Repurposing to Save Money: Making Old Belongings Relevant to Our Lives Today
Posted on | February 24, 2010 | 7 Comments
Life changes, and with these changes come different needs or wants. Families grow and shrink, people move from house to apartment, and apartments to houses, people have different hobbies and passions as they age. One thing that will help you to save money is to repurpose whatever you can from your old life and make it relevant for what you need today.
When Paul and I lived in our apartment, we were hesitant to purchase many items because we didn’t know if they would be needed or useful when we eventually moved into a home. Fortunately, we found numerous ways to repurpose items from our apartment, and items left behind from the previous owners, to suit our needs today and save us from going out to the store and buying new products.
Here are some examples:
In our old apartment, we lacked storage, and so we had to purchase a long and thin rubbermaid container to hold our extra sets of sheets.
This storage container has now become perfect for storing wrapping paper rolls and tissue paper.
In our old apartment kitchen we were also in need of storage, and so we purchased this steel rack below in order to hang and store our pots and pans.
Now it sits in our garage and stores plant pots.
In my new office in our home, we redid the closet to store filing cabinets and other needs.Because the closet is no longer for clothes, we were able to add a hook (we found various random hooks in ceilings around the house which we have no use for) to its end and use it to reach birdfeeders in our yard. This idea was something I saw in Martha Stewart Magazine several months back, and fell in love with the idea. We created ours for free!
In college, my sister bought me a tupperware set that included two boxed containers for my cereal. I now use this for Lyla’s cat food, which keeps it from being a mess when I pour it into her bowl.
Finally, we took down some 1970s-era curtains left behind by the previous owners, and used them to keep paint from getting on the floor and carpets.
What are some ways you have found to repurpose old items and make them useful and meaningful in your life today?
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February 25th, 2010 @ 9:00 pm
I believe your living room curtains that were left in the house you purchased….are now hanging in my living room.
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February 26th, 2010 @ 9:41 am
Yes–but the curtains that were in the boys’ room upstairs are the ones in the photo that we used to keep paint off of our floor.
I hope you are enjoying the curtains!
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February 26th, 2010 @ 10:22 am
Those curtains were in the boys’ room?! Poor boys…
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February 26th, 2010 @ 11:30 am
I actually did something frugal this week and was all prepared to confess to it
Truthfully, I think it would fall into the miserly category but what the hell ya know? 
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February 26th, 2010 @ 11:46 am
Hey BluSky: Thanks for the reminder!!! I was supposed to be on a plane in a few minutes, so my morning has revolved around rescheduling a cancelled flight.
Have a great weekend!
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February 26th, 2010 @ 11:46 am
Budgeting in the Fun Stuff: I know…right? Hahahahaha:).
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June 3rd, 2010 @ 8:06 am
[...] we repurposed many items from other time periods in our lives, and also from what the previous owners left behind, such as [...]