Frugal in Virginia's husband, Ryan, has another smashing piece up here which you'll want to go read. I found myself nodding along in agreement until I came to the sentence which said they don't reuse their Ziploc bags.
I had to stop and catch my breath for a second.
They don't reuse Ziploc bags?? Doesn't that break rule number 10454 in The Frugal Zealot's Handbook? Doesn't everyone know that you must get at least 543 uses out of a Ziploc bag before throwing it out? That's just what we frugal folks do. Anything else would be… well, it would just be unthinkable.
Jesting aside, the point of the piece was excellent: true frugality considers the ROI (return on investment of time) as the bottom line. There are thousands of ways to save a buck. But each family needs to carefully weigh how much time it is going to take to save that buck. Time is money, too.
So figure out which money-saving efforts are worth your time and stick with those. Don't feel guilted over the fact that you might not be doing all the frugal things some other family is doing. You can't do it all, so pick and choose what works for your family in the season of life you're in.
For me, it's not a big deal at all to reuse Ziploc bags. I do a lot of baking so when a freezer bag of baked goods is empty, I just dump the crumbs into the trash and stick the empty bag back into the freezer door to be at-the-ready for my next Baking Day spree. It probably takes me all of ten seconds and it means that I only buy a box of freezer bags twice a year–at the most.
But there are a lot of things I don't do. For instance, I don't use a clothesline, don't cloth diaper, and we do go out to eat once a week. Just like it seems weird to me that someone who considers themselves frugal would not also reuse their Ziploc bags, it probably seems strange to some of you that I don't hang my clothes out, use cloth diapers, or make every meal from scratch.
I've done each of those things before and might do them again in the future, but I've found they just don't work well for our family right now. And I'm okay with that. What works for one family, won't necessarily work for another family.
I love how Ryan ends his post:
Check up on yourself. Evaluate your frugal techniques. Which ones are really
worth it? If you wouldn’t accept $2 per hour as payment for your labor
from another, don’t accept it from yourself under the guise of
frugality. Valuing your time is the subtle and important difference
between being cheap and being frugal.
The frugal experience is about living better on less. If you miss the living better part, you’ve missed it entirely.
Just for fun: do you reuse your Ziploc bags? What common frugal techniques do you find to not work or be worth it to your family? Tell us about it in the comments.
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I haven’t reused ziplocs in the past (it just never occured to me!), but I read (maybe on your baking day post?) that you do…so I plan to start! Thanks for the tip about storing them in the freezer door; I was wondering how to go about that.
We actually do reuse our freezer size ziploc bags {as long as they didn’t have some really icky meat in them}.
My boys love washing them out, and sometimes I’ll flip them inside out and run them through the top rack of the dishwasher!
I also love to take a minute to cut my laundry dryer sheets in half. They still work great, but the box lasts twice as long!
I call it my “but I won’t do that!” list. On that list: going without shampoo, dryer sheets; cutting the hair of family members; and probably a long list of other things that would get me kicked out of the Frugality Club. Oh, and I don’t reuse ziplocks, but I usually reserve using them for really messy items.
I occasionally reuse Ziploc bags, but I’m really thinking hard about cloth diapering when we have our first baby next year! I don’t know if it’s worth the ROI though. Hmmm.
I had never reused Ziploc bags until your baking day post either, but now I’ve started. I did what the poster above mentioned and took my empty freezer bag that had held cooked ground beef, flipped it inside out and ran it in the top of the dishwasher. Now it’s back in the freezer with more cooked ground beef! Why didn’t I think of this? Thanks!
I reuse ziploc bags, but draw the line at washing them.
I often use freezer bags for “stacking” frozen soups, and when I thaw I throw that goopy, drippy thing immediately into the trash.
I try to stay on the “sane” side of many, many things. I TRY to recycle, TRY to be frugal, TRY to be superwoman. I am completely successful at NONE of these endeavors, and that is okay!!
I also do not: take extra condiment packs and squeeze them into a ketchup bottle (read that one), save my soggy cereal remains for use in pancakes (read that one, too), or make my kids play-doh out of dryer lint.
