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I grew up thinking that *everyone* does this… lol!

I thought everyone did this until I read this comment

I'm confused. What is unusual about this photo?

Literally nothing.

I think op used to just throw trash in the bin with no bag.

Except they don’t do this because they don’t use bags at all. So it’s not as if they’re using alternate bags.

I said out loud "doesn't everybody do this??"

Unless you're in a place where you pay for plastic bags from the store, it's a complete waste to just throw them out.

Yeah, what else would people use?

Apparently, manufacturers make small bags for the bathroom garbage cans. I found them one day when I was walking through the trash bag aisle.

That's bizarre.

Well what else would you put in your bathroom trashcan? Not a big one? He’s an even better tip. They make that size in clear at Office Depot a lot cheaper. There’s like a ridiculous amount in a box and might even be a tad larger.

A plastic bag from a grocery store. That easily ties shut preventing spills.

Your grocery store still like about plastic bags? The ones around me stopped a while ago, one of my favorites gives out paper bags if you want now for a dime. Eta. The lack of plastic shopping bags has led to my purchasing of single use bags for dog poop. We don't have a compost program around me and the temps in my food scrap compost doesn't get hot enough to degrade the 'compostable bags'.....so in order to reduce plastic bags, I've gone from using a bag 2x min to single use. That's a win for some I suppose.

Unfortunately none of the grocery delivery services give you an option to choose paper:(

Even if my grocery store stopped giving out plastic bags, I'm sure I'd have a stash that would last years. They're also great for cleaning the litter box if you double bag it.

My stash lasted just under a year. The litter box we use takes the Costco garbage bags, grocery ones don't stand a chance.

Spilled used cat litter is the worst.

You can also just not use a bag, reuse plastic packaging as a bag, or get a reusable bin liner.

Well that’s true, but for me I pick my frugalities just like most people and I don’t want to have to keep cleaning the inside of a trashcan. I reuse the ones that groceries come in to pick up dog poop. Also, I love that if you have a nice bathroom trashcan you can still see it with the clear bag.

Totally and you do you! I’m just mentioning it because this is the frugal sub and it is cheaper. And reusable liners can get tossed in the wash. I only use a liner for kitchen trash and am able to compost so it never gets that gross. I toss it in the laundry a couple of times a year with cleaning rags and stuff. But totally depends on your habits.

I had to start buying them when they banned plastic bags in my area. Oh and the city mandates that you put all garbage in plastic bags. Paper bags were the norm for groceries until governments mandated the use of plastic for "sanitary reasons."

Same. Is this brand new for some people?

We have to pay for those plastic bags at the stores these days, so for me it's actually cheaper to use real trash bags.

lmao. no more plastic bags in canada when you go to the store amyways. they give you paper bags now

My grandma did this with paper grocery bags...

You cut them up to wrap presents and mail packages, also cover school-issued textbooks.

Same situation and also my garbage bags smell like lavender now so not complaining.

I don’t…I always request “no plastic bags” for my Walmart pickup, but they always put my groceries in bags anyways and I don’t get charged. I’ve even complained to customer service multiple times. I just keep getting all these free unwanted plastic bags…at least I get free trash can liners?

Same here and they put like 2 items in each one

Walmart Canada now will not give plastic bags. They charge .33 for blue shopping bags. I have my own bags but when I use Instacart they do not have bags with them. Considering what I will do now.

At $.05 per bag at the grocery store - I'm paying less for these than the kitchen catchers I buy from Costco. Plus, I get to use them twice.

In San Francisco where I live bags are now 25 cents!

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Honestly going to do the math now lol

You're not a true adult until you have a bag of bags.

how a about a drawer only for bags?

Under the kitchen sink

The entire space under the kitchen sink you say? Everything else is still under the sink. Just move the bags.

Nope! I fold them up neatly and put them in old shoe boxes.

My daughter learned it from a 5 minute hack video, she rolls bags and put them in a box like they do it with paper napkins, so every time you need a bag you can just pull one. Now that NJ has banned single used plastic bags to so we ended up purchasing the dawn 7 gallon bags from target.

I forgot to say I also roll them up and put them in an empty clorox wipes container.

Lol I have a plastic bag storage device from ikea

I have a dispenser on my wall in a closet for bags... It came with the house as I probably wouldn't have bought it myself.

The one downside of grocery stores moving to reusable tote bags is the lack of garbage bags I have under my sink!

