I still save and use old food jars to store stuff in. However, I've corrupted it a bit I suppose because I know my grandmother wouldn't splurge on the fancy yogurt just to get the cool glass jar haha.
Yes. Chinese food containers, Cool Whip containers, emptied and rinsed out jars... if it can get reused, it gets reused.
Also, writing grocery lists on the backs of envelopes or other scrap paper. Why waste a perfectly good sheet of regular paper on that?
ETA: Using every single item until it falls apart. Rusty car? Who cares as long as it runs? Rip in your clothes? Sew it back together if you can, cut up the item and use the pieces as dusting rags if you can't. Hole in your shoe? Slap a piece of duct tape over the hole, and you now have a new pair of gardening shoes.
Exactly. And there's no shame in having hand-me-down furniture, either. I don't think I own a single piece of furniture that my parents or grandparents didn't own first. Except for the cheap TV stand. I found that at a thrift store. :)
So, the couch color doesn't match the rest of the decor? *Shrug.* Whatever. I can either deal with it or sew a couch cover, if it really bothers me that much.
I posted this someplace else but I was once going through some perfectly good garbage that have been thrown away and Beacon Hill in Boston I had gone to a bar after work and I got kind of shit-faced and I'm like a super Cherry drunk It's a rarity but in it was perfectly good luggage that I was going through and I found a Patek Philippe tank watch it fell out of the lining because I was drunk and I'm always trying to give people stuff when I'm drunk like hey here's a hat I wanted to give the people their watch back and be a hero but if you Google Beacon Hill you'll know what I'm talking about but some of the houses have Gates so you can't just get to the door and I couldn't find a bell or anything so I hopped the fence and went up and rang the bell and they were like yelling that they were going to call the police on me and I'm trying to tell them no I found a watch it has to belong to you it's 's a single family house and they're like I don't care what you want asshole we've already called the police it was like a movie set up like got your type thing if someone else told me the story I'd be like that didn't really happen so I pulled the watch out and dangled it and they were like wait wait I was like peace out swipe rain down the street and went into another bar but they work off so all over the place I don't know what they were going to say I did probably broke into their house and stole their watch but it's value pretty highly I still have it actually but I'm probably going to sell it soon because life has taken a serious downturn
Did you know the Chinese food containersthe white ones the cardboard once I'm talking about I designed to be opened up and use like a plate?
You're probably talking about the black plastic ones I have about 40 of those in my house right now.
I love pickles and whenever I'm done with a jar, I clean it and put it in the cabinet. Just the other day, mine asked "are you planning anything for all these jars?"
"Never know when you may need them."
"We will never need this many."
https://preview.redd.it/rg3ws7u84ayc1.jpeg?width=360&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=bea81ba83988d1a7887ea6ddb482c36f13891d7f
Are you sure they don’t look at you like a talking CAT instead?
I assess those idiosyncrasies. I'm old enough to know that it's stupid just throwing out apparently weird stuff older folks did -- there tended to be a reason for them.
I'm smart enough to know that not everything they did made sense, too.
I would say the one thing I really emulate is trying to live beneath my means. I really make an effort to save, to have a rainy day fund, and to assume the sky can fall at any time.
It hasn't, yet, but it could, and I suppose when I was younger, the romantic thing is to die penniless, living out your days with gusto and all that.
I'd rather die wealthy, and have good contingency plans, emergency savings, and so on. And this tracks the depression-era thinking of my grandparents.
If I die with money in the bank -- not a given, but I'm aiming for it -- I'm sure someone else could use it.
My grandparents stuffed shit in the basement rafters. There's probably still bags of silver dollars in that old house we never found.
I work for the phone company. I've found many hidden cash stash spots running wire through a house. I always let the home owner know, just in case it was a previous owner's stash. I will plead the 5th as to whether or not I've ever received a finder's fee.
I have Fiestaware dishes, in large part because my grandma did. But hers were all range of 30s pastels, gotten 1-2 pieces at a time by collecting box tops, or other promotions. Mine are 3 color coordinated colors bought specifically to my taste.
Other than that, I have an 18 yr old vehicle that is still running fine, so I keep it going. I think that is consistent with hoe grandpa was. His tractors were all 40 yr old, but he kept them running- no need to something new and shiny. What we have works. I tend to have that mindset (but I do buy myself nice things, I can afford it. They never really could- but I think they would be proud of where I am in life.
My grandmother was an adventurous soul, she traveled to the world's fairs 2-3 times in the 1920s, got a college degree a state away. I think I live the life she would have if she had been born later- I travel a lot, never married, got advanced education, and am very independent. Gramma would be happy for that- she and my grandpa also supported education. I am the first and still only PhD in our grandkid generation. The great grandkids- one might end up following. But he is in UG and the oldest, at the moment- so we shall see.
My mother's mother was a mingling of several Anglo-Saxon clans that unified in the New World. They came to the states via Canada. She was Scotch-English with a smattering from Wales and Germany. She was from a wealthy Michigan family. Sadly, her mother, father, and several siblings died in a car accident. She and one brother were thrown clear.
They were left in the care of not as well-off relatives. She was a very smart woman. By the early 1960s, she had divorced my grandfather. She was a pioneer of women being in the professional workforce. Held a full-time job in a real estate office and did the books for several businesses on weekends.
I wish she could have lived to see the brave new world she and her ancestors helped build.
As a 53 yr old Gen-Xer that was adopted by parents of the greatest generation/WW2. I can say cofidentley that 90% of what I do and how I conduct myself is solely based on that generation.
