have holiday scenes on them.  I also reuse some tissue paper from gifts to tuck around all the glass ornaments and breakables in the tins.  They stack nicely and are easy to fit in just about anywhere.

This handy storage tip not only saves you from having to buy plastic tubs to put your ornaments or decorations in, it also helps the environment by reusing and repurposing something that would otherwise be discarded.

Frugal Holiday Wrapping Tip

With the holidays quickly approaching, I wanted to share this fun tip for gift giving.  Instead of using the standard gift bags for wrapping up your gifts, consider using a re-useable shopping bag to present your packages.  These are a "green" alternative to the regular gift bags, and it adds to the present because it's something that the recipient can use again and again - if they shop at Target they can even use it to save money!  You can't ever have too many re-useable shopping bags.  The great thing about these is that you can usually find them cheaper than their paper counterpart so these save you "green" too!  Last year around this time I found WT's that were for $1 off any re-useable shopping bag, and since a lot of stores price these right around $1 each they were FREE!  Many stores have their own re-useable shopping bags with cute designs on them, and they come in many, many sizes. 

Do you have a useful holiday tip you want to share?  Send me a note and I will post any great holiday tips you care to share!

Happy Earth Day!

In our house we treat everyday as Earth Day and try to make conservation and recycling a way of life.  It's important to us to set a good example for our son and leave this planet better than we found it for future generations to come. 

With couponing, there tends to be lots of packaging and excess.  I would like to encourage you to take steps to make sure that you are doing everything you can to conserve and make the smallest impact on the environment.  I hope that you are recycling paper that you print on by reusing the back side for your shopping lists.  I hope that you send your used containers to the recycle bin instead of the trash can.  I hope that you are not wasting product just because you have a lot of it. I hope that you remember to use your reuseable bags when shopping.  I  hope that you are heading to Wags today to get your printer cartridges refilled instead of buying new ones.  These things all make a HUGE impact on the environment, especially when we all pitch in and do our part individually. 

Please think about what you can do to make changes to be more environmentally friendly - your kids and grandkids will thank you for it someday!!  If you would like to, leave a comment telling what you do for Earth Day, or everyday, to help Mother Earth stay healthy!

Happy Earth Day - Happy Everyday!