I don’t chase too many deals, either. I do try to serve my family by making our house a nice place to be (so we don’t need to run out continually) and I avoid spending whenever possible. After all, spending less is not actually saving, is it?
I just started reading your site & LOVE it! I definitely think it’s about what works for you. I do cloth diaper, but I am “weird” in that I enjoy doing laundry
For me, it’s all about balance…it seems like you could spend hours and hours a day doing “frugal” things but not have time to spend with your family.
I reuse sometimes, probably not enough though. If they only have a few crumbs that I can wipe out, I normally will reuse. But if they are icky or the kids mauled them during their lunch at school, I usually throw them away.
I do the same thing you do with ziplock bags! They stay in the freezer, so why not!
I do cut my family’s hair, but the few times we’ve paid (like when I’m 9 months preggo and can’t be on my feet that long) I’ve been so disappointed with the cuts we PAID for that I’ve vowed to never take at least the boys to a hair dresser again!
On the issue of zip locks, I only reuse the ones my daughter uses for her goldfish – a bag that was used for anything “wet” gets tossed – but with MQs stacked with store Qs (our local Meijer) I typically get the 30-50 ct boxes for $.75 each, and a box lasts for months! Hardly worth the time and unclean feeling to wash raw chicken juice or hamburger blood out of a a $.02 bag, especially with the bits that get caught in the “zip” line!
Heck yes I re use them! (minus the ones that had meat in them) Even my sons teacher sends the zip lock bags back home that I put his snacks in! WOOT!
Washing them in the dishwasher or other hot water is probably not a good idea for chemical leeching.
I only reuse if it had dry items in it. (c:
I do reuse gallon ziplocks many times! I don’t reuse the sandwich ones, but I try to use reusable containers at least half of the time for packed lunches.
I do cut hair 100% of the time for husband, 10-y.o. son, 8-y.o. daughter, and 5-y.o. daughter. They *all* *love* getting home haircuts!
I don’t compost or hang my laundry, but frequently think about trying these things.
I reuse them, but not for food. They get used for litter box scooping
I try not to use ziplocs to begin with but when I do use them I try very hard to reuse them. Sometimes they get torn,. and honestly I catch my husband throwing them out. So if I want them I wash and put them away right away. We go through about 4-5 boxes of different sizes a year.
I’m so glad you’re talking about this! So often I hear about someone going to 3 grocery stores across town, or driving out of the way to save $.05 on gas, and I wonder what the cost of their TIME is!
I wrote something about this on my blog a while ago:
http://thecitymom.blogspot.com/2009/03/spending-like-theres-no-tomorrow.html
I don’t re-use ziploc bags, mostly b/c I get them so cheaply at Harris Teeter triple-coupon days. I hate the toll on the environment, but it’s a small concession (I’m usually very environmental – natural cleaners, vegetarian lifestyle, etc.)
Thanks again for the great conversation!
Why reuse Ziplocs when I can get them for free, double coupons at K-Mart (sale $2, $1 coupon)? But I do like your idea of sticking them back in the freezer! I reuse the bags a lot for things like chips and pretzels, throw the empty chip bag away and put in the new chip bag.
There are lots of things I do that would not be considered frugal but I try to cut myself some slack, with homeschooling 4 kids age 8 and under I just can’t do everything. Probably what I feel the most guilty about – paper napkins and paper towels (just can’t face more laundry right now), not making from scratch as much (hamburger helper comes to mind), and using pre-made cleaning wipes. But I do try to find good deals!!
Don’t feel guilty about – disposable diapers, not line-drying (allergies), using dishwasher drying agent (Jet Dry, I tried vinegar but it did NOT work for me), and the occasional eating out.
Some frugal practices I am just not able to do because I have 5 small children (for a total of 7 people at my house). For instance, instead of running the dishwasher 3 times a day I choose to use disposable plates for breakfast and lunch. For dinner we use real plates and I am able to limit my dishwasher running to once a day. I’ve decided the time, detergent and energy saved is worth it to me. Thank you for making this a place where diverse practices are respected. We can learn from one another and then choose to do things that way in our homes or not.
