One of the top skills of self-sufficiency and prepping is to be resourceful by thinking about how you can repurpose items to get as much use out of them as possible.
Not only does this help you to save money, it also helps you to become less wasteful and more thoughtful and creative about how you can use the everyday items around you in more ways than one.
With that in mind, here are the top items that you should think twice about throwing away:
Aluminum Foil
You can create reflective shelters or signaling devices by wrapping aluminum foil around objects, repurpose it as a cooking surface for baking or grilling food over open flames, or use it as a reflective surface for signaling aircraft or rescue teams.
Prescription Pill Bottles
You can use empty prescription pill bottles as waterproof containers for storing matches or fire-starting materials, repurpose them as portable first aid kits by filling them with essential medical supplies like bandages and antiseptic wipes, or use them as seed storage containers for preserving vegetable and medicinal herb seeds.
Banana Peels
Banana peels, often discarded without a second thought, are rich in nutrients like potassium, magnesium, and vitamins. One of the simplest ways to repurpose them is as a natural fertilizer.
By burying chopped banana peels around plants, they release nutrients gradually, enriching the soil.
Additionally, their high potassium content makes them excellent compost material, aiding in the decomposition process.
Bottle Caps
You can use bottle caps to create makeshift fishing lures by attaching them to fishing lines, repurpose them as reflective markers for marking trails, or fashion them into DIY traps for catching insects or small game.
Candle Wax
Once cooled, leftover wax can be melted down and poured into new candle molds, minimizing waste and extending the life of your candles. Its melting point makes it ideal for preventing rust on outdoor tools when applied as a protective coating.
Related: DIY Candle Lantern From a Soda Can
You can also create waterproof matches by dipping the match heads in melted wax and allowing them to dry, shielding the matches from moisture. In times of emergency or survival situations, waterproof matches can be a lifesaver, and candle wax provides an accessible solution to create them.
Cardboard Tubes
Cardboard tubes, commonly found in household items like toilet paper or paper towel rolls, can easily be used as seed starters for gardening. Filled with soil and planted with seeds, the cardboard tubes provide a biodegradable container that can be directly planted into the ground, minimizing transplant shock to young seedlings.
Citrus Peels
One of the simplest ways to utilize citrus peels is for homemade cleaners. Infusing vinegar with citrus peels creates a powerful, all-natural cleaner that effectively cuts through grease and grime.
Additionally, dried citrus peels can be ground into a powder and used as a zesty seasoning or flavor enhancer in cooking and baking.
Their natural oils also make them effective insect repellents when placed strategically around the home or garden.
Coffee Grounds
Coffee grounds, rich in nutrients like nitrogen, potassium, and phosphorus, offer a valuable resource for your garden. When added to compost bins or directly to soil, coffee grounds enrich the earth, promoting healthy plant growth and improving soil structure.
For those who are serious about growing a survival garden that will get you through tough times, I strongly recommend this comprehensive guide. It offers invaluable insights and practical advice for transforming your backyard into a self-sustaining homestead.
Tea Bags
Beyond their primary function, tea bags offer a range of versatile applications. One notable use is for soothing minor injuries or skin irritations; the tannins found in tea possess natural astringent properties, making them effective for reducing swelling and relieving discomfort.
Additionally, tea bags can be repurposed as natural deodorizers, insect repellents, or even compostable plant fertilizers.
T-Shirts
Never throw old t-shirts away. You can cut them into strips for a rag for cleaning, repurpose them as reusable shopping bags by tying off the ends, or transform them into quirky throw pillow covers.
Plastic Bottles
You can use plastic bottles to create self-watering planters by cutting them in half, turn them into bird feeders, or fashion them into innovative storage solutions for small items like screws or beads.
Egg Cartons
One of the easiest ways to repurpose egg cartons is as seed starters for gardening. They provide a convenient and biodegradable option for nurturing plants.
Additionally, egg cartons can serve as compact storage for small items such as screws, nuts, or bolts, keeping essential supplies organized.
Related: Chicken Secrets Nobody Told You About
Vegetable Scraps
Utilize them to make homemade vegetable broth or stock, regrow certain vegetables like green onions or lettuce from their scraps, or feed them to compost bins to enrich soil.
Use vegetable scraps to create homemade broth or stock, providing a flavorful base for soups, stews, and other dishes. You can also compost vegetable scraps, turning them into nutrient-rich soil amendments for gardening.
Newspaper
Old newspapers can be used as a biodegradable weed barrier in the garden.
By layering newspapers over soil, they help suppress weed growth while allowing water and nutrients to penetrate, promoting healthier plants and minimizing the need for chemical herbicides.
Additionally, old newspapers can be repurposed as kindling to start fires, making them valuable assets for preppers.
Keeping them near a wood stove or campfire ensures readily available kindling to ignite flames quickly and efficiently, particularly in emergency situations where access to traditional fire-starting materials may be restricted or unavailable.
Make it a habit to always think twice about throwing something away. Chances are good that for most items, you can come up with at least one way you can repurpose it before you do.
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Funny how prepping boarders on hoarding if we take these articles seriously.
