Adults should replace their toothbrushes every 3-4 months or as soon as the bristles show sign of wear and tear. But what do you do with all your old toothbrushes when it’s time for them to go? Do you throw them away? Or do you find ways to repurpose them?

We certainly do! Old toothbrushes come in very handy around the house. I don’t remember when was the last time we just threw an old toothbrush into the bin without repurposing it first and saving a bit of money, time and effort in the process. While reusing old toothbrushes is not a huge money saver, having such a small brush at hand will allow you to clean those hard-to-reach areas in and around your home with very little effort.

I normally soak the toothbrushes in very hot water for at least half an hour before rinsing them thoroughly and allowing them to dry completely, preferably in a sunny spot. It’s good to get rid of any residual toothpaste before you start reusing the toothbrushes. I’ll then wash them as needed later on.

Here are a few ideas for you to try. Use a toothbrush to:

1. Clean hard to reach areas in your bathroom such as sliding door tracks and inside the sink drain. The toothbrush can be very effective here!

2. Scrub your fingernails after a hard day’s work in the garden. An old toothbrush will do the job just as well as, if not better than, a store-bought brush, but it won’t cost you anything extra.

3. Clean your computer keyboard. If you’ve ever felt the frustration while trying to clean in between the keys on your keyboard then you’ll be amazed at the results you can get just by using an old toothbrush instead. Those bristles really do get in between the keys.

4. Clean your jewellery & polish small silver pieces. A cloth or a sponge will often not do the trick, but a toothbrush definitely will get into those hard to reach spots, especially on smaller items.

5. Clean the grater. Have you ever tried to clean your grater with a sponge but had it shred the sponge to pieces instead? Next time, try an old toothbrush and you’ll be impressed with the results. I keep at least one toothbrush in my kitchen just for this!

6. Clean your sewing machine. As you sew, fluff will inevitably collect around the needle and the easiest way to clean this fluff is by using an old toothbrush – it will all disappear with just a couple of strokes.

7. Clean buttons and knobs on kitchen appliances. This is one of my favourite uses for an old toothbrush as it cleans those awkward little buttons and knobs like a pro!

8. Clean your coffee grinder. I often use my coffee grinder to grind sesame seeds, flax seeds, etc. but then need it spotless clean before I throw in some coffee beans again. A dry toothbrush will dust off that very last speck.

9. Clean your car engine with an engine cleaner for those hard to reach nooks and crannies. My husband uses an old toothbrush for this all the time and swears by how effective it is.

10. Clean the mud off your shoes. Let the mud dry on your shoes completely and then use an old toothbrush to scrub the dirt off. No more messy hands and cloths for this one.

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A good, old-fashioned way of reusing glass bottles from a variety of beverages is to wash them and reuse them as bottles to store water in the fridge.

As a child, I remember my mom cleaning glass bottles (usually from juice, whiskey or brandy). Back then, we didn’t have any of these fancy plastic or glass water bottles that you can buy in the shops nowadays so we always reused glass water bottles.

Glass bottles can be cleaned and sterilised with very little effort. If you think the label would be difficult to scrub off, or the smell of the beverage that was initially bottled in it would linger on, just follow these 5 simple steps and you’ll see how easy it is to remove the label and have the bottle clean and ready to be reused.

Step 1

Submerge the bottle in a clean bucket filled with cold water and leave it to sit there for a few days. I usually leave the bottle to sit there for an entire week.

Step 2

Remove the bottle from the bucket of water and scrub the label using either a scourer or your ordinary dish washing sponge.

Step 3

Wash the inside of the bottle with water and a small amount of dishwashing liquid. You might need to use a bottlebrush, if you have one.

Step 4

Finally, wash the bottle in the dishwasher. Place the bottle sideways at a 45 degree angle on the top rack. Regardless of the size of the bottleneck, it will wash and sterilise thoroughly. Place the aluminium lid to wash as well at the bottom of the cutlery holder.

Step 5

Allow the bottle to cool completely before filling it up with water and placing it in the fridge.

The good thing about reusing glass bottles to store your drinking water in the fridge is that you don’t actually have to spend any money buying water bottles, or even an expensive water cooler for your home. The glass water bottles will come with the drink you purchased or possibly received as a gift.

Also, keeping your water in glass bottles in the fridge makes the water chill really, really well, for some reason. It’s easy to keep the bottles and the lid clean by washing the bottle and the lid in the dishwasher periodically. We usually wash our glass water bottles every 2-4 weeks, depending on how often the particular bottle actually gets used.

The only downside to reusing glass bottles to store water in the fridge is that the bottles, sadly, do break from time to time. Other than that, they will last you a very long time. Carrying water in these bottles while you’re out and about is also not practical. I do, however, have several small (450ml) glass bottles which I’ve reused from ice teas and I use those to carry water or fill them up with juice if I want to take a bottle or two to work or while we’re travelling.

If you’re not particularly keen on reusing glass bottles for water, you might want to consider recycling whatever bottles or jars you might have. Why not find a ‘glass bank’ near you? Search for a ‘glass bank’ in your area here. This is a community recycling initiative by The Glass Recycling Co. in South Africa. Remember that for every glass you recycle, less energy is going to be used to make a new glass bottle from scratch.

