Thursday, August 30, 2012

Reuse, Recycle, Repeat. It will save you money in the long run

"Good God Boy! You have got the junk in here"
That was what my dad said on one of his visits to my barn.

Yes I am, I admit it. I am a pack rat, a hoarder and a junk collector. He told me one time that if I keep going, by the time I get his age I will need fifty acres to hold all my junk.

You have got to have a junk pile or two or three and maybe even four. If not, you have to buy every little thing you need. I don't know how or understand why people throw away the stuff they do. If I throw it away you can bet your bottom dollar it needs to be thrown away. My trash has been used and used well. 

Here is one example why I have junk piles,
A few months ago I bought a greenhouse kit. No I didn't build it, I bought it. I thought it would be better that way by saving me time and money so I just did it. The first big storm blew through and blew out several of the plastic panels to the roof and walls of the new green house. I was only able to find three of the seven that were missing. I knew those cheap clips were not going to hold those panels in place for long with this wind out here, but I tried to have faith that the Engineers knew what they doing when they designed the thing and so I went with it. I should have listened to myself better and screwed them the first time.

I priced some new replacement panels and quickly found they cost more than the original greenhouse as a whole. Talk about a marketing scam, it would have been cheaper if I just bought a whole new greenhouse kit rather than buy the replacement panels. They don't sell just a few panels at a time. You have to buy all of them that came with the kit. I guess the Engineers did know what they were doing when they designed it. They found a way to make more money after the greenhouse was sold.

When I lived in town me and the girls built the wife a small greenhouse off the side of the back porch for Mothers day one year and when we moved I took it apart and saved the lumber and all the clear sheeting it had on it. I almost didn't take it, but like always I thought I might need this stuff sometime down the road so I took it and stored it.

The wife had already planted the fall/winter crops in the green house last week and I thought it was kinda sad she was working in a greenhouse that was missing panels so last night I found those old, used plastic sheeting panels and screwed them in place. It's not pretty but it works. 
The clear sheeting has been sitting for three years and turned a little yellow but it fits, kinda. With a little "Southern Engineering" it is good or better than new now.

By saving the sheeting and storing them all this time saved me $500.00
So I am okay with being a pack rat, hoarder and a junk collector. I have a functional greenhouse again and it didn't cost me a dime.

The moral of the story, think twice before you toss it and if you still want to get rid of it ask someone else if they want it before you trash it.          

21 comments:

  1. MDR buddy - i am glad that you were able to fix the greenhouse - good job! and you know that you are preaching to the choir here - we have several junkpiles around the Manor....jambaloney has them sorted into scrap metal, wood, extra stuff, junk that might be useful one day and other junk. every time he is working on a project for the house or Manor - he always starts by going through the junkpiles...you should see the grin of pure self-congratulatory happiness on his face when he finds what he needs! then i have to call him "the king" all day because he was smart enough to pick up that piece of junk months ago knowing he would be able to "use it for something"! in fact, if you didn't have such a Texas accent i might mistake you for jambaloney - bahahahahahahah!

    your friend,
    kymber

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Oh Kymber you love my accent just as I love yours.
      Yep, I thought of y'all when I was writing this because I knew you do the same thing and feel the same way.

      Cheers
      (I had to throw that one in)

      Delete
  2. We have quite a few piles around here too! I call my husband the master recycler ☺ Just this week he took an old part that came off my suburban and turned it into a shooting target ☺

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I would call that a master recycling at it's best Kelly.

      Delete
  3. Some people just don't understand having a junk pile. My mother in law wouldn't have one so when we moved back to the farm I felt like Survivor Man with out any junk to make stuff out of. Even that guy can find junk if you drop him in the Arctic hundreds of miles from civilization, he will find a junk pile. The reason he finds a junk pile is that you simply need a junk pile! I do love people who won't have a junk pile because they give me their junk.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. That is true SBF, Even though I don't understand folks who don't have piles, I need them to keep mine full. If everyone kept everything then I would be out of business.

      Delete
  4. do you save the cotton out of pill bottles? I do. do you save the pill bottles? I do. do you save the anti humidity capsules in the pill bottle? I do. do you save empty glass jars? I do. they all come in handy at one time or another. so yes you are a junky but these days we need to be to save money. and there is not anything wrong with that.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Okay Anony, I don't go as far as to save the cotton but I do save the pill bottles and yes even every empty glass jar. I call a empty pickle jars my fine china. I wish they made them with handles though.

      Delete
  5. MDR,

    We recycle and reuse when and where we can. I've actually kept all of my oatmeal cardboard canisters, milk cartons (cleaned of course), pill bottles, glass jars, wood, windows and what ever else we think we can use. Now, we do clean and donate clothing and stuff we can no longer use. If the item is unusable, it's trashed.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Sandy, yes on the milk cartons. I make grain scoops out of them and use them in the gardens and reuse them for containers for my laundry soap.
      My clothes are worn until they no longer can be worn. It is very unusual for me to have clothes to donate. Most of the time they end up as shop rags but even then they are so rotten they just fall apart and then they just get used as fire starters.

      Delete
  6. Great post. I bet the greenhouse will be better than new.
    You all have a great weekend!

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