99 cent stores are shutting down their stores. Kind of funny when most of America’s stores mid market to low end markets are nothing more than selling cheap Chinese garbage products.
How much can we store in our homes before it looks like a homeless tent shelter?
Big box stores are also 70-80% Chinese garbage products that fail in a few months. The problem is we Americans have been looking for bargains to a point we bargained away our base manufacturing to countries like China.
That our American companies have been bought out by China’s CCP. We now can’t afford our well made American products because of those quality products are priced higher than China garbage.
The liberals have caused over taxation, red tape of regulations and fees. But welcome China products with hardly any tariffs as their products take the place of American products.
Don’t forget the unions in practically every trade and businesses striking for higher wages makes the cost of American products unaffordable to us seniors.
Yet the Bidenomics weakens America by giving American citizen rights and benefits to the world. In the form of illegals crossing the open borders. They get free housing, food, clothing, schooling at dumb bass American taxpayers voting for free stuff too.
There is no free lunch, us taxpayers are the new slaves of the world’s illegals in America.
We have terrorists residing in many states particularly Michigan and liberal blue sanctuary states. Courtesy by Biden’s open border EO’s flown around by planes and buses.
Now illegals have squatter rights by the corrupt legal and political system of a two to three teared legal system against us taxpayer patsy’s.
How will Americans vote in this 2024 presidential election?
The basic minimum wage was never made for a living wage for a family of 4. You have been lied to, as politicians, unions and activist have convoluted higher wages with affordability of basic living products, wrong.
The higher wages increase costs to the consumer as corporations pass on their taxes to the end user, the consumer. The living wage workers complain they now can’t afford their basic products and pay too high rent.
It is a vicious cycle that will end up bankrupting the American economy which is what Bidenomics is all about.
Basic grade school education does not really reading, writing, math, economics business principles nor America and world history of truth.
It is easier to control halfwits in politics than educated public. As educated conservatives will question authority at every point the elites do.
If Americans keep believing the digital bitcoin is going to save them, we are in trouble. Digital money, digital electronics of broadcast streaming services and appliances are part of the Clinton, Obama-Biden agendas with China’s U.N., help to change the United States forever from what our founding fathers created, the decoration of independence, bill of rights and the Constitution that made us free of the European elites.
You can believe in God’s given rights of freedom or believe in godless government rights as in California EV 2030 plan, California smog, AIR smog board that restrict all of America’s gas vehicles. If you bring in a gas vehicle from other states you have to pay extra fees because the vehicle is not at California standards. NY and CA are the worse corrupt legal, environmental, unionized liberal states to dictate what the rest rest of America should kowtow to them.
God help the poor seniors living there who can not afford to move out of these liberal sanctuary states.
The liberal state of Hawaii is trying to sue the oil industry, hey why not just stop importing oil from the mainland, see how long they last.
Interesting:
Kowtow originated as a noun referring to the act of kneeling and touching one’s head to the ground as a salute or act of worship to a revered authority. In traditional China this ritual was performed by commoners making requests to the local magistrate, by the emperor to the shrine of Confucius, or by foreign representatives appearing before the emperor to establish trade relations. (In the late 18th century, some Western nations resisted performing the ritual, which acknowledged the Chinese emperor as the “son of heaven.”) The word kowtow derives from Chinese koutou, formed by combining the verb kou (“to knock”) with the noun tou (“head”).
Is this what America is coming to?
Those in California also have Cal-trans and in San Diego a group of liberal mayors called SANDAG that try every year to pass a mileage tax on gas and EV vehicles. The San Diego city council has street quieting to eliminate gas vehicle parking on street and new condo parking.
Not only that they have the bike mafia dictating when and where both sides of the streets have bike lanes. Cutting out parking for customers an residents. Who the heck at age 40 and above are going to their doctor’s appointment riding a bicycle, like disabled Americans?
They try to make the public take mass transportation with homeless diseased hobos who do have communicable diseases like contact hepatitis. We now have measles outbreaks from illegals not being checked for disease crossing the open borders, good grieve!
California has smart lights recording the public to computer database server to some foriegn country too.
I’m trying to move out this unaffordable state, but need funds as my taxes go to illegals for free everything.
If the public would be better educated an kept their old traditions of knowledge we probably would not need these prepping websites to live in America.
Small towns are being ruled by big city politic agendas then more autonomy of what the local people need in their neck of the woods.
Yes liberals believe Bidenomics is good for big city living not in small towns. Small businesses are closing they can’t afford the cookie cutter California $20 dollar an hour wage. Small towns will dry up, this will be where the illegals will squat in your hard earned unaffordable property taxes. To all be given away to the open border illegals breaking our American immigration laws.
Time take America back as we are past the tipping but not yet at the point of no return.
Kick the Chinese CCP off our American farmlands and food processing industry. We can’t buy Chinese land to take over an profit like they do in America.
You have been lied by Bidenomics bureaucrats, believe an pray to God.
God bless America!
Fast food jobs, waitstaff and other similar jobs are meant to be entry-level jobs as one gains experience. They were never meant to support family, only kids working the summer or going to college.
bird feeders. yep, that’s what I need for sure.