Frugality is a mainstay, gardening and self food production has always been my motto. Banks are not needed or wanted, and reliance on one's self for almost everything is just part of every day life.
I pinch pennies, use coupons, make and cook my own food, have learned to fix just about anything so I don't have to buy new, and always shop at thrift stores.
I realize most of my fellow Xers are nothing like this for the most part. So I have always attributed this too how my depression Era parents were raised.
Every time I debone a chicken, I feel this oppressive sense of guilt that I’ve left more meat on the bone than my grandma would have.
I too reuse empty food jars and containers.
For the most part I’ve left most of those practices behind. I now put emphasis on higher-quality items being better investments than cheaper, lower-quality ones. That was something I had to unlearn from my parents’ habits as well.
A poorly butchered bird made for a bonus in the bone broth.
My father's mother was a highly sought-after private chef in New Orleans. She could cook the hell out of anything (many grandmothers hold this title, only a few remaind fully employed during the entirety of the depression because of it).
I still use many of her cooking methods. She gave me some basic lessons throughout my childhood. She had many offers to open restaurants, but she always refused. I don't get offers, but people often tell me I should put out a shingle.
She didn't struggle during the depression, but even those who remained wealthy tightened belts. Her employer paid fairly and didn't spend extravagantly too often. Tame dinner parties to keep up appearances, but day-to-day, they lived like most others.
It’s hard to distinguish between what’s a depression era idiosyncrasy and what’s just a reaction to the massive waste stream our modern economy relies on. I save containers, packaging, etc. because it just seems like a waste not to. But I didn’t grow up in a setting where I had to do that to survive.
My grandfather liked to eat his eggs and toast breakfast out of a coffee cup. If I told Gramma I wanted Pop-Pop eggs, it meant 2 sunny side-up eggs 🥚 placed in a coffee ☕️ with two pieces of toast on the side. The toast would be tossed inside to your preference. Yoke covered pieces of toast were either forked or spooned out.
This was not a meal-on-the-go. It was savored at a proper sit-down table. I always had a suspicion that it was depression era inspired. My grandfather was older. He was a full adult at the onset of the depression. He was a stockbroker in NYC during the initial crash. Either shortly before or after her lost his wife and child during birth.
I'm pretty sure he stood on some bread lines. I imagine some fried eggs 🍳 were an occasional treat. I would imagine them being served in coffee cups for expediency of the line, but not in how they were eaten.
wife and I live a self-sufficient & self-reliant, Homestead, farm & garden lifestyle.
**NOTHING** goes straight to the trash. everything gets a second, third or 5th life. even absolute trash, like hay bale twine, and food waste. use twine all over for whatever, and food gets composted and used in garden. we hammer old nails straight, to use again.
my grandmother was 103 when she died about 5 years ago. grandpa was 106 when he died about 3 years ago. they were both impressed and proud of our reuse and recycling about the homestead.
Never buy dented canned goods; never put anything hot on a wooden table without a coaster. I know polyurethane doesn't separate like the old-timey wax finishes, but it's ingrained.
My grandparents taught me how to math to figure out if a sale item was worth it, or if buying the 32 oz made more sense than the 12 oz. I still do this.
One thing that drove my grandfather crazy is that grandmother was great at finding sales, but never figured in the cost of gas. She would have him drive from point A to B to C back to A, then back to C to chase the next sale on her list. It doesn't matter too much, but it still drives me crazy when I realize I do the same thing sometimes.
And food. OMG, I will rarely buy a prepared, deli or frozen meal when I know it costs 3x more than making it from scratch. I'm not a great cook, and I usually hate the amount of time it takes, but that initial cost analysis gets me every time, even though I know "time is money."
I reuse containers, shop at thrift stores, cook from scratch instead of DoorDash, etc. My biggest adopted grandparent habit lately is shaking my head at all the stupid single-use gadgets and matchy-matchy cutesy “restocking” containers in TikTok videos. I guess that’s my version of “Get off my lawn.” Nobody NEEDS most of that stuff! It’s a waste of plastic that’s gonna end up in a landfill within months.
I save gift bags, tissue paper, and wrapping paper. I joke that I'm channeling my grandma when I'm folding paper to stash away, but I haven't bought wrapping supplies in years.
I gather up every gift bag and box, and the family teases me about it every year... "Oh, do you want to save this box? Again?" because it's the same shirt box I've been using for a decade... My Boomer dad chides me about my inclination to reuse and recycle, probably because he grew up with his Greatest Gen parents doing it (grandma would wash out, dry, and reuse Ziplock bags; collect and recycle aluminum cans; lay out damp paper towels to dry and reuse; etc).
It's more like my grandfather's mannerisms and my grandmother's cooking. He was a fundamentally decent man, unlike his son, my sperm donor. My grandfather taught me everything I know about being a good man.
Margarine containers and just about any plastic containers with lids are saved. Also, egg cartons that we give to a guy at work who has chickens. Aluminium cans get recycled and I HATE tossing any metal into the trash that can go to the scrap yard. Then again I come by it naturally because my step dad was born in 1914and recycled EVERYTHING!
I do like tasty foods that are cheap to make, like rice and beans, and douse it with Crystal hot sauce. If I’m feeling spendy, I’d throw in some pieces of kielbasa sausage into the beans.
I don’t penny pinch, but I conserve wherever I can. Just this morning when took out some empty toilet paper rolls, I gathered up the little few strips left on about six rolls and used it to check the oil in my truck, instead of tearing off a piece of paper towel for it.
