Practice Resourcefulness

Waste Not, Want Not. You may be familiar with this phrase if you had a parent or grandparent who lived through the great depression or experienced war rationing. Prior generations, mainly out of necessity, demonstrated that philosophy numerous ways and learned to be resourceful with what they had. In today’s world of abundance, why would anyone choose to live that way? I’ll give you a few good reasons.

You tap into your creative side when you have to make do with what you have. It forces you to look at what you have in a new light. You’re forced to use your imagination, which provides insight into something’s hidden potential. You’ll also experience a deeper level of satisfaction when creating something out of nothing. There’s another great byproduct: you save lots of money!


Last year my daughter and I were looking for a fun winter project. We somehow wanted to incorporate her love of Barbie Dolls, yet not spend a lot of money. That led us to the ultimate trash-to-treasure project: A New Barbie House. Keep in mind that her Barbie already had fairly nice accommodations, and we could have afforded to buy her a vacation home if we really wanted to; but that wouldn’t have been as much fun, nor would it have given us the chance to hone our creative skills. Instead, Barbie went “Dumpster Diving” to furnish her home. We built Barbie’s new house out of cardboard boxes and furnished it with fabric scraps, yogurt containers, and other items that were rescued from the recycling bin. Her couch was a re-configured Kleenex box and laundry detergent bottles served as chairs. We began looking at our trash in a different way.

Imagination and creativity are both qualities that everyone has; whether they think they do or not. Like with most skills, they get better with practice. Unfortunately, the “quick fix” of being able to run out to the store to buy whatever we need can smother our resourcefulness. The best way to get back in touch with your creative side is to put it into practice each and every day. Once honed, this skill can apply it to other areas of your life: your career, your hobbies, and even your relationships.

The next time you find yourself running to the store to buy a piece of clothing, a toy to keep your kids entertained or something with which to decorate your home, try re-thinking about using what you already have. Not only will you have extra cash in your wallet, you’ll be putting that great skill into practice.

Assignment: Put Resourcefulness to Work for You Today. Here are some examples:
• Instead of spending $4 on a greeting card, make one yourself. You don’t have to be especially crafty; print out photos from the internet or cut up old calendar pages. When you put more of yourself into an endeavor, it means more to the recipient and you as the person giving it.
• Make this week’s meals using only the ingredients that you currently have in your home. Use the “ingredient search” menu on allrecipes.com for ideas.
• Redecorate a room using things you already have, or create new artwork for your walls by painting over an existing canvas or putting new photos in old frames.
• Get your kids in on the action by making a toy with household items. Chances are you did this as a kid yourself: remember homemade play-dough and paper plate maracas?

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This is where my DH shines! He once created a canoe trailer for our rowboat trailer, and he used old scraps of wood from our shed!

He built a custom gate for our fenced in pool area with more scraps of wood from the shed.

DS uses our VHS tape cases to create castles and rooms for various "guys" and their exploits.

DS makes all of our birthday cards. I have even had him make a birthday sign that we photograph (with DS holding it) to send on email.

And Kim -- I remember the fun of making toilet paper clothes for Barbies, and making cardboard furnishings for the Trolls I secretly kept in my desk in elementary school! I think my Trolls had brown paper towel bedspreads!

Remember making hats out of newspaper? DS still thinks this is great!

Marlene

That's a good one! I had forgotten about those. I wish I remember how to make them.

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Not that it goes along well with decluttering but I just helped my mom clean out her attic 3 weeks ago. We Saved all our childrens books, my little ponies, Trolls, Barbies, baby dolls, legos. So now we have a good start to our DDs barbie collection without it costing a dime.
Still as kids we had a lot of fun with our glue gun.
I have a friend who gets all her kids toys through free cycle sites or craigs list.
My mom kept our baby clothes for dolls.

I knit and one I am interested in trying is buying a sweater at good will and unraveling it to make something different

We are always looking for ways to be resourceful DH just brought home a new work service for his garage with scraps from work.

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Kimberly Proud Mommy to Bethany Rose April 2006 &

Organizer of the Coupon Clippers of Tacoma