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I’m a big fan of reusing plastic containers and tubs whenever possible. I mostly reuse the ice cream and margarine containers, and sometimes a yoghurt tub or two. They’re great for any kind of storage around your home e.g. pens, pencils, rubber bands, paper clips, nails, screws and just about any other household odds and ends that you can think of. I’ve also used these containers and tubs to grow seedlings.

But for me, these containers are really the most useful in the kitchen. Whenever I cook stews and soups I cook in large batches and freeze (see the recipes of some of our favourite winter meals here). I use mostly ice cream and margarine containers to store this type of food as they fit very nicely into the freezer space I have available.

I also like the fact that I don’t have to waste money buying plastic containers to store food. Sure, I do occasionally buy a couple here and there but generally not that often at all. The reused plastic containers and tubs in our household have outlived most of the plastic containers and tubs that I’ve ever bought. So for me, this really is a win-win.

If you are reusing plastic containers and tubs to store food, though, it’s important to think about safety. Not all plastics are safe to be reused. If you look at the bottom or the side of an ice cream or a margarine container you’ll often see the recycling symbol and the number 5. This indicates that the plastic used to make the containers is Polypropylene (PP).

Ola Ice Cream container

D’lite Margarine container

Polypropylene is one of the safer plastics and it’s commonly used to package food such as ice cream, margarine, yoghurt, syrups, etc. This type of plastic can withstand heat which means that the ice cream and margarine containers that I reuse can be safely washed in the dishwasher.

We don’t normally defrost or reheat the food in these containers though. I prefer to allow the food to defrost at room temperature for about half an hour before I wriggle the food out of the container and into a microwave dish to defrost.

Do you reuse any plastic containers or tubs? How do you reuse them? I’d love to hear your ideas in the comments below.

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Small jars do come by from time to time, but not often. Small jars of baby food, fish paste, cheese spreads and a variety of condiments and sauces. I’m sure many of you have wondered, just as much as I have, what is it that I have in my kitchen that could possibly fit into those small jars? How can I repurpose them?

At first I was intrigued by how small they are. They looked cute. And it seemed like such a waste to throw them away so I kept them for what seems like a very long time. In fact, I had kept them until they collected quite a bit of dust in my kitchen cupboards before I realized that I just might have a use for them in the kitchen. They did, after all, fit into my spice racks.

So I put all those small jars that I’d kept so faithfully to good use! I repurposed them into spice jars and added a bit of cuteness and flair to otherwise dull looking wooden spice racks in my kitchen.

Most spices sold in supermarkets come packaged in their own small bottles, which I keep and refill as needed. But I also have other spices that I use in in some of the dishes I often cook which are sold only in packets. Pouring the spices directly from the packets is always a bit of a messy affair in my kitchen. But now, it’s so much easier when it comes to scooping up a small amount of spice with a teaspoon from a cute, little jar!

The jars can be easily sanitised in the dishwasher. Soak them in water for a couple of days first which will make it very easy for you to scrub the labels off (see my post on how to clean bottles and jars with minimal effort). Leave the lids in a sunny spot to dry completely for a day at least to make sure they don’t start to rust. Add a couple of funky labels to your jars if you like and they’re good to go!

I have since found many other uses for small jars in my home. I’ve used them to store tablets, buttons, paper clips and dice. I’ve even used them as gifts: small jars of jam or konfyt make thoughtful, quite unique gifts!

I’ve now made it habit to ask around for small jars whenever I can. If a family member or a friend is using baby food on a regular basis that’s a great place to start with your collection!

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What do you do with those complimentary condiment sachets that you get with your takeaway meal? Do you finish all of them? The tomato sauce (ketchup)? The vinegar? And the salt too? If not, do you throw the condiment sachets away?

We don’t!

On average, we buy a takeaway meal once a month, as a treat. There are months that go buy and we don’t even remember to get a takeaway. But when we do, we almost never finish all the complimentary condiment sachets that are included in our takeaway bag.

So I keep a smallish container in one of my kitchen cupboards where I stash the sachets we don’t get to use. We simply use them the next time we have homemade chips for supper!

Salt and pepper sachets should last for quite some time; after all, how long does salt last in your cupboard? Vinegar has a high acidic content so I wouldn’t worry so much about the expiration date on that one.

Tomato sauce (ketchup) sachets are listed on the Food Facts website as having a shelf life of about 7 months. But then again, how long does tomato sauce last in a bottle? Its shelf life is 2 years.

As a general rule, if the sachet looks like it’s about to explode, I wouldn’t use it but I must say I’ve never actually seen that! Because we make an effort to use all the condiment sachets we save, we usually use them within a couple of months.

This frugal tip isn’t so much about saving money. It’s about not wasting. You have, after all, paid for the takeaway meal, complimentary sachets and all – why throw anything away?

Do you save the complimentary condiment sachets you receive? Remember to use them the next time you have a plate of slap chips at home!

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