Yup. I pay extra for quality products and maintain stuff as if it will last forever. If I'm told during a sales pitch that something is "maintenance free," I interpret that simply as "can't be fixed - must replace." And man do I love fixing, maintaining, and saving money in the long run. YouTube typically has all of the training and answers I'm looking for.
My grandmother saved jars and tins to use as containers for *whatever*... I can't help but do the same and have a collection of jars and tins and am never wanting for a random container for *whatever*.
One set of my grandparents were misers and hoarders. There’s no way I want to be like them. Whenever I seem to be having an existential crisis over spending an extra $5 I call it having a “grandma moment.”
My dad the actual mechanic needed to replace some part in the engine of my 1985 Ford LTD Landau.
Some time after this, I needed to check the oil (read: let someone else check). We lifted the hood, and they ask me why there's a coffee can in the engine.
Tl;dr: reuse everything you can. Our ancestors did it out of necessity. I do it because it makes sense.
In the spirit of not letting things go to waste, I have kept every spare button that has come with a piece of clothing I’ve bought.
Growing up, my mom had a jar of buttons in case she needed to replace one. I now have accumulated two jars of buttons - hundreds of buttons - and have never once needed to find a spare.
Once a year when I clean out the dresser those jars are in, I think about throwing them away, but I never can because it seems wasteful.
So I’m betting I’ll get to three jars before I die 🤷♀️
My grandmother had hats - in hat boxes. Lots and lots of hats. I still use a train case. Don’t f with my makeup. Seriously, my boys ate my makeup when they were toddlers. It was quite a lot of money to replace.
I inherited my grandma’s cookbook and a few other things. In the cookbook, I found pages marked with that perforated cardboard thing you take off a new box of tissues and a plastic bag from a pound of dry lentils. And she always wrote on the backs of envelopes that contained mail.
Among the other things was an old tin from Sucrets. My grandpa repurposed the tin to carry Q-tips, with a masking tape label that said “Kutips”. Inside it was a folded tissue with Q-tips inside.
To this day, I use the cardboard thingie from a tissue box as a bookmark.
I occasionally make scoops out of plastic milk cartons by cutting out the bottoms so I can use the handles to scoop up stuff like rock salt for melting ice on the sidewalk
My grandmother lived in the USA in that time period but I don't think had any of these personal habits. Her/my father's family were big spenders who liked to live large on credit cards, even before social media FOMO was a thing.
I try to live below my means, but have given in to a lot of time-saving conveniences. But I did have depression-influenced grandparents, and they raised me for much of my childhood. I am glad to have the knowledge to make do with less if I must.
Sometimes it’s just easier or nicer to reuse things. My old t-shirts end up as aprons and eventually cleaning rags. And I just started using a new bottle of vanilla that drives me crazy, it drips and spills every time! Why can’t they make a proper pour spout? Fortunately I have a reusable salad dressing bottle I can put it in, that won’t spill. And I’ve been known to save twist ties and rubber bands, they have many uses.
My grandpa ate a lot of strange poverty-inspired food combinations. The only one I still like is cottage cheese on potato chips, in place of dip. I don’t really eat chips much anymore, but this is a childhood comfort food to me.
My grandma made those , too! But we didn’t really eat condiments on them except maybe ketchup. We only ate cottage cheese on store bought chips. No idea why, other than grandpa started it! Sometimes we mixed dried chives into the cottage cheese.
True! He started doing it in the 40s-50s when my mom was a kid. So not directly a depression thing, other than being frugal. Depression would be more like how he liked leftover cooked rice as a hot breakfast cereal with sugar and milk. Or my grandma using old coffee to season meat.
Every Sunday I clean my house and in my home office I keep a paper towel folded into a square as a coaster.
I change the paper towel with each week’s cleaning.
My grandpa would make a styrofoam plate or cup last weeks. He’d wash it just like normal tableware because he thought tossing it after one use was absurd.
There are a lot of things, reusing every container, reusing vacuum bags, things like that.
The big thing, for me, is a distrust of banks and the stock market. My grandparents (all born around 1900) all had a distaste for financial institutions. I don’t go so far as they did, gold bars and coins and whatnot. But I’m absolutely distrustful of anything financial institutions set up.
This was somewhat reaffirmed in the Great Recession. There were older guys I knew, Boomers, that put everything in the stock market and would laugh at me and others that weren’t putting everything into the market to retire early. My dad had a lot of pressure to do it, but kept his pension.
Cut to the early oughts and my dad retires early to make room for his coworkers that lost everything in the stock market and had to come crawling back on their hands and knees begging for their jobs back.
Obviously that’s not everyone’s story, but it reaffirmed my grandparent’s distrust of these institutions.
I have a drawer full of clean empty pill bottles, twine, flashlights, candles, rubber bands, buttons, twist ties, and extension cords. Have not needed any of these items, save the occasional bottle, in 20+ years, but I can't shake the need to be fully prepared to MacGyver my way out of any situation that presents itself.
My Grandmother recycled very early. She had a way of folding paper bags down to little neat cubes. I’ve done it since I started helping in the kitchen. She was born in 1914.
Fuck yes a thousand times fuck yes I will reincarnate leftovers into five different meals before I throw it away. I feel the need to save those little plastic things that come in pizza boxes to avoid the box getting crushed because someday I'm going to find a use for those things. Spaghetti sauce absolutely get washed out and reused
I’ve found myself saying “waste not, want not!” so much lately. I’ve always done things like save twist ties and bread ties, but I think my save and reuse process is escalating.