I know your post was about frugality, but for some that is closely linked to environmentalism. And I do not have a problem with that. What I do not like is the way some (get on websites, blogs and such) and make you feel less than human for not doing every radically frugal thing or every planet-saving thing they do. If a person wants to do something fine, if a person doesn’t or can’t then it’s fine, too. We recycle at about 50% and we hope to do more in the future, but I am not motivated by people’s guilt trips, pressure, or pious attitudes. And environmetalism is not my religion! Neither is frugality- although I enjoy being frugal. And I appreciate all your great ideas for doing so.
Most people who pride themselves as frugal will think I am cmomitting a crime here, but I live with my boyfriend (no kids, just us) and we don’t have a washer/dryer. There is no one near us that I can visit to use, and there are only so many times you can wash your clothes while showering (er….I still do that, but only with delicates and quick drying fabrics!). After going to the laundromat and spending what seemed like my entire sunday sitting in a hot croweded place, I decided that my time and sanity on the weekends (i work full time + overtime M-F) and every 2 weeks i spring for the Wash-n-fold! I drop if off on sat afternoon, and the next day it’s folded and ready to put away. Seriously. Wash-n-fold is a splurge, but until i get a washer/dryer I will never give it up!
I use most of my Ziploc bags on storing meat that I’ve bought in big quantities at a cheaper price. So I don’t re-use those. I just found a reusable snack bag on Etsy from Glowgirl and I’ve been using that to carry dry snacks for the kids when we travel. I guess if I can safely reuse them on dry items again, I will. Otherwise I just recycle.
Loved this article. Thanks for sharing the link with us.
Jaycie
I almost never use ziplock bags. I’d rather buy a container like Tupperware one time and reuse it for a lifetime. They even replace their products for free if it ever breaks.
Great post! I’m in-between on the Ziploc bags. I absolutely reuse bags for cheese–I keep a few labeled (“cheddar,” “mozzarella,” etc) quart-sized bags in the fridge and whenever we open a bar of a cheese, it goes into the designated bag. When we run out of cheese, the bag goes back into the fridge for when we use more–, bread, muffins, crackers, anything relatively dry. But I don’t wash out our Ziploc bags. It’s just not worth it to me. I do try to use Tupperware or other plastic containers for most wet foods, though.
For us, cloth diapering IS worth it, but line drying is not. You’re right–it’s really just up to YOUR family and what works for YOU!
Yes, I reuse about 3/4 of my ziplocks, because I wrap items to be frozen in other wrap or bag often and use zip for the outside layer, so the outside layer gets used over and over. I use 1/2 dryer sheets, always add water to shampoo bottles and hand soap, reuse plastic container for freezing some items, use 3/4 of the laundry detergent suggested on box/bottle.Usually make my own cleaners. thanks for asking
My husband washes them out. I don’t!!!!
I WILL reuse the one or two gallon size freezer zip bags for something like baked goods. Other than that, we don’t reuse them.
On the clothesline thing, I’m not regular with it. In the spring when things start warming up, I usually have a burst of energy and line dry most loads. But in the heat of summer (weeks of 100+ temps) I slack off. With 4 children (3 little ones and a 9 YO) I feel the loads with their clothes have SO many small pieces that it can easily take me 15 or 20 minutes to hang the load. That might not sound like much, but it can easily take 40 minutes out of my day. And now that we really homeschool (the 5 and 9 YO, though the 3 YO thinks she “does school” and does do some activities), it’s hard to come by a spare 40 minutes. And I often think that 40 minutes can be better spent elsewhere, rather than saving $1 or $2 on electricity for the dryer. So (gasp!), I take the less frugal way out.
Another area where the most frugal has not turned out to be the best for us is homemade laundry detergent. After losing several outfits to dinginess, I figured out it’s worth spending a bit more on sale-priced detergent to keep our clothes looking nice longer. Some would/will be appalled by that, but it works for me.
