How To Save Paper At Home
I have one child who goes through paper like it grows on trees. Paper airplanes, paper villages, paper to scribble on, paper to rip up and shred in every last corner of the house. Paper.
We used to go through at least one ream a month. And at four dollars a ream, that was sorely eating into my Ghirardelli budget for the year. Not to mention wasting a whole bunch of paper.
One day, my boss came up to me, and said Joe are ya busy I said no he said push the button with your left hand! Oops. Wrong day. On a different day, hubs brought home a box of unused letterhead from the office, all headed to the recycling bin because of a misprint. Cha-ching. We now use that paper for nearly every single use of paper around the house. We stock this paper in the printer and keep some strewn around the house for the kids. I now use fewer than ten sheets of clean paper a month. Quite a difference.
Besides the office, where are some other good sources of scrap paper?
More tips over at We Are That Family!
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6 comments:
I need to use more scratch paper for things. To keep the kids from constantly grabbing for paper, we've given them their own notebooks to use. They can use them to draw in or rip out a sheet for a paper airplane.:)
I always look at all my junk mail. Often times I will get a letter that is blank on the back. I also use return envelopes to write my grocery list on. Saves paper and makes a convenient coupon carrier.
This may not apply to you since you homeschool, but for us, my kids bring home a LOT of papers from school. And most of them have nice white backs. So I just print on those nice white backs. Pretty much every thing I print for me including coupons goes on that paper. It's great.
Our library provides our scrap paper. I request at least 50 books/week on-line through their on-line catalog. Each request prints on one piece of paper! We're talking only 4 or 5 lines on the entire sheet! My husband always picks up the books each week after work and the ladies all love him (don't ask me why - something about they wish more Dads would encourage so much reading? Huh? I am the one requesting the books, but whatever?!) Anyways, they started offering him the paper each week since they know we homeschool and have young kids and voila - free paper!
I am always looking for scratch paper and end up with regular new paper. And I have a kid like yours, a daughter, 8, who can suck down a ream of paper in a heartbeat. Recently she has started adding paper towels to her stock pile. This one I am blaming on her art teacher who taught them some 'art' that wasnt anthing more than dot art using markers and PT. SIGH...
Anyway, came over from WFMW. :D
Does your church recycle? I do the supplies for our preschoolers and regularly have leftover copies of things that I bring home. The office also has a stash that I regularly help myself to...with their permission of course. I have found that if I put the word out...many are willing to help my cause!
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