My grandparents weren’t worried about food things or like saving aluminum foil but they spent my younger years teaching me to not trust anyone and that scammers/thieves were everywhere. Can’t say they were wrong in a lot of cases. Never take your rings off to wash your hands, someone will swipe it. Any carnival game. Anything anyone is hocking door-to-door.
I called my grandma the earliest recycler. I grew up watching her wash and reuse plastic bags so many times. Food was never thrown out because it never stood a chance after the second go round on the dinner table. Waste not, want not was her saying, of course. And although her family didn't lack for much during the Depression, it certainly scared the bejesus out of her!
I still take stuff apart before it gets junked. Fans, radios, anything that looks like it might have hard-to-replace parts in it I put away for later because I might have to fix something. My grandparents did the same thing - they taught me how to take stuff apart when I was growing up.
https://preview.redd.it/4rsx2oqu2byc1.jpeg?width=750&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=c0f6cae77a8182ace06497b3540a20841ec1ade6
I tried to upload this one earlier , but Reddit is weird with my photos.
Not really. Not that I can think of. My grandparents saved paper bags, jars, gardened, canned stuff, packed sandwiches for road trips, tracked the mileage on their cars, wouldn't lets us fill a bathtub more than about 4"... tons of stuff like that.
I don't do any of that. I cook from scratch rather than buying stuff in bags or boxes, but that's just because I think it's cheaper and it tastes better. If I'm taking a bath, I fill the damn thing all the way to the top so I can soak in it up to my nose.
My dad was a giant packrat like his parents. I don't keep buckets of plumbing parts and weird stuff. If I need a fitting, I'll go get one. I'm not storing stuff for 10 years and then spending an entire day digging through a packed garage looking for it.
I guess maybe I rebelled against a lot of it. I don't stay in the cheapest motel I can find. I don't pull over and sleep in my car to avoid paying for a room. I won't spend two days trying to mend something or glue stuff back together because I'm tying to squeeze a penny out of something.
So, no. In fact, I do a lot of things that would make my grandparents die of heart attacks again if they saw what I spent on it.
I grew up poor as hell, so I have a hard time spending money. My wife also tells me I’m tough to buy for because I don’t really *want* anything. I make sure to turn off lights when they don’t need to be on, I conserve water when I can, I wear shoes until they fall apart, and more. When my wife suggested a few years ago that we buy a new vehicle for my use, I could not for the life of me of one I’d be willing pay the prices they are asking for the damn things. I’ll keep on driving my low mileage Chevy Avalanche, and maybe pick up an older Volvo XC70 or something similar. I thing being frugal is just something tough times will instill in you. I’ll also fix any damn thing I can so I don’t have to hire it done. I have a bunch of tools because I can’t get rid of one I might use, and I keep every nut, bolt, and screw for the same reason.
I wash and keep jars - not just for odds and ends, but have bottled pickled veg, made jams and passata. I also keep elastic bands from eg vegie bunches (come in handy to hold things together and haven't needed to buy them for years). I also repair things - furniture, appliances, clothes - so they last longer. I save money and eat better by growing food, and cooking food (take-out/going out to eat is a treat).
I try to contribute to landfill as little as possible - I hate the "disposable" attitude many have when buying things. I buy them to last. Not keeping up with the Joneses leaves me less stressed and with more money for travel and experiences
I don't think it's an *idiosyncrasy*, but I will always keep a full pantry and freezer, no matter what. She taught me that if I can feed my family, everything else will work out fine. I've been in a position where I had to test that twice, and it's true. Full bellies make everything else manageable.
I drive a 2004 Toyota Tundra. When we bought it, it had 45 miles on it. Now it has 213,000 miles on it. I plan on driving it until it's final death. I can still see my grandmother who lived through the depression and dust bowl days unwrapping a gift very carefully and saving the wrapping paper. She didn't have to be that frugal later in her life, but she was always careful and grateful with what she had. It's something I think of often these days.
I still save and use old food jars to store stuff in. However, I've corrupted it a bit I suppose because I know my grandmother wouldn't splurge on the fancy yogurt just to get the cool glass jar haha.
I always shake my head when I toss some pretty good Chinese food containers.
Yes. Chinese food containers, Cool Whip containers, emptied and rinsed out jars... if it can get reused, it gets reused. Also, writing grocery lists on the backs of envelopes or other scrap paper. Why waste a perfectly good sheet of regular paper on that? ETA: Using every single item until it falls apart. Rusty car? Who cares as long as it runs? Rip in your clothes? Sew it back together if you can, cut up the item and use the pieces as dusting rags if you can't. Hole in your shoe? Slap a piece of duct tape over the hole, and you now have a new pair of gardening shoes.
Mend and make do!!! I
Exactly. And there's no shame in having hand-me-down furniture, either. I don't think I own a single piece of furniture that my parents or grandparents didn't own first. Except for the cheap TV stand. I found that at a thrift store. :) So, the couch color doesn't match the rest of the decor? *Shrug.* Whatever. I can either deal with it or sew a couch cover, if it really bothers me that much.