One way to get out of the ziploc worries is to reuse every plastic container that our food comes in.The plastic containers with the #5 on the bottom are dishwasher and microwave useable. I know this because it is the same plastic that gladware is made of. They can be reused until they are stinky then tossed and replaced for free!
I DO:
Cut my boy’s hair. Hubby and Son both like their hair very short, so I can just use clippers. I do splurge on a good haircut for myself about every 3-4 months.
Sometimes reuse ziploc bags, especially the freezer ones, but only if they have something dry in them like bread or cereal. BTW, I got a bunch of Ziploc Evolve bags for really cheap a while back. They are such a waste! They usually fall apart on the first use. I can’t even use them for snacks in the diaper bag because they get big holes!
I DON’T:
Compost, line dry, or use cloth diapers. I am giving cloth diapers serious thought, since in the spring I will probably have three in diapers.
They are disposable! If you are truely frugal you get boxes of them for free. I have enough to last me long after the next deal. To me washing bags that cost 5 cents (regular price) has gone past thrifty and into cheap. Seems like a waste of water to me. There are also box tops on the box which helps my sons school. I like Margery’s idea for using them for cleaning the litter box.
zip Lock bags are steril when that are new, but you can not get them sanitized again without spraying bleach or something in them. They are breeding grounds for bacteria! They are best if used only once to prevent the growth of harmful bacteria!
I reuse mine much like you do for baked goods. I have been known to wash a few too. I also do not use many paper towels as they are more expensive than using dish towels and washing them (I think). I have a billion dish cloths so I can always have a clean one. One year for my birthday a funny friend of mine gave me a triple roll pack of paper towels and a few boxes of ziplocs. We got a huge kick out of it but do you know how long it took me to use them? It was the gift that kept on giving.
I go to a salon professional academy for $10 haircuts and $15 highlights. They do a great job at a great price!
I reuse ziplocks, but only after I count the costs of time to keep them. I don’t wash them out like my grandmother did and keep them in the drainer, but I do put them into the refrigerator or freezer IF I can see a need for that one in the near future.
About dryer sheets, if it helps you save money to have a good reason NOT to use dryer sheets or fabric softner. My husband works for a major appliance repair service and says that the main reason for a short life in a dryer is plugged vents and overheating and overworking the dryer – that includes a dryer screen that you can put water on and not have it drip out because it is completely filmed over with these products. A good way to shorten the life of your washer is to gum it up with fabric softner. He’s a party-pooper I know – but, it helps us be frugel and save money on these products as well as repairing/replacing our appliances. (Shhh, I use these products on occasion, like company over.)
No way! The thought of reusing bags has grossed me out ever since I saw some mold growing in some at my grandma’s house. However, I try to keep an open mind. I just bought some huge 2-gallon ones for freezer meals and they weren’t cheap. I will probably reuse them if they don’t get too dirty!
Heck yeah I reuse my ziploc baggies! I have kids in school so I would go through 50 per week easy if I didn’t, and it only takes 1 second not 20 lol!
I’m been re-using my Ziplocks (all sizes for years) unless they had meat in them – we have rows of them hung with clothespins to dry after washing! We hang most clothes to dry in the summer. I love a good deal but won’t drive from store to store just to get ONE great deal, otherwise I end up seeing things I “need” and spend more money than I would otherwise. I prefer to stick with a couple of stores and save as much as possible couponing there.
Have to say — I’m not really a huge Ziploc user. We tend to use the reusable cheap Gladware and Ziploc-ware instead. So much easier to wash. I find they hold up very well which makes them more cost effective. Plus, if you send Ziploc’s in a preschoolers lunch bag, the TEACHER will toss them. The teacher won’t toss tiny Gladware!
On the off chance that we do use baggies, we re-use them when it’s “convenient.” I used to try to cart them back home from packed lunches, but I would always forget to take them OUT of my purse. I also am not a fan of washing them as I don’t like the clutter on my counter when they’re drying. Of course, that’s where we’re at now. I wouldn’t hesitate to wash and reuse if necessary!
