Some ideas of how to put items to use before you consider adding them to the trash or recycling bin.
During a day of green recycling bins and garage sales, sometimes it is easy to forget there are other options.

For example, you could spend days setting up a good garage sale to find a freak rainstorm keeps away your customers. Who has that kind of time to spend for little or no return? Sure, you can reschedule your sale. In the meantime, your garage becomes a useless dumping ground filled with stuff.

Instead, gather up those unwanted items and contact a local charity. In our neighborhood, I don't even have to do that. The American Veterans drop me a note everytime they will be in the area. All I have to do is leave the items on the porch. When they pick up, they live me a receipt. As long as my contribution is less than $250, the IRS requires minimal documentation and the donation acts to reduce my tax liability. I keep a list of the items donate, estimate the market value based on what I would have sold it for in a garage sale, staple the list to my receipt and file it until tax time.

Baby food jar, old magazines and catalogs, leftover supplies out of craft kits can normally be donated to the art department of your elementary school, Sunday school, day care center. Art teachers are always in need of supplies, and for ever donation you can make, that leaves the school district more money to spend elsewhere.

Working as an accountant, I used to receive huge--six to ten inch thick--reports at month end to use in commissions and sales tax calculations. I divided that paper between my son's daycare and the school art department. If you plan to do this, get your employer's

Quaker oatmeal cans, Crystal Lite containers, butter tubs can be used to store paperclips, legos, buttons, craft beads. As a child, my brother and I would paint oatmeal cans and make Indian drums out of them. Butter tubs are great for sending leftovers home with your single brother who never seems to return your Tupperware.

Plastic grocery bags can be used for cleaning out the cat box. Paper grocery sacks can be cut open and used to wrap packages for mailing. Crumpled grocery sacks, crayons, and sticks from the yard can be provide your preschool with a teepee.

Shoeboxes become shadow box projects, a place to store note cards and gift cards. They can house Barbie doll clothes, your son's Digimon cards, computer disks, hairbows.

Popcorn tins can be cleaned up and used to store Christmas ornaments. Each year, I make several gallons of Chex mix for work. The tins are perfect for that.

The list is endless. The point is before you throw something away or toss it into a recycling bin, consider how the item can be reused first.

About the Author

Betsy Gallup is a full-time mother to an 11-year-old son, and infant twins. She has had several articles, essays, and short stories published. She is now writing a non-fiction book under contract for publication, and she has recently procured an agent to represent her first novel, Destiny, a suspense/romance delving into the world of a renown psychic. With what time she has left, she operates www.whimsplace.com, a showcase for the work of talented writers.