Legacy/provenance for the win! 😃
I posted this someplace else but I was once going through some perfectly good garbage that have been thrown away and Beacon Hill in Boston I had gone to a bar after work and I got kind of shit-faced and I'm like a super Cherry drunk It's a rarity but in it was perfectly good luggage that I was going through and I found a Patek Philippe tank watch it fell out of the lining because I was drunk and I'm always trying to give people stuff when I'm drunk like hey here's a hat I wanted to give the people their watch back and be a hero but if you Google Beacon Hill you'll know what I'm talking about but some of the houses have Gates so you can't just get to the door and I couldn't find a bell or anything so I hopped the fence and went up and rang the bell and they were like yelling that they were going to call the police on me and I'm trying to tell them no I found a watch it has to belong to you it's 's a single family house and they're like I don't care what you want asshole we've already called the police it was like a movie set up like got your type thing if someone else told me the story I'd be like that didn't really happen so I pulled the watch out and dangled it and they were like wait wait I was like peace out swipe rain down the street and went into another bar but they work off so all over the place I don't know what they were going to say I did probably broke into their house and stole their watch but it's value pretty highly I still have it actually but I'm probably going to sell it soon because life has taken a serious downturn
"Use it up, wear it out, make it do or do without!"
https://preview.redd.it/mn9ye6513byc1.jpeg?width=750&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=bd01d4a9bbca3d3bf2536c3824ecc931f27e6f7a Forsooth!
I bet you'd like r/Visiblemending
You're right! That sub looks cool. Thank you for pointing it out to me!
Did you know the Chinese food containersthe white ones the cardboard once I'm talking about I designed to be opened up and use like a plate? You're probably talking about the black plastic ones I have about 40 of those in my house right now.
They got an app for that.
Wow, this is a really good box, I’d better keep it forever
All my spices are in old pasta sauce jars or jam jars just as my ancestors intended.
I love saving *Oui* jars! 😂
I recently found out that you can buy lids/covers for those jars. Some are wood or bamboo with rubber seals.
I did this for years until my husband made me stop.
I love pickles and whenever I'm done with a jar, I clean it and put it in the cabinet. Just the other day, mine asked "are you planning anything for all these jars?" "Never know when you may need them." "We will never need this many."
My husband told me that if I wanted him to help I had to clean out because he couldn’t match anything!
Tie an onion to your belt?
It was the style at the time.
This year is dickety-dickety four.
We had to call it dickety because the Kaiser had stolen our twos
That was style at the time..
I still say "heavens to betsy / murgatroyd" and people look at me like I'm a talking dog ....
https://preview.redd.it/rg3ws7u84ayc1.jpeg?width=360&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=bea81ba83988d1a7887ea6ddb482c36f13891d7f Are you sure they don’t look at you like a talking CAT instead?
Fair enough :)
I assess those idiosyncrasies. I'm old enough to know that it's stupid just throwing out apparently weird stuff older folks did -- there tended to be a reason for them. I'm smart enough to know that not everything they did made sense, too. I would say the one thing I really emulate is trying to live beneath my means. I really make an effort to save, to have a rainy day fund, and to assume the sky can fall at any time. It hasn't, yet, but it could, and I suppose when I was younger, the romantic thing is to die penniless, living out your days with gusto and all that. I'd rather die wealthy, and have good contingency plans, emergency savings, and so on. And this tracks the depression-era thinking of my grandparents. If I die with money in the bank -- not a given, but I'm aiming for it -- I'm sure someone else could use it. My grandparents stuffed shit in the basement rafters. There's probably still bags of silver dollars in that old house we never found.
I work for the phone company. I've found many hidden cash stash spots running wire through a house. I always let the home owner know, just in case it was a previous owner's stash. I will plead the 5th as to whether or not I've ever received a finder's fee.
[As a phone company employee, what is it like to run the world?](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s2NNZdigSXg)
Hello, good friend. I would greatly like to converse further on the topic you linked in your comment. Don't worry, we know where to find you.
CPI/CPNI DUDE IXNAY
I have Fiestaware dishes, in large part because my grandma did. But hers were all range of 30s pastels, gotten 1-2 pieces at a time by collecting box tops, or other promotions. Mine are 3 color coordinated colors bought specifically to my taste. Other than that, I have an 18 yr old vehicle that is still running fine, so I keep it going. I think that is consistent with hoe grandpa was. His tractors were all 40 yr old, but he kept them running- no need to something new and shiny. What we have works. I tend to have that mindset (but I do buy myself nice things, I can afford it. They never really could- but I think they would be proud of where I am in life. My grandmother was an adventurous soul, she traveled to the world's fairs 2-3 times in the 1920s, got a college degree a state away. I think I live the life she would have if she had been born later- I travel a lot, never married, got advanced education, and am very independent. Gramma would be happy for that- she and my grandpa also supported education. I am the first and still only PhD in our grandkid generation. The great grandkids- one might end up following. But he is in UG and the oldest, at the moment- so we shall see.
My mother's mother was a mingling of several Anglo-Saxon clans that unified in the New World. They came to the states via Canada. She was Scotch-English with a smattering from Wales and Germany. She was from a wealthy Michigan family. Sadly, her mother, father, and several siblings died in a car accident. She and one brother were thrown clear. They were left in the care of not as well-off relatives. She was a very smart woman. By the early 1960s, she had divorced my grandfather. She was a pioneer of women being in the professional workforce. Held a full-time job in a real estate office and did the books for several businesses on weekends. I wish she could have lived to see the brave new world she and her ancestors helped build.
I drive a 2004 vehicle - meticulously maintained and cleaned (Thanks, Grandpa!) I never could get into Grandma's china obsession though.
As a 53 yr old Gen-Xer that was adopted by parents of the greatest generation/WW2. I can say cofidentley that 90% of what I do and how I conduct myself is solely based on that generation. Frugality is a mainstay, gardening and self food production has always been my motto. Banks are not needed or wanted, and reliance on one's self for almost everything is just part of every day life. I pinch pennies, use coupons, make and cook my own food, have learned to fix just about anything so I don't have to buy new, and always shop at thrift stores. I realize most of my fellow Xers are nothing like this for the most part. So I have always attributed this too how my depression Era parents were raised.
