Savvy Store Blog

What's in a Savvy Store blog, you ask? You'll find business tips, recycling and reuse ideas, creative store fixture use, community events, store design, and much more. We post our blog once a week(ish) and try to mix helpful with a dash of amusement. Enjoy!

New and Interesting Ways to Save Money All Year Long

As the holiday season comes to a close, if you are like all of us, than you are looking to the new year and thinking about more ways you can save money. Well, you know that we are a frugal group, so we've come up with a couple of interesting ways to save money – some you have probably thought of already and some that might just surprise you.

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Reuse!... Yeah, That's All

Paper - PSF uses the backs of letterhead not being used by other companies for our customer invoices. We also use the back for junk mail for our fax machine. And we make small notebooks by quartering full sheets of printer paper and stapling a stack together.

Newspaper – for cleaning glass, for wrapping gifts, for vermaculture bedding, for potty training your animals, for covering up things you don't want to deal with

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Our Foray into the Wide World of Vermaculture – Yep… Worms

Several months ago, we decided to reduce our waste here at the store. Now, we already recycle cans and bottles, wood, metal, cardboard, paper products, packing material, Styrofoam, and plastic, but we didn’t have compost. And we didn’t really have a good outside place to put compost.

Enter the worms. Kelsey, our warehouse guru and leader of the worm clan, took a big plastic tub with no lid and drilled holes in the short sides through which to put long dowels. (This will all make sense, I promise). Then, she got a lidded bin of the same size, drilled a couple of small holes in it’s bottom, and sunk it onto the dowels. The dowels elevate the second bin and allow for collection of worm tea – the coveted liquid waste that is an ultra concentrated fertilizer. The second bin is layered with shredded paper or recycled paper towels, worms, food, and dirt. On the top, place a layer of wet cardboard “to keep the worms moist and the fruit flies out and the smells in”, and put on the lid. Voile – vermaculture.

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Hazardous Waste

When you see "Hazardous Waste", you probably think about chemicals and nuclear power plants and the little red buckets you see at the hospital. And while those are hazardous wastes that require special handling and disposal, there are tons of other things in our regular lives that are hazardous – normal things that most of us wouldn't hesitate to throw into the regular trash.

Paints and solvents
Automotive waste (oil, antifreeze, windshield washer fluid)
Old-school thermometers
Electronics
Air Conditioners
Batteries
Light bulbs – most contain mercury – yep – the stuff ending up in our water and in the fish you eat. I know you don't throw away many, but multiply that by the other million in your community. (It costs money to recycle fluorescent bulbs so if you bring them to us, we might ask you for a little bit to cover the cost.)
Pharmaceuticals
Cleaning and antibacterial products
Aerosols and Propane cylinders
Insecticides, weed killers, anti-mold products
Nail Polish and remover
Mothballs

PSF can recycle, or at least tell you where to recycle, many of these products. Just give us a call and we'll point you in the right direction.

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Reuse - The Paradigm Shift

Not long ago, it was the norm to “shop til you drop.” Buying stuff was fashionable and showed status- fancy clothes, new cars, trendy decor. It was actually uncool to buy something that had been previously owned. Some felt used items were unclean and might give the impression that you couldn’t afford new.

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Reusable Everything?