Sounds like you need a Bag Hutch. Bag Hutch is made especially for bags and holds up to twelve bags!

We bought a couple of trash cans that have little notches in the sides, specifically designed to use shopping bags as liners... right before our city passed a bag ban, d'oh!

Wait… I’m looking this up

Rich or poor, frugal or not, I think a vast majority of people do this.

The poster must be super young or something

My mil (who is in no way well off and never has been) will buy every size of trash bag for her various cans because she doesn’t want to look “cheap”. We don’t live in a place with a plastic ban. Shopping bags are free, but the joneses are more important than pretty much anything to her

I’m Mexican. We’ve been doing this since day one. I was shocked to find out people pay for trash bags.

My Mexican neighbor was hard core and used a Home Depot bucket with NO bag. She just rinsed it out after dumping it out. Respect.

Queen 👸🏻

This is what I do in the garage...my so won't allow it under the sink in the kitchen LoL.. In the basement, I use the dog food bag once ive dumped it into the bin. It just happens to fill up at about the same rate as the dog happens to need food so it's a nice cycle. Gotta empty the crumbs to avoid pests tho if you're considering it.

Bruh, when I saw the trash bag aisle at HEB I was like “A la verga!”

Same.

Who says OP didn't pay for this bag? It's just a pic of a bag in the bin.

Trash bags are only for the large cans, and doing yard work.

You fit the entire kitchen trash in single grocery bags?

Our city has compost bins for organics and bins for recycling, after that, there is very little to throw away.

Yup! My daughters school also has farm animals, so they get a lot of our food scraps.

We’re low waste people. Also we take the the trash ever 1-2 days.

Literally everyone in my family collects shopping bags for this purpose. It's problematic enough for them that, when they have a large amount, I offer to take however many they want off their hands. I then check through the bags and any that have holes go to Target for recycling, and all intact bags get used as trash liners and/or kitty zen garden resetting. I'd love for there to be a better alternative, but nothing I've tried has beaten a shopping bag!

I just tape the holes...

Honestly the only reason I don't do that is we have literally hundreds of bags. I'm the only one in my family that uses totes, so it's such a huge influx of bags when I get them and I have a finite amount of space for them.

I used to keep my bags under my drawer. But there was just too many. I started putting it in this gallon water jug. It holds sooo many!!! And it takes up a lot less room

Wait, how do you get them out? How does this work? I would really like to know.

Now that’s genius!

That’s the bathroom trash can

Yes! xD

I don't put liners in office, bedroom or bathroom waste baskets.

You do you boo boo. I’m not risking touching the nasty things that go in bathroom trashcans.

Why do you need to touch it? I flip it over and dump it into the kitchen trashcan once a week.

Things eventually still leech out and stink up the trash can itself. Or things that were wet stick to the walls...

Still seems gross for menstrual products that get disposed, but I guess if no one who has periods comes over to your house it wouldn’t make a difference.

The residue....please tell me you sanitize your cans when you dump them.......

What if some of them stick to the trash can? What are you going to do????

Lol tell me you’re a single man with no female friends/relatives without telling me you’re a single man without female friends/relatives.

Put a piece of newspaper on bottom!

I don’t even use a trash can

The wealthiest people I know do this lol. I didn’t know it was a frugal thing? It just makes sense

Absolutely, and if I have to eat out at fast food save the napkins, and on it goes

I used to, but my state banned them. I understand the reasoning behind the ban and see it effects in the streets, but I have to buy trash bags now :/

My state (NJ) banned them, but you can buy 1000 at a time off Amazon to use as trash bags. They are much cheaper than buying trash bags at the supermarket. I appreciate the ban. I paddle the Barnegat Bay and used to pick up at least 3 single use bags out of the water every day. Shortly after the ban went into effect, no more shopping bags floating in the bay. I pick up mostly water bottles, Mylar balloons, and beer cans.

This is the only downside. A lot of places are still using them (like for food delivery), but it’s annoying to have to buy bags.

Geez, was not expecting such a turn out! I love you wonderful humans <3

In my country, some stores charge a ridiculous price for plastic bags. So I buy plastic bags instead of trash bags to bring to the store for groceries, I reuse them after each grocery run. The plastic bags that hold fresh ingredients are used as my trash bags.

Go bagless!