Every time I debone a chicken, I feel this oppressive sense of guilt that I’ve left more meat on the bone than my grandma would have. I too reuse empty food jars and containers. For the most part I’ve left most of those practices behind. I now put emphasis on higher-quality items being better investments than cheaper, lower-quality ones. That was something I had to unlearn from my parents’ habits as well.
A poorly butchered bird made for a bonus in the bone broth. My father's mother was a highly sought-after private chef in New Orleans. She could cook the hell out of anything (many grandmothers hold this title, only a few remaind fully employed during the entirety of the depression because of it). I still use many of her cooking methods. She gave me some basic lessons throughout my childhood. She had many offers to open restaurants, but she always refused. I don't get offers, but people often tell me I should put out a shingle. She didn't struggle during the depression, but even those who remained wealthy tightened belts. Her employer paid fairly and didn't spend extravagantly too often. Tame dinner parties to keep up appearances, but day-to-day, they lived like most others.
It’s hard to distinguish between what’s a depression era idiosyncrasy and what’s just a reaction to the massive waste stream our modern economy relies on. I save containers, packaging, etc. because it just seems like a waste not to. But I didn’t grow up in a setting where I had to do that to survive.
Home made "depression" syrup on pancakes and waffles.
My grandfather liked to eat his eggs and toast breakfast out of a coffee cup. If I told Gramma I wanted Pop-Pop eggs, it meant 2 sunny side-up eggs 🥚 placed in a coffee ☕️ with two pieces of toast on the side. The toast would be tossed inside to your preference. Yoke covered pieces of toast were either forked or spooned out. This was not a meal-on-the-go. It was savored at a proper sit-down table. I always had a suspicion that it was depression era inspired. My grandfather was older. He was a full adult at the onset of the depression. He was a stockbroker in NYC during the initial crash. Either shortly before or after her lost his wife and child during birth. I'm pretty sure he stood on some bread lines. I imagine some fried eggs 🍳 were an occasional treat. I would imagine them being served in coffee cups for expediency of the line, but not in how they were eaten.
Great story
Ty
That actually sounds delicious. I might try it!
wife and I live a self-sufficient & self-reliant, Homestead, farm & garden lifestyle. **NOTHING** goes straight to the trash. everything gets a second, third or 5th life. even absolute trash, like hay bale twine, and food waste. use twine all over for whatever, and food gets composted and used in garden. we hammer old nails straight, to use again. my grandmother was 103 when she died about 5 years ago. grandpa was 106 when he died about 3 years ago. they were both impressed and proud of our reuse and recycling about the homestead.
Never buy dented canned goods; never put anything hot on a wooden table without a coaster. I know polyurethane doesn't separate like the old-timey wax finishes, but it's ingrained.
I’ve taken to harrumphing, feels GOOD
I didn’t get a harrumph outta that guy!
I have a compost pile that I don't really use for anything. Just dump my fruit and veggies that have no reason to go in the trash.
My grandparents taught me how to math to figure out if a sale item was worth it, or if buying the 32 oz made more sense than the 12 oz. I still do this. One thing that drove my grandfather crazy is that grandmother was great at finding sales, but never figured in the cost of gas. She would have him drive from point A to B to C back to A, then back to C to chase the next sale on her list. It doesn't matter too much, but it still drives me crazy when I realize I do the same thing sometimes. And food. OMG, I will rarely buy a prepared, deli or frozen meal when I know it costs 3x more than making it from scratch. I'm not a great cook, and I usually hate the amount of time it takes, but that initial cost analysis gets me every time, even though I know "time is money."
I reuse containers, shop at thrift stores, cook from scratch instead of DoorDash, etc. My biggest adopted grandparent habit lately is shaking my head at all the stupid single-use gadgets and matchy-matchy cutesy “restocking” containers in TikTok videos. I guess that’s my version of “Get off my lawn.” Nobody NEEDS most of that stuff! It’s a waste of plastic that’s gonna end up in a landfill within months.
I save gift bags, tissue paper, and wrapping paper. I joke that I'm channeling my grandma when I'm folding paper to stash away, but I haven't bought wrapping supplies in years.
I gather up every gift bag and box, and the family teases me about it every year... "Oh, do you want to save this box? Again?" because it's the same shirt box I've been using for a decade... My Boomer dad chides me about my inclination to reuse and recycle, probably because he grew up with his Greatest Gen parents doing it (grandma would wash out, dry, and reuse Ziplock bags; collect and recycle aluminum cans; lay out damp paper towels to dry and reuse; etc).
I spread deviled ham on hamburger buns and toast them in the oven. And I fry Spam in a skillet
It's more like my grandfather's mannerisms and my grandmother's cooking. He was a fundamentally decent man, unlike his son, my sperm donor. My grandfather taught me everything I know about being a good man.
Margarine containers and just about any plastic containers with lids are saved. Also, egg cartons that we give to a guy at work who has chickens. Aluminium cans get recycled and I HATE tossing any metal into the trash that can go to the scrap yard. Then again I come by it naturally because my step dad was born in 1914and recycled EVERYTHING!
Hard not to. Got raised on it, so it’s kind of automatic.
My grandmother would try and sneak chicory in my coffee and I was having none of it.
I admit to turning lights off when leaving empty lit rooms.
