How to Make the Contents of Your Refrigerator and Garage Last Longer!
Gone are the youthful days of the bachelorette’s refrigerator: never more than the next two day’s essentials in stock, and nothing that cost more than an hour’s wages. The pantries of most young families contain untold purchases from across the years. Fresh vegetables must jostle for space with outlandish seasonings for abandoned recipes, tins of who-knows-what that you bought ‘just in case’, and never-used offerings from well-meaning dinner guests.
Every once in a while it comes time for a proper clear-out. Anything that’s past its sell-by date ends up in the trash. Preserves with unclear labels get thrown away, just to be safe. It seems a shame to fill a trash can with unused food when you’re so careful not to be wasteful at the shops.
But guess what? If you’re a frugal mom, you could be sitting on a small fortune! For just like common foodstuffs, many household items last a lot longer than you might expect. So honey, rice, and baking soda can last forever if you store them properly; but similarly, paint, nail polish, and smoke alarms have a good ten years in them when bought new. They are all items that seem to beg to be thrown out when you’re spring-cleaning – those leftover paint tins in the garage from last time you decorated, that smoke alarm that you assume can’t be safe anymore – but there may be plenty more life still to be wrung from them.
It works the other way, too, of course. Being frugal requires an element of responsibility: car tires should be changed every 10 years and, believe it or not, even a child’s car seat can ‘expire’ in time. So be sure to know where you stand with food and everyday items around the house with this new expiration date cheat sheet. Act prematurely, and you could be throwing money away!
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