Depending on what is in the bag- it could be dangerous to re-use. (Cheese is one of the worst offenders). We opt for glass storage most of the time (inert- no zeno-estrogens leeching from it, like with plastic) BUT when we do use plastic bags, it is often a judgement call- dry crackers, being replaced by more of the same is fine- but if you have to wash them there is too much possiblity for leeching, etching and contaminating the food you store. I think staying healthy is a big part of being frugal- sick costs money and time!
I reuse my zip lock bags too! Except if they have had meat in them. I refuse to do that. I usually put my meat in the veggie bags thought that you can get at the store.
I refuse to cloth diaper. Changing disposables are bad enough and dont even get me started on feminine reusable. I tip my hats and give awards to those that can.
I do have a clothes line and when its not 116F outside I’ll use it.
Frugal tips I have:
If a certain beef you like is on sale (say Top London Broil) Take it to the meat dept. and ask them to ground it up. Really cheap ground beef taht way!
Make a roast every sunday if you can afford too. Either a beef roast of some kind, a chicken roast, a turkey if need be. THen use all the leftovers the rest of the week. I fed our family of 4 on $5 roast this week + a meal for a family that just had a baby.
Sometimes its the droplets that make an overflowing bucket.
I do not re-use zip locks! I do not have time to wash and dry zip loc baggies. Last week I got a 120 ct. box for $1.48 on clearance at Target. That’s like a penny each. Not worth washing!!!
We get ‘baggies’ (sandwhich size ones) for super duper cheap and sometimes free with coupons so I hardly ever reuse them. I will if they only had something simple in them.. like popcorn, crackers, etc. However, if any kind of residue is in them (say from cheese, sandwhiches, fruit, and of course meat), I will throw them out. Freezer bags on the other hand, we reuse them all the time (except the bags that have shredded cheese, bacon, in them – those we only use for a few weeks and then throw them out when they start getting yucky). I also keep empty bags in my freezer door once they are emptied out. Makes things much easier!
I do: cut everyone’s hair at home, compost, partially cloth diaper (though DD is nearly potty trained at almost 3 years old now), reuse ziplocks that have NOT had meat or egg in them (but if something in the bag got fuzzy, I toss that out too!), recycle, I have a worm farm, I clip my cats’ toenails myself, we go out to eat *maybe* 10 times per year (including birthday / anniversary), yard sale / thrift shop, garden, simple mending, breastfeed, can produce, bake bread from scratch… and I work full time outside the home too.
I don’t: have a clothesline– I have clothing racks in my basement because we have nowhere outside to put a clothesline. I only use the dryer on socks/underwear and linens. I don’t make everything from scratch. I buy the ‘box potatoes’ and make them (actually I usually get them practically free after coupons)– especially on work days.
We are living on half of our earnings and using the other half to pay down our mortgage.
So it is worth it for us to do what we do to help get to our goal.
We usually re use the gallon bags from dry goods only. I also do not send baggies in my boys’ lunch boxes but send all of their stuff in ziplock containers that I can wash and re use. They also use a Klean Kanteen thermos, love them! I cut my kids and hubby’s hair, cloth diaper, do not use dryer sheets anymore (love your tip to dry on low and I don’t miss them), sale shop, buy beef from a local farmer by the 1/4, garden and can/freeze all we can from our garden, barter to get fresh peaches, apples, pears and such from local farmers and family. Isn’t it fun to save money! All this so that I can be a stay at home mom!!
Whether or not I use the bags again depends entirely on what I used it for the first time. I bake my own bread and freeze it, so a bag that previously contained bread will certainly be used to hold bread again. A bag that was used to hold chicken breasts, on the other hand? no chance.