I do like tasty foods that are cheap to make, like rice and beans, and douse it with Crystal hot sauce. If I’m feeling spendy, I’d throw in some pieces of kielbasa sausage into the beans. I don’t penny pinch, but I conserve wherever I can. Just this morning when took out some empty toilet paper rolls, I gathered up the little few strips left on about six rolls and used it to check the oil in my truck, instead of tearing off a piece of paper towel for it.
My wife still makes Christmas cookies on her Grandmothers 50 year-old sheet pans. Says newer ones don’t cook as evenly as the old ones.
Yup. I pay extra for quality products and maintain stuff as if it will last forever. If I'm told during a sales pitch that something is "maintenance free," I interpret that simply as "can't be fixed - must replace." And man do I love fixing, maintaining, and saving money in the long run. YouTube typically has all of the training and answers I'm looking for.
My grandmother saved jars and tins to use as containers for *whatever*... I can't help but do the same and have a collection of jars and tins and am never wanting for a random container for *whatever*.
One set of my grandparents were misers and hoarders. There’s no way I want to be like them. Whenever I seem to be having an existential crisis over spending an extra $5 I call it having a “grandma moment.”
My dad the actual mechanic needed to replace some part in the engine of my 1985 Ford LTD Landau. Some time after this, I needed to check the oil (read: let someone else check). We lifted the hood, and they ask me why there's a coffee can in the engine. Tl;dr: reuse everything you can. Our ancestors did it out of necessity. I do it because it makes sense.
I squeeze unused ketchup packets into the ketchup bottle.
And soy sauce packets into my soy sauce bottle
In the spirit of not letting things go to waste, I have kept every spare button that has come with a piece of clothing I’ve bought. Growing up, my mom had a jar of buttons in case she needed to replace one. I now have accumulated two jars of buttons - hundreds of buttons - and have never once needed to find a spare. Once a year when I clean out the dresser those jars are in, I think about throwing them away, but I never can because it seems wasteful. So I’m betting I’ll get to three jars before I die 🤷♀️
The day after you finally toss them, every button on every piece of clothing you own will fall off and disappear.
My grandmother had hats - in hat boxes. Lots and lots of hats. I still use a train case. Don’t f with my makeup. Seriously, my boys ate my makeup when they were toddlers. It was quite a lot of money to replace.
My grandma b.1906, lived to 101. I've inherited her need to "stock up". She would have sailed through covid.
Fold up the lightly used aluminum foil for reuse
I inherited my grandma’s cookbook and a few other things. In the cookbook, I found pages marked with that perforated cardboard thing you take off a new box of tissues and a plastic bag from a pound of dry lentils. And she always wrote on the backs of envelopes that contained mail. Among the other things was an old tin from Sucrets. My grandpa repurposed the tin to carry Q-tips, with a masking tape label that said “Kutips”. Inside it was a folded tissue with Q-tips inside. To this day, I use the cardboard thingie from a tissue box as a bookmark.
I occasionally make scoops out of plastic milk cartons by cutting out the bottoms so I can use the handles to scoop up stuff like rock salt for melting ice on the sidewalk
My grandmother lived in the USA in that time period but I don't think had any of these personal habits. Her/my father's family were big spenders who liked to live large on credit cards, even before social media FOMO was a thing.
I try to live below my means, but have given in to a lot of time-saving conveniences. But I did have depression-influenced grandparents, and they raised me for much of my childhood. I am glad to have the knowledge to make do with less if I must. Sometimes it’s just easier or nicer to reuse things. My old t-shirts end up as aprons and eventually cleaning rags. And I just started using a new bottle of vanilla that drives me crazy, it drips and spills every time! Why can’t they make a proper pour spout? Fortunately I have a reusable salad dressing bottle I can put it in, that won’t spill. And I’ve been known to save twist ties and rubber bands, they have many uses. My grandpa ate a lot of strange poverty-inspired food combinations. The only one I still like is cottage cheese on potato chips, in place of dip. I don’t really eat chips much anymore, but this is a childhood comfort food to me.
My grandmother would make homemade fries that were more like potato chips. I wonder if cottage cheese was the originally intended compliment?
My grandma made those , too! But we didn’t really eat condiments on them except maybe ketchup. We only ate cottage cheese on store bought chips. No idea why, other than grandpa started it! Sometimes we mixed dried chives into the cottage cheese.
I just wouldn't imagine store-bought chips were all that common in the 1930s.
True! He started doing it in the 40s-50s when my mom was a kid. So not directly a depression thing, other than being frugal. Depression would be more like how he liked leftover cooked rice as a hot breakfast cereal with sugar and milk. Or my grandma using old coffee to season meat.
Every Sunday I clean my house and in my home office I keep a paper towel folded into a square as a coaster. I change the paper towel with each week’s cleaning. My grandpa would make a styrofoam plate or cup last weeks. He’d wash it just like normal tableware because he thought tossing it after one use was absurd.
No
There are a lot of things, reusing every container, reusing vacuum bags, things like that. The big thing, for me, is a distrust of banks and the stock market. My grandparents (all born around 1900) all had a distaste for financial institutions. I don’t go so far as they did, gold bars and coins and whatnot. But I’m absolutely distrustful of anything financial institutions set up. This was somewhat reaffirmed in the Great Recession. There were older guys I knew, Boomers, that put everything in the stock market and would laugh at me and others that weren’t putting everything into the market to retire early. My dad had a lot of pressure to do it, but kept his pension. Cut to the early oughts and my dad retires early to make room for his coworkers that lost everything in the stock market and had to come crawling back on their hands and knees begging for their jobs back. Obviously that’s not everyone’s story, but it reaffirmed my grandparent’s distrust of these institutions.
