Things you do carried over from childhood.

[Workingman]

Reading the last shop before xmas thread got me thinking....

Our family situation with dad having passed away and my brother wheelchair bound meant that we didn't do a big weekly shop. The one we did was mainly for cleaning products and stuff like breakfast cereals and biscuits - dry goods. Fresh food came in from top-ups during the week and I still shop in a similar way.

When I visit family and friends I am always amazed at the number of lights on. I can still hear mum.... "TURN THAT LIGHT OFF!" I am still a fanatical turner-offer, if nobody is in a room the light goes off, even in other people's homes.

I don't now go to the length of squeezing scraps of soap together to make a "new" bar, and I would never dream of asking the butcher for a bag of bones, but I still do the washing up liquid 'thing'. When the bottle is running out and it 'farts' as you get to the last drop don't bin it. Clip the lid back on and stand it upside down. The next day you will get two more washes. The first will be a normal squeeze but the second will be another 'fart'. This is when you squeeze out a load of air and stick the nozzle in the water to suck some up, you then give the bottle a shake and another squeeze. NOW you can bin it.

Have any of you carried over strange things from your childhood that you still do?

[saundra]

Memories
My mum always saved wrapping paper I still do the same ,of flowers and gifts
Although there isent the same amount of paper now
I save boxes always come in useful especially Amazon ones but if anybody needs boxes for moving I give them,to them still do the washing up thing WM and with shamphoo

[Workingman]

i still do the washing up thing WM and with shamphoo

I knew someone would.

[meriad]

Same here with washing up liquid and shampoo and conditioner etc; in fact I can be a right Scrooge McDuck and hate wasting things. Sometimes I have to force myself to throw things away But when it comes to food I find myself throwing away so much - less so this year as I'm home more, but pre-Covid I'd often buy for the week thinking I'd save money by buying "bulk" but then ended up out meeting friends more than planned and the food went off. I

Growing up , we tended to do shopping on as we need it basis; but then living in SA things would go off too quickly so it just made sense to do that. Now though I tend to have general items such as sugar, flour, rice and pasta in stock but most other things I get when I need them. There are times my fridge has very little in it and other times it's full of all sorts. Worst is when I go shopping when I'm hungry, bored or on payday

[JanB]

I'm another of the put the bottle upside down and get more out. I sued to do the soap thing, but don't use tablet soap any more.

I'm rather more careful this year, and rather than chuck old veg on the compost, I'll freeze it before it gets too bad.

The shops are a bit of a trek, so I have to make sure that I buy all the right sort of stuff.

In saying that, we grow quite a bit of veg, so most of it gets frozen now.

[Kaz]

I do that with bottles It's amazing how much you can get out of supposedly empty tubes of cosmetics too!

[Workingman]

Another thing is kettles. Ours had a whistling lid you removed to put water in. There was a limescale line about half way because that is how much it ever got filled. I now see people filling the kettle to the brim just for one cup!

[JanB]

I now see people filling the kettle to the brim just for one cup!

Never do that, just enough for what we need.

[victor]

We do the tube thing cut them in half it's amazing how much can still be in there and the washing up bottle

[cromwell]

My wife does similar with tubes of hand cream. She cuts the squeezy tube in half and it's amazing how much is still left in there when you think it's all gone.