Waste Not, Want Not: The Cheapest Thing Is the Thing You Actually Use

“Waste not, want not.”

We’ve heard it a hundred times if we’ve heard it once, right?

Seriously, though, this stuff matters to your budget.

That $6 bargain on the great big container of strawberries is not a savings if they rot in the crisper. You might as well have thrown the $6 in the trash and cut out the middleman.

Look, life happens. I get it.

Shoot, my crisper drawer is seriously labeled “Veggie Hospice.”

Really. It is.

But there’s a point somewhere between I bought this and well, that’s ruined where a little prevention—or perhaps a little innovation—can save us some money.

Before It Becomes Waste

Those strawberries are getting a little too ripe?

Don’t wait until they’re fuzzy. Slice them up and freeze them for smoothies. Make a quick sauce for pancakes or yogurt. Toss them into muffins. Do something with them before they cross the line into compost.

Vegetables starting to look tired?

Soup doesn’t care if your carrots are a little bendy. Neither does stir-fry. Roast them. Freeze them. Chop them up for tomorrow’s dinner.

The goal isn’t perfection. It’s simply noticing what you have while you can still do something about it.

And this applies to a whole lot more than food.

Sometimes the Answer Is a Patch

Recently my grandson got a beautiful new name-brand sweatshirt for school.

There was just one problem: the tag was driving him crazy.

So he decided to cut it out.

Unfortunately, the tag wasn’t the only thing he cut.

There is now a nice big gash where the tag used to be.

Brand-new sweatshirt.

Sigh.

But that doesn’t mean the sweatshirt is ruined.

I’m going to sew the hole closed and put a patch over the repair. When he has the hood up, you’ll see the patch instead of the mended spot. It may even look like it was supposed to be there.

Problem solved.

Or at least problem transformed.

Stop Before You Throw It Away

I think we’ve gotten very accustomed to seeing damaged and thinking done.

A shirt gets a hole. A chair gets scratched. A towel gets stained. A vegetable gets a little wilted.

Out it goes.

But there’s often a step in between.

Can I fix it?
Can I use it differently?
Can I freeze it?
Can I turn it into something else?
Can I cover the damage and keep using it?

Sometimes the answer will absolutely be no.

I’m not suggesting you devote three hours and $14 worth of supplies to saving something you could replace for $5. That’s not frugal either.

And sometimes the strawberries are already furry little science experiments. They’ve completed their journey. Let them go.

But if we can catch things before they reach that point, the savings add up.

Because the cheapest strawberry isn’t necessarily the one you got on sale.

It’s the one you actually ate.

And sometimes the cheapest sweatshirt isn’t the one you bought at a bargain price.

It’s the perfectly good one you didn’t throw away because somebody got a little enthusiastic with the scissors.

Waste not, want not.

Turns out those old sayings occasionally knew what they were talking about.