If you've been keeping up with My Precious Pennies, you know that one of my "trademarks" is to recycle containers or random stuff I have in the house. It saves us a LOT of money not to have to go out and buy random containers all the time, and I'll have to chalk this "talent" of mine up to creativity. Yes, I said creativity.
It's creativity that allows me to see a shoebox as a notecard holder. Or an old damaged garage shelf and some old window drapes as a make-shift linen closet. And it's definately creativity that enables me to see old stuffed animals as puppy toys, or puppy pads as changing pads.
When I'm faced with an obstacle, I find ways around it. I don't take "no" for an answer - I just get creative. If a box won't fit in the space I want, I don't just give up and toss that box out. I get creative and reach for my scissors and tape, and within 5 minutes I can guarantee you that box is going in that hole. Granted, it might not be the whole box in its original form and size, but it certainly fits now and can still fulfill its purpose of being a container for the endless amounts of random stuff we have.
Being creative doesn't mean that I'm always off in the clouds dreaming my days away. Creativity has actually saved us a LOT of money and made our lives simpler. Besides seeing different uses for things, creativity has really helped this family make the most out of the fact that we don't control any aspect of our lives and someheartless inconsiderate demons stranger(s) does instead. I can't even control when we're going to have dinner - because if the stranger(s) decide to keep hubby at work for a 16 hour day...well, guess what? We're having dinner at 10PM that night. Or...we can be creative and take the dinner to him and still manage to eat as a family at a decent hour.
And with all the moving around that we've done and are committed to doing for the next two decades, creativity is all that more important. You start to see furniture items as having multiple uses. Our last house had a completely different layout and space than this house, and I can guarantee you that the house we'll be in next year will be completely different from this current house. If we tossed out all the furniture that didn't fit and just bought new stuff each time around, we'd have nothing to move because we'd have to toss everything!
Well, we've started to rethink our furniture's uses. A set of tables that served as bedside tables in the old house have now been piled on top of each other to form our bedroom entertainment center. A cubby that used to hold all my tshirts has been converted to a shoe rack now. Our sofa table found itself doubling as a bookshelf after we discovered this house wasn't big enough for our "library". And all of our old linens and blankets? Well, they find themselves at the mercy of the dogs as their bedding.
So, the next time you're faced with an obstacle, get creative and start thinking outside of the box for a solution. You will save yourself a lot of stress and money. Very rarely will you find something that works perfectly for your purposes, and if you can't find that perfect match anyway, why limit yourself to just that category...instead you should expand your search to anything and everything that holds the potential to fulfill your end purposes. Trust me, no one can tell that my linen closet once held sporting equipment out in the garage. If you approach everything with the motto "I'll find a way", with very few exceptions, you will find a way to make it work.
It's creativity that allows me to see a shoebox as a notecard holder. Or an old damaged garage shelf and some old window drapes as a make-shift linen closet. And it's definately creativity that enables me to see old stuffed animals as puppy toys, or puppy pads as changing pads.
When I'm faced with an obstacle, I find ways around it. I don't take "no" for an answer - I just get creative. If a box won't fit in the space I want, I don't just give up and toss that box out. I get creative and reach for my scissors and tape, and within 5 minutes I can guarantee you that box is going in that hole. Granted, it might not be the whole box in its original form and size, but it certainly fits now and can still fulfill its purpose of being a container for the endless amounts of random stuff we have.
Being creative doesn't mean that I'm always off in the clouds dreaming my days away. Creativity has actually saved us a LOT of money and made our lives simpler. Besides seeing different uses for things, creativity has really helped this family make the most out of the fact that we don't control any aspect of our lives and some
And with all the moving around that we've done and are committed to doing for the next two decades, creativity is all that more important. You start to see furniture items as having multiple uses. Our last house had a completely different layout and space than this house, and I can guarantee you that the house we'll be in next year will be completely different from this current house. If we tossed out all the furniture that didn't fit and just bought new stuff each time around, we'd have nothing to move because we'd have to toss everything!
Well, we've started to rethink our furniture's uses. A set of tables that served as bedside tables in the old house have now been piled on top of each other to form our bedroom entertainment center. A cubby that used to hold all my tshirts has been converted to a shoe rack now. Our sofa table found itself doubling as a bookshelf after we discovered this house wasn't big enough for our "library". And all of our old linens and blankets? Well, they find themselves at the mercy of the dogs as their bedding.
So, the next time you're faced with an obstacle, get creative and start thinking outside of the box for a solution. You will save yourself a lot of stress and money. Very rarely will you find something that works perfectly for your purposes, and if you can't find that perfect match anyway, why limit yourself to just that category...instead you should expand your search to anything and everything that holds the potential to fulfill your end purposes. Trust me, no one can tell that my linen closet once held sporting equipment out in the garage. If you approach everything with the motto "I'll find a way", with very few exceptions, you will find a way to make it work.
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