I absolutlely rinse out and reuse freezer bags, but have tried to cut down on sandwhich bags by packing sandwiches in reusable containers. In addition, I take all the 8 1/2x 11 paper out of the recycling bin at work and use it at home to print everything-my daughter’s homework, coupons, printed out agenda paper, etc. Also, i use whatever free samples i have for shampoo, lotion, conditioners. I haven’t purchase any in two years!
My grandma has always washed and dried her bags- a product of the Depression. I have balked at this since I was a kid- probably because it was a “holier-than-thou” attitude that was passed on with the practice.
Freezer bags are strictly for meat in our house. Everything else gets the rubbermaid treatment.
I Do: cut the guys’ hair, use dryer balls rather than sheets
I Have in the past: done cloth diapers
I Won’t: Let myself get bent out of shape over missing out on a whale of a deal or a printable coupon.
I use cloth diapers. This works for our family and by my husband’s math has already saved use around 300 dollars in the six months she’s been alive. I do “cheat” when we go out for errands or are going to be out a lot on any given day and use a disposable. I feel like a “break” from them occassionally gives me the strength to keep on using them.
Oh, and washing out Ziplocs…. oh yeah!! have some in the dish drainer now!
I reuse ziploc bags on occassion. Only if I think it’s worth it- if it needs cleaning to be reused, I’d rather just toss it. But if it can just be emptied and then used again, I’ll probably reuse it. It is all about the ROI. I don’t do a lot of frugal things because it’s just not worth it to me, and like you said, that’s a decision that every family has to make on their own.
While I totally agree that there must be consideration to ROI in calculating your frugal strategy I slightly disagree with her closing statement:
“If you wouldn’t accept $2 per hour as payment for your labor from another, don’t accept it from yourself under the guise of frugality. Valuing your time is the subtle and important difference between being cheap and being frugal.”
My billing rate is $60 per hour but I do hire myself to cut coupons for two or three hours which will result in savings of $10 to $20 on my weekly grocery bill. This does not mean I will reduce my billing rate to my clients to match what I pay myself for cutting coupons. Nor does it mean I will stop cutting coupons because it does not pay me in parity to my billing rate.
My role as a steward of God’s resources is to make the most of each in a manner that honors him. If my hour cannot be used for a purpose that will produce a whole lot per hour I will certainly maximize it to produce the most that I can for that particular hours.
This morning I worked for 6 hours and billed $360. This afternoon I will spend two hours shopping and probably save about $20 from retail. If my average savings is $80 per month and I invest this money on an account which yields 12% annual interest rate compounded monthly for a period of 50 years my heirs will receive $3,516,250.57 in savings by the time I turn 80.
Have a blessed day ladies!
I have realized lately that my time is very valuable. I work at home 5 hours a day and try to fit everything else around that (my kids are older and one married). I was trying to fit in all the “deals”, but with running between CVS, Walgreens, Aldi’s, Shop Rite, and BJ’s, I was spending more time running around AND seaching on the internet for those all important deals/coupons than being home, and my house and sanity has suffered from it! I do try to be frugal in ways like almost all home cooking, hanging clothes on the line, reusing ziploc bags (althoughly admittedly only occasionally), and… yikes… cutting my own hair last week! Plus, now I only going out for the deals that I really need or can stock up on and grocery shop every two weeks!
I don’t reuse ziplocks for consumables. But what I do with some of them is store the ‘wet’ item ones in the freezer to use for disposing of poopy diapers in. A few of the ‘dry’ ones are great for the diaper bag for one of those on the go events. Paper towels used to dry clean hands get tossed into a paper grocery bag. By the time I need them, they are dry and I only reuse them to absorb fat drippings collected from drained cooked beef. It’s much easier to throw that way than it is to pour it into a can and wait for it to cool and harden…less messy too.
Yep Yep Yep! We reuse our Ziploc bags. I do try to reuse the same bag for the same item. Sort of like leaving the freezer bags in the freezer. For instance, there is a cheddar cheese bag that stays in the fridge for cheddar cheese only(unless it gets mold in it, then it goes in the trash). Cracker bags that stay by the cracker stash, etc…. My husband even washed out his first one a week ago. I was so proud of him
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