I grew up learning to be frugal. My grandparents grew up during the Depression, which affected how my parents were raised. Mom said her mother told her never to throw anything away. As evidence of this we found a large steamer trunk full of old grocery receipts while cleaning the old farm when I was a child. I’m talking two-inch long strips of paper absolutely stuffed in the trunk and thoroughly preserved with mothballs. I’m still trying to get the horrible smell out of the trunk, which is now mine.
Now, I do not go to that extreme. I’m perfectly willing to throw away receipts or other unusable items and regularly make donations to local thrift stores to donate items still in good shape but which I no longer use.
The problem comes with the in between items. For example, towels with perfectly good centers and completely shredded edges. I’m talking a good inch of fraying. Fortunately I’m a crafter and a quilter. My trusty rotary cutter and ruler made short work of cutting out the perfectly fine middles (about 20.5 x 34.5 inches). A simple binding of double fold bias tape added around the edges and I’ve got four lovely new bathmats! I still have large strips of terry cloth to figure out a use for, though.
Now if I could only corral all the terry cloth fuzz migrating around the house. It’s as bad as cutting fake fur!