As I pulled into my local mission driveway to buy a loaf of day old bread, I realized that some of the ways I’ve been giving back to my neighbors might be helpful for some other families that aren’t independently wealthy and spend their cash on their families, but still want to help those in need.
(I know there are a lot of reports saying we’ve reached bottom, there was a bit of growth, etc., but do you know how long the recovery will have to go on before all your unemployed or underemployed neighbors who are exhausting benefits can get …read more

Every time I watch them swing a mallet at perfectly good, but slightly dated, kitchen cabinets on a home improvement show, I cringe. It might be satisfying to watch the cabinets you’ve wanted to get rid of for a few years turn to splinters, but what a waste of good cabinetry.
When we redid our kitchen, we carefully removed our old cabinets and used them for storage in my shed. (It was supposed to be my art studio, but it was so far from the house that I’d weed the garden on the way and never actually made it to the …read more

I recently posted about ditching CD and DVD cases to save space. I mentioned that I was going to transfer all my discs into disc file folders. In the comments, someone asked where to find these folders, so I thought I’d show some examples.
Here are the ones I got:
Case Logic 72 Capacity Heavy Duty CD Wallet: I got two of these, one for CDs and one for DVD. They don’t hold much, but I listen to records mostly, not CDs and we don’t have mountains of movies. 72 will be plenty for us. I like that they’re inexpensive (around $12) …read more

In the last post I discussed saving space by transferring all your discs to one single holding place – such as a folder or box. This does, however, leave you with a lot of empty cases. You could toss them, but they’ll just sit in a landfill; then your great, great, great grandkids can find and use them I suppose.
You can recycle instead of toss:
Some people want your old cases. Sign up on Freecycle and see if someone needs them.
You can ask if your local library needs them. Some might.
Many cities do have recycling centers that take old cases. However, …read more