My wife gave me that title yesterday. First, a little back-story. I opened my own business just about a year ago. I bought it intact with inventory, computers, merchandise, etc. About three weeks ago I ran out of 8x11 paper, I was also working by myself that day. I couldn’t close up to go get some. However I have about 10 cases of 8x14 sheets. I’ll never ever use. I also have a paper cutter. So I cut three inches off a half ream or so. Later in the week I ran out post-it notes. I still had those three-inch slips of paper left over (I also prone to clutter) so I stapled stacks of them together, voila. I’ve been doing this ever since.
So yesterday the wife comes in to do some shopping for the business. When she comes in I’m cutting and stapling. She asks what I’m doing, so I tell her, I making paper for the fax machine and notepads. She looks at me for a moment and says, “My God, I’ve married the cheapest man on Earth”. Complete with :smack:
I can’t remember any details, but years ago someone I know worked for a company that routinely recycled obsolete forms by cutting them into quarters and edge-gluing them to make pads of notepaper. Quill Office Supplies used to (and may still, for all I know) sell presses and glue designed for this very purpose.
I sometimes use envelopes from junk mail for shopping lists and coupon holders.
Ummm, so your wife would just buy new, and let all that other paper go to waste?
I dunno, man. Is she independently wealthy? Does she hope that your small business will fail so she can gripe about it?
If you aren’t neglecting other stuff that needs to be done in order to make fax paper and notepads out of dead stock, then you are WAY ahead of the game financially.
I do this too. I refuse to just throw out usable paper. It’s probably a byproduct of having grown up with family members who went through the Great Depression.[ul][li] I also save all of my plastic produce bags to store food and other goods in them instead of using zip-locs. This probably saves me a few dozen dollars per year and certainly decreases my purchased plastic use a lot. I am completely unashamed to spool off a number of plastic bags when I am in the produce section. I refuse to go and tear off one bag at a time for each selection. Any spare bags are stuffed into my back pocket. Every year or so, I will also help myself to a small handfull of the fresh wire ties for my collection. I make sure to return the favor to the store by always bringing forward the perishable “go-backs” that idiots leave thawing in the magazine racks of the checkout line.[/li]
[li] I routinely pack all of my groceries in paper bags whenever they are available. When I am cooking up a storm, I’ll place one of these on the floor and use it as a temporary trash receptacle so that I do not fill up my regular kitchen trash can and have to empty and reline it. When I am left with the new “T-shirt” style bags, I do my best to save them for holding sloppy crap from my kitchen, like coffee grounds or peelings.[/li]
[li] I save all the UPCs off of my cat’s Friskies bags and send in the accumulated bar codes with the special buy ten get one free coupon. This reduces my cat food expenses by a solid ten percent.[/li]
[li] I will frequently take some mechanical object that is about to be thrown away, strip off all of the hardware and throw it into a can of nuts and bolts. This habit has allowed me to repair all sorts of odd stuff and saved many trips to the hardware store.[/li]
[li] All of the wire twisties and bread sealing tags go into a small basket in my utensil drawer. I use these to reseal bags of ice and other items that do not come with resealable closures.[/ul][/li]This allows me to save up money that I can fearlessly spend on such indulgences as a bit of fine cheese or a bottle of good Whisky here and there. I view it as an important form of recycling and it helps assuage my conscience when I spool off half a dozen paper towels to deal with some minor emergency.
Oh, I just go over to my neighbor’s and drink all of his Ardbeg and Lagavulin, and then when he’s asleep, steal the Laphroaig. It’s much cheaper and more economical that way.
essvee The new job was with my old company which went into bankruptcy again. I purchased the assets with a partner and changed the business model.
Wow, I’m remembered!
Zenster It’s my doing stuff like your list which my finds cheapskatesque (is that a word). You should see my junk drawer, I keep telling my kids “A couple of more days, I’ll be able to build a bigscreen TV”.
Oh and to add to Zensters list. I have the loyalty of a street hooker. I will buy whatever is cheapest as long as the product performs as advertised. Except for Excedrin which I swear by.
As long as Im’m making corrections, I may as well add. My wife is a native middleclass Californian (until I met here I didn’t believe such an animal existed - the native part I mean). I can’t fathom why she makes issues of things like this.
That ain’t cheap-- that’s efficient. You turned one thing you didn’t need into two things you did need. That kind of initiative would get you rewarded at some places.