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I’ve found a great way to save money at the grocery store that doesn’t involve buying groceries!
Now, of course, the most environmentally friendly thing to do is to bring your own reusable cloth grocery bags to the store. But, if you’re like me and haven’t managed to buy those yet, you’ll be happy to know that there are many uses for those flimsy plastic bags that they send your groceries home in.
Here are just a few of the re-uses that we have found for plastic grocery bags:
- Lunch bags. The kids had hard lunch boxes, but a few years ago they decided that they were too old for them. I used to buy a package of brown paper lunch sacks for my husband and the kids (at about $2 for 100 brown paper sacks). Then, I discovered that plastic grocery sacks are perfect for packing lunches. I double them because the bags are so thin. The kids love it because it keeps the lunch dry when it is wet. The husband loves it because it saves money.
- Trash liners. Those plastic grocery bags are just exactly the right size to line the smaller trash cans in my house. The paper trash container in my office is lined with an old grocery sack. So is the trash can in the bathroom. This saves the cost of buying the smaller trash liners. (Have you seen the price of trash liners in the store?) We use a larger trash can in the kitchen, so I still buy trash liners for that.
- Going to the pool or beach. You need a way to keep those wet bathing suits and damp towels from getting your car seats wet. You could buy an expensive tote for this purpose, but plastic grocery bags meet the need perfectly. (Just remember to take the wet suit out and rinse it when you get home.)
- Laundry bags on trips. Is your kid going to spend the night at grandma’s? You need a place for them to keep their dirty clothes separate from the clean. Enter the plastic grocery bag!
These are just a few of the re-uses we’ve found for plastic grocery bags. I’m sure that you and your family can find many more!
Contents (c) Copyright 2007, Laura Spencer. All rights reserved.
4 responses so far ↓
1 The Gack Ink Gals // Jul 20, 2007 at 9:11 am
We are about to announce which blogs have made it into the Gack Ink BYOB network! But, before we do so we wanted you to know that you have been selected to join us and the next and final step before we include your blog in that list is to post the Gack Ink bling on your blog. As soon as everybody has their bling up we can proudly end this round and showcase everybody together! With that said, welcome to Gack Ink!
2 Yvonne Russell // Jul 20, 2007 at 11:10 am
Congratulations on Opinion Mom joining Gack Ink Laura.
3 Leah Ingram // Jul 21, 2007 at 5:30 pm
Laura: If you’ve got a dog, here’s another way you can recycle your plastic grocery bags: use them as a poop picker-upper. Just make sure you check for holes before you use them! 😉 Leah http://suddenlyfrugal.blogspot.com
4 Laura // Jul 22, 2007 at 4:52 pm
Great idea Leah! I hadn’t thought about that use, but it’s very practical!