quark wrote:Dear Wife uses fabric sandwich bags for the kids.
We've always done the same sort of thing with our kids lunches and water bottles too. My kids lunches look similar to this:
Though it's not a picture of my kids "bento" it does show what we use to hold our lunches and the foods they take for lunch. These lunch boxes have a double effect. They cut down on PCW (not baggies) and they also by nature portion control what is taken for lunch. I find not only do I not use baggies and such I provide the amount of food my kids actually eat for lunch (and snack). A lot of parents I know say "my kids bring so much food home" well if you are filling a baggie of carrots and goldfish and cheese cubes and grapes and sending chips and fruit snacks and pudding or cookies for a kindergardner that's what going to happen.
And like LDST we use our vehicles until they are no longer feasible (read safe). This goes on a long time, we generally drive a vehicle until it can't be fixed anymore, we drive them to death. This is also the case for our appliances, we have repaired our washer, dryer and dishwasher numerous times. We fixed the refrigerator that came with our house, (it was avocado green to give you an idea to it's age) twice before we decided that our family needed a bigger frig, if it was big enough and the parts still available it (avocado) would still be here.
Use it up.
Also like LDST mentioned kids don't generally like patched clothes (more about this later) but they don't mind clothes with holes in them, they even buy them that way. I take advantage of this and let my younger kids wear clothes my older kids have put holes in. One of my younger kids doesn't like the breeziness of holey clothing and took it upon herself to patch to holes as she saw fit, so she pinned, embroidered (for lack of a better word for the yarn/floss "work") braided and beaded her jeans. Jeans that have been outgrown (length wise) can be turned into skirts or if they don't fit at all can be tuned into bags, book covers (ever see onesies as book covers?) and other things.
Wear it out and make it do To the idea that the depression formed a basis for being conservative in using things, while it is quite obvious that there is an impact, I think that WWII had an even bigger impact in someways. The people that came of age here at home during WWII had it drilled into them that their use of resources impacted the fate of the nation. I can't help but think that the paper and scrap drives, rationing of everyday items, directly connected to "our troops success" and the fate of the world had a formative impact on these people.
In our home we do "use it up, wear it out, make it do". "Do with out is I think a matter of perspective, while we don't have cable or cell phones, my kids do not have ipods,( though the ones who want them have mp3 players) I don't think we "do with out". All my kids have had a laptop since they were 3 or 4. Ebay has been great in this regard as has been my DH inclination to learn how to "fix" things.
"Use It Up, Wear It Out, Make It Do, or Do Without" is a complicated thing these days as more and more of the things we rely on are beyond our ability to maintain and repair (also noted by LDST) and from an ethical point it can be even more complicated. Retail sales are under constant scrutiny when it comes to the health of our economy. As cogs in our consumer economy is it good if we
"Use It Up, Wear It Out, Make It Do, or Do Without" or is it better if we "throw it out, buy a new one, get a better one, or go in debt"? Just listening to the news on the car radio (not in the car that often) and you hear how important the "consumer" is to the economy and if people would just buy stuff how it will turn around. I'm so conflicted :)