The boy loves his yogurt. Now what do I do with that bib? (Photo by Amy L. Hatch)
By Amy L. Hatch
This week, I want to talk about the bad penny.
You know, that one thing you can’t seem to get rid of, no matter how hard you try? It’s an object that you can’t give away, and you feel guilty throwing it away (hello! landfill!) and so it just rotates all over your house?
My bad pennies are baby bibs.
These are bibs that are so destroyed that no one would ever consider putting them on a child ever again. My son eats like a shark with chum, and so the stains are pretty disgusting. These are the kinds of bibs that Goodwill would gag at if I were to donate them there.
But I still can’t bring myself to just toss them. I don’t know if it’s some knee-jerk reaction from a thrifty gene hidden somewhere deep in my DNA (don’t throw those out! that’s like throwing away money!) or if I’m just too stupid to figure out an alternative use for them.
Rags? Hankies? Flags for the front porch?
The problem is that we aren’t planning on having another baby, and I would never, ever inflict these on my friends.
So now I have a laundry basket of bad pennies. The worst part? They keep getting washed. So I’m spending money and resources washing and re-washing them, and they make the rounds again and again from kitchen to laundry room to dining room table and back again.
Help! What do I do with these? And what is your bad penny?
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LOL – I have the same problem! I was still trying to get use out of them even though they were disgusting and too too small. I was fortunate enough, though, to accidentally wash his bibs in warm water with a new red tablecloth, so they all turned pink. That was the last straw. Maybe a similar “accident” would help?
I don’t know what to tell you, but if anyone needs denim for projects. They should contact me. I can’t throw out ripped jeans to save my life.
oh my gosh, Cheri, I keep setting aside a few denim things thinking I will make a bag….yeah right, sure I will. Where is that sewing machine?
Donate them to Goodwill anyway. Let THEM throw them away–I’m sure they’ve seen much grosser things…
Bags–the kind you get from stores in the mall. I’ve hidden them behind and under sofas and beds, in the back of closets, even in the narrow spaces between the refrigerator and the wall. And I’ll go through them, remember shopping (especially if it’s somewhere from a vacation) sort them according to size to put back into hiding. If I’m very lucky, I’ll throw out one out of five. But choosing which one is another completely different obsession.
I just got rid of at least a dozen bibs between last week and this week on Free-Cycle. I even mentioned that some were stained, but people didn’t seem to care. There was such a high demand for them that I ended up dispersing them among 3 different families. Free-cyclers even took 4 bulb syringes (aka snot suckeres) off my hands. I would never have imagined that, but figured that it was worth a try to post it.
I’ve joined along side you purging numerous items from our house each week, and so far only an extremely hole-y pair of house slippers has made its way into a landfill. Take advantage of Free-cycle cuz then its not going in the trash and you don’t have to be embarrassed about giving stuff away to friends. But please don’t give your trash to charity just so they will throw it away for you. That is a waste of their time and discouraging to people who work there and volunteer there.
Don’t give them to Goodwill to deal with. They have enough unuseable castoffs to sort through already. Here’s what I do with stuff I can’t get rid of. I put it in a bin and stick it in the garage. Then a few years later I might look through the bin and think, Now why did I keep THAT? And out it might go. Somehow giving that sentimental stuff some time to shed its emotional associations really works. I might end up keeping ONE of whatever it is… but not a whole binful.
Freecycle is amazing! Those bibs could maybe even be used to make liners for cloth diapers (the pocket style ones).
How about making them into Christmas decorations? ;^) I love the image of H eating like shark chum, I know another H that fits that description. I’d send you a pic of my counter top, but it might get me on hoarders and I don’t want that.