I have collected Frugal/Helpful Hints every since I have been a Mother/housewife. Sometimes I magically get the wherewithall to use them. Today was one of those days, so I am passing on my experience/idea to you just in time for the holidays....We are all too poor to be ashamed of homemade, ingenious, sweet gifts, aren't we???
Start of 2009, we Moonstones dedicated ourselves to contributing more of our (not much) money to charity. So we scoped out our favorite charites and started saving mailers of who we wanted to give to. I have even more ideas of how to do this, but after our experience in this, we have taken a break from mailing money to charity, and just contribute when we are asked in person, and things like that.
We gave (pretty tiny amounts, really, but what we could) to perhaps five charities in the first couple months. (I won't name them i guess....) Environmental charities, a couple animal charities and a couple diseases....
THEN THE FLOOD OF MAIL..... I don't have to tell you if you've been through this. But I was SHOCKED at the amount of mail that has poured into this house DAILY from this. And especially infuriating are the ENVIRONMENTAL charities....I wish I had the gumption to make a stack to photograph....One day I did take a picture when the stack for that DAY was especially high....
I was just flabbergasted and astounded. It was really bad that the charities we had JUST sent (a TINY amount of) money too, IMMEDIATELY sent mailers asking for MORE money and for RENEWALS....
Then millions of other charities started in. A deluge. Deluge is not too dramatic a word for this.
And they sent STUFF....Paper stuff mostly. Notepads, Greeting Cards, Calendars, all sorts of ephemera. We COULDN'T give more. And we certainly couldn't give to all of the charities that sent us STUFF. The amount of address labels alone could wall paper our kitchen!
Most of all of it ended up in the recycling bin. I just WONDER about the multitudes who do not recycle. This charity mailer thing has to get pared down!
But the reason we are here, is my frugal hack. STICKERS!!!!
Some of the address label sheets had stickers embedded in them. And some just had the little pictures before the name/information. These made perfect FREE stickers for fred and bella (and bastian if he wants!) to play with!!! yay!
We are renting this house, we are planning to move in a year and half. I will NEVER mail 85,342,609 letters to use the address labels. So i kept a FEW (maybe a hundred ha) of my favorites (the exception being the Peta Labels that say "Steffani Moonstone" :)
Cut out all the rest of the little pictures and stickers, recycled the slough, and Viola! Free Stickers for littles!
I don't know about you, but I would not be in the least offended if someone gave my children these stickers for a gift. They are an ingenious present. Nor would I in the slightest ashamed to put them in a cute little box and give them to any other child.
We are all too broke for shame and offense, are we not???? These stickers are a WIN WIN WIN :)
Remember when we were young children? The THRILL of STICKERS!!!! Unmatched. As bribing tools, collectables, etc. etc. etc. Remember sticker books?!!! You could easily make a quick "Sticker Book" out of construction or other paper.... :)
There are stickers in this box of animals, flowers, all different holidays and times of year, fruits and vegetables....all sorts of things...Hundreds of stickers!
Enjoy! :)
(People who say "I don't have time to cut out stickers".......Think of the time, even slight that you are working to PAY for anytime you would ever buy stickers....)
The (million---no exaggeration) Address Labels that i still have left.........plenty!
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