It hit me the other day that when I donate clothing, linens, dishes, etc. to the local charity organizations or charity box, that sometimes they throw away things when they have too much. Being the sort of person who is pretty particular when it comes to not wasting things, this has me disturbed. I can be fairly compulsive when it comes to not throwing away things when I can find a way to re-use, or recycle. Personally I'm finding it harder and harder to give things to someone when I am unsure the items will be actually used or thrown away. What is the point, if they somehow end up in the landfill anyway, or burned, buried or what have you?
This has made me more mindful of finding ways to use items, and frankly-finding ways NOT to make purchases if they're not really necessary.
I find I can no longer selfishly "declutter" or "simplify" without being mindful of the consequences if it ends up in the wrong hands.
In my Vintage Sewing & Craft lessons I talked about how even making crafts (frugally of course) can require collecting things (being a packrat), keeping things we would normally throw away, re-using items, etc., instead of buying a lot of supplies to make them.
Everything comes with a price.
So what do we do?
We want to be frugal, yes, even compulsive at times to REALLY waste not/want not. But we need to be very mindful, and don't let it become a bigger problem and more than we can handle.