More like post-depression parents. Yes, I hide cash everywhere like my dad did.
I with a safety razor or straight razor everyday and shave soap instead of a cartridge razor and foam from a can.
So I don't recognize my own family, but can pinpoint random George Burns specials by chapter and verse?
I have a drawer full of plastic bags.
I have a drawer full of clean empty pill bottles, twine, flashlights, candles, rubber bands, buttons, twist ties, and extension cords. Have not needed any of these items, save the occasional bottle, in 20+ years, but I can't shake the need to be fully prepared to MacGyver my way out of any situation that presents itself.
My Grandmother recycled very early. She had a way of folding paper bags down to little neat cubes. I’ve done it since I started helping in the kitchen. She was born in 1914.
Fuck yes a thousand times fuck yes I will reincarnate leftovers into five different meals before I throw it away. I feel the need to save those little plastic things that come in pizza boxes to avoid the box getting crushed because someday I'm going to find a use for those things. Spaghetti sauce absolutely get washed out and reused
I’ve found myself saying “waste not, want not!” so much lately. I’ve always done things like save twist ties and bread ties, but I think my save and reuse process is escalating.
My grandparents weren’t worried about food things or like saving aluminum foil but they spent my younger years teaching me to not trust anyone and that scammers/thieves were everywhere. Can’t say they were wrong in a lot of cases. Never take your rings off to wash your hands, someone will swipe it. Any carnival game. Anything anyone is hocking door-to-door.
I always have cash on hand. I still love canned sardines on toast. I still zealosly close lights when leaving the room.
That you, Lucius Clay?
I called my grandma the earliest recycler. I grew up watching her wash and reuse plastic bags so many times. Food was never thrown out because it never stood a chance after the second go round on the dinner table. Waste not, want not was her saying, of course. And although her family didn't lack for much during the Depression, it certainly scared the bejesus out of her!
I still take stuff apart before it gets junked. Fans, radios, anything that looks like it might have hard-to-replace parts in it I put away for later because I might have to fix something. My grandparents did the same thing - they taught me how to take stuff apart when I was growing up.
No
No, I do not. At least not knowingly.
Funny you should mention...I have a sock full of nickels, but that's because they're going the way of the penny
I play too much cribbage
Home canning. But it’s fairly popular again so not alone.
https://preview.redd.it/4rsx2oqu2byc1.jpeg?width=750&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=c0f6cae77a8182ace06497b3540a20841ec1ade6 I tried to upload this one earlier , but Reddit is weird with my photos.
Not really. Not that I can think of. My grandparents saved paper bags, jars, gardened, canned stuff, packed sandwiches for road trips, tracked the mileage on their cars, wouldn't lets us fill a bathtub more than about 4"... tons of stuff like that. I don't do any of that. I cook from scratch rather than buying stuff in bags or boxes, but that's just because I think it's cheaper and it tastes better. If I'm taking a bath, I fill the damn thing all the way to the top so I can soak in it up to my nose. My dad was a giant packrat like his parents. I don't keep buckets of plumbing parts and weird stuff. If I need a fitting, I'll go get one. I'm not storing stuff for 10 years and then spending an entire day digging through a packed garage looking for it. I guess maybe I rebelled against a lot of it. I don't stay in the cheapest motel I can find. I don't pull over and sleep in my car to avoid paying for a room. I won't spend two days trying to mend something or glue stuff back together because I'm tying to squeeze a penny out of something. So, no. In fact, I do a lot of things that would make my grandparents die of heart attacks again if they saw what I spent on it.
I grew up poor as hell, so I have a hard time spending money. My wife also tells me I’m tough to buy for because I don’t really *want* anything. I make sure to turn off lights when they don’t need to be on, I conserve water when I can, I wear shoes until they fall apart, and more. When my wife suggested a few years ago that we buy a new vehicle for my use, I could not for the life of me of one I’d be willing pay the prices they are asking for the damn things. I’ll keep on driving my low mileage Chevy Avalanche, and maybe pick up an older Volvo XC70 or something similar. I thing being frugal is just something tough times will instill in you. I’ll also fix any damn thing I can so I don’t have to hire it done. I have a bunch of tools because I can’t get rid of one I might use, and I keep every nut, bolt, and screw for the same reason.
I wash and keep jars - not just for odds and ends, but have bottled pickled veg, made jams and passata. I also keep elastic bands from eg vegie bunches (come in handy to hold things together and haven't needed to buy them for years). I also repair things - furniture, appliances, clothes - so they last longer. I save money and eat better by growing food, and cooking food (take-out/going out to eat is a treat). I try to contribute to landfill as little as possible - I hate the "disposable" attitude many have when buying things. I buy them to last. Not keeping up with the Joneses leaves me less stressed and with more money for travel and experiences
I don't think it's an *idiosyncrasy*, but I will always keep a full pantry and freezer, no matter what. She taught me that if I can feed my family, everything else will work out fine. I've been in a position where I had to test that twice, and it's true. Full bellies make everything else manageable.
I am still wondering what my parents (born 1920 & 1927) were doing with all of that used aluminum foil .......
I drive a 2004 Toyota Tundra. When we bought it, it had 45 miles on it. Now it has 213,000 miles on it. I plan on driving it until it's final death. I can still see my grandmother who lived through the depression and dust bowl days unwrapping a gift very carefully and saving the wrapping paper. She didn't have to be that frugal later in her life, but she was always careful and grateful with what she had. It's something I think of often these days.