Is it really necessary to have food packaged in a bag in a box in a box in a bag, for a simple treat?  Does anyone shop at their local co-op?  Refill the same containers every month with goods such as oatmeal, flour, beans, peanut butter, and so much more.  Most co-ops will also have personal care items in bulk, where you can refill one container over and over again decreasing the ammount of waste.  There is only one issue with doing this, you have to be very careful of using plastic #3 and #7 which are extremely toxic and can leach into your stored product.  I prefer to use glass,  I have so many glass containers, and I reuse them from jars of salsa, beverages, and many other things.  It takes a little bit of time to do the mind switch if you are ultra consumerized,  just take it slow and start by being conscious of how much waste that your household creates.  Start buying one bulk item at a time.  I have found that it saves time and money grocery shopping also, instead of several trips to the store I only take one trip every month and I always have plenty left over each month to lighten the shopping load for the next time.  Who doesnt need a little extra time each month?  And if you dont please let me know your secrets.  Happy Shopping!

A lot of the ideas I have are out of necessity.  I am a single mother of a very active four year old, and money is usually in short supply.  I often have to come up with creative toys to play with.  One of my most recent ideas was to take two clean milk or juice cartons, cut the top off of both,  and slide them together.  The final result one big fun play block.  I have done this for a year and a half now and now my daughter can build her own fort in the basement.  I have also covered the outside with contact paper that I purchased from the local thrift store.  My daughter is in love with these blocks, it is a free toy that will consume hours of your childs active imagination time.  Blocks can build a lot of things, just last night I was a pirate on the stormy sea searching for my lost parrot Frida.

There are stores out there that are designed to help teachers with the purchase of the materials that they need for classrooms by offering second hand items that have been donated for pennies on the dollar.  If you have piles of scrap paper, notebooks, yogurt cups, paper towel tubes, milk cartons, tins, stamps, pens, markers and any other resource that could be utilized in a classroom setting I urge you to do a local search on the internet and find these stores and donate anything that you can to them.  Teachers spend a huge portion of their own money each year on supplies for the classroom, try to help them out by helping your local thrifty teacher store.  You might also try to ask some local teachers because they will know exactally where this store might be.