Friday OT #1 - Rubbing Pennies

MJ29

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The cool whip and margarine container thing is so true. Have a big Thanksgiving meal then pack it up into 34 containers.
When you want leftovers, you have to completely empty the fridge because you have no idea whats in them. :mccaffery:

My grandma baked cakes for people and often had batches of frosting in these containers. So you might be getting leftovers, you might be getting bright blue frosting.
 

Mr Janny

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My grandma baked cakes for people and often had batches of frosting in these containers. So you might be getting leftovers, you might be getting bright blue frosting.
Another Grandma Deep Freeze story. She used to keep a 2 gallon Schwann's vanilla ice cream tub in her deep freeze, but it was full of lard for baking.

I can remember going to get cookies out of there one time with my cousin. We were maybe 8. And he pointed to the Schwann's container and said. "Don't ever try that ice cream. It's turned rotten, but Grandma won't throw it away."

I always laughed picturing how he"discovered" that information.
 

CascadeClone

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My mom did all the Iowa things. But here's a fun one:

When we visited my grandparents, and then went home, Dad would always call to let them know we made it home OK. But to avoid long distance charges (under-40s can google that) he would only say like 2 words so it was less than a full minute and we didn't get charged the 15 cents.


For me, I never let the car idle hardly at all, to save gas. Another my dad thing.
 
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BCClone

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Not exactly sure.
One of my long standing memories of my grandmother was her relationship with her deep freeze. She never threw any leftovers away. They just went into the deep freeze. She had this big Tupperware container in there, that she kept cookies in, (because frozen cookies!) and it never got empty. She would bake every week, and just add the new ones to the top. Legend has it that the cookies at the bottom had come over on the Mayflower.
When my FIL passed, my MIL received tons of food. To help out i was generally the one who took the food and put it in the fridge or freezer as needed. I ran out of space so I told my wife. She told me to throw some old stuff out, I’m the inlaw so I said that isn’t happening. She had time so she went and helped me. My guideline was anything older than my youngest (was around 10 at the time). Really starting tossing. Wife’s bro comes out and demands that the pork he bought them doesn’t get tossed, (it was 5-6 years old). I told him we were tossing things that are over a decade old. He went inside ticked off.

I took a picnic ham and threw it in the bottom as a tester. It’s been about 3-4 years, so one time I looked for it, it was still there.
 

dahliaclone

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@ruxCYtable came through with another great thread idea! Here it is:

What are ridiculous things your parents/grandparents or even you do/did to because they were cheap-ass tightwads?

I remember one of my grandmothers when we were little hammering home in our heads that we 'never ever needed more than four squares of toilet paper' when we went to the bathroom.
 

cyclones500

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Another Grandma Deep Freeze story. She used to keep a 2 gallon Schwann's vanilla ice cream tub in her deep freeze, but it was full of lard for baking.

I can remember going to get cookies out of there one time with my cousin. We were maybe 8. And he pointed to the Schwann's container and said. "Don't ever try that ice cream. It's turned rotten, but Grandma won't throw it away."

I always laughed picturing how he"discovered" that information.

I remember the lard-bucket days (my grandma and mom both did it) - although I don't know if they used misleadingly-marked containers like ice cream to store it.
 

Angie

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I remember one of my grandmothers when we were little hammering home in our heads that we 'never ever needed more than four squares of toilet paper' when we went to the bathroom.

Or pressing the little slivers of soap together to make a full-sized soap, like when all of the autobots came together into one really big car-robot-thing. (I know there's a name for it, I just can't remember.)
 

dahliaclone

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Or pressing the little slivers of soap together to make a full-sized soap, like when all of the autobots came together into one really big car-robot-thing. (I know there's a name for it, I just can't remember.)

The Decepticons had the big huge transformer, I think it was called Devastator, with Scavenger, Long Haul, Hightower, Mixmaster, Slipjack, and Scrapper. Yes, I was a huge Transformer nerd and had all these bad boys.

1627657688006.png
 

NickTheGreat

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We still save bows and bags. So do our parents. Sometimes a bag will go back and forth for years at Christmases.

When we were young my parents saved newspaper for wrapping. Usually the Sunday comics, which were colorful.

The worst thing I saw was my dad reusing floss. He'd use it and hang it with his toothbrush.
 

MJ29

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We save gift bags and reuse. Unless they look terrible or have someone's name written on them. Even in that case, we might just reuse it for their gift next year. I HATE spending money on gift wrap/bags even if it's not very much. I'd rather have one rubbermaid full of gift bags to pull from. (And this is what I have ... no more than that).
 
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Clonefan32

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I do this. We can afford the $1.50 it takes to get a new one, but it seems wasteful environmentally? And Christmas is expensive enough as it is, why spend extra? However - my poor family, they generally end up getting the crappy ones. The fancy ones are for company or people out of the house.

I guess I don't question the utility of it all for most people. I've got 4 kids under the age of 11 that provide enough junk and clutter to fill our house as it is. For a few bucks a bag I'll take the space at home.
 
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