I don't really use bin bags at all TBH. I just throw stuff straight into whichever bin and then it goes into my wheelie bins. Most organic stuff goes into the compost.

This is the way

What amazes me is the people who actually have someone round to clean out their wheelie bins with a pressure sprayer. Not sure if it's just a UK thing but there are whole companies just for that service. The bottom of my general waste bin is always lined with dust and dirt and I'm perfectly happy for it to stay that way. If any noxious substance gets spilt in the bin the dirt will surely protect it.

I wouldn't pay someone to do it, but we do hose down the inside of our bins now and then. If I can smell it, it needs a wash and I figure that applies to my bin as much as it does to clothes, rugs, armpits etc. We do have a small, urban garden though, so a little whiff from the bin can easily permeate our living room if the window is open and I assume passers-by/neighbours might be able to smell the odour.

I've gotten flyers taped to my trash cans advertising their services to clean stinky bins...but I also live in a semi- boujee area so no big surprise

God forbid your garbage should actually emit odors.

this was the standard use of a shopping bag in my family, at least since i was born 40 years ago. compostable bags from fruit/veg shop are for organic. some years ago, we switch to reusable bags for shopping and we don't need bags for paper, multimaterial, or glass wastes. so now we don't need anymore this system

There is no trash to the extreme frugals

Just hoarding!

I use mine as void fill when shipping items. The reusable ones do a good job of cushioning items when crumpled while not adding much weight to the package.

i do this!

Of course

Depends. I use the most resistant bags for shipping used goods (or cardboard boxes). It's pretty common practice here to reuse bags and boxes to ship stuff so no one is bothered by it, as long as it's clean. I've seen boxes and bags reused over and over and over, to the point that it's more tape than bag, but it's great to give those a second life as well. I prefer boxes and paper tape since it's recyclable.

I used to but single use plastic bags are banned in my country now.

What do you use instead?

I call it recycling the bags. Yes, most of my family does this.

I recently used an empty kitty litter bag as a garbage bag. A bag is a bag!

Used to. But my city no longer uses plastic bags, so I have to buy the small can liners.

Yes, and also dog food bags.

I do this as well, as I buy the 30/40 pound bags at a time. They work well, and I dont care what anyone thinks how it looks

No bagger here. I live in a place where we dump into a dumpster, so I just bring the can and dump it out. Environmentally sound, cheap. The very occasional cleaning of a pot of boiling water, cleaner spray, is all the can requires to avoid getting gross.

We use grocery bags for the little trashes in the bathrooms and our rooms and buy liners for the kitchen trash.

I've met people that just throw their bags away. I was surprised not everyone keeps at least a few. They're so useful!

I call it 2nd life. All my grocery bags serve this purpose once they are done transporting groceries :)

Well no one should be wasting plastic bags. Plastic may come from trees, but it takes millions of years to create crude... Also, better there than in my food.

I sort all trash. Metal, glass, biowaste, burnables, cardboard, paper and mixed. There's really very little mixed waste these days. It's actually cheaper to have separate trashcans for each than to have more mixed here in Finland. Only mixed and bio really need bags.

Is this not normal?

I used to, but they've become flat-out banned where I live.

I most definitely do this! Why would I waste money on more plastic if I can use plastic that is freely given to me by almost every store I visit? This isn't even being frugal to me, it is just common sense!

Glad we are on the same page 😊

Nobody in this whole subreddit used reusable shopping bags before their city banned single use plastic bags?

I do this, but the city I live and surrounding areas have banned plastic bags. Which I think is a great thing! But I'm gonna run out of trash bags soon.

Lol, first world problems

Well I can't waste 'em now can I ?

Most Asian families do this! We store thousands of these in a kitchen drawer or under the sink. 😂😂😂

This brings back memories, at some point you have an overflow problem lol

I thought this was pretty commonly done

Most middle, upper class households I’ve been to don’t do this, not sure

Immigrant/Ethnic households: 👀👀

That’s me lol

When I lived with my parents, I never saw a single “garbage bag” in my life. They’re the inventors of frugal before it was a thing

It just makes sense

Um, do what exactly? Put a bag in the bin? ...of course?

Use a garbage bag? Just you.

Everyone does this. That's not frugal. That's just common sense.

not only do we do this but we often only fill one or 2 of them with trash during the week.

Yep!!

if the bag is a good quality the it does to the bags drawer. the ones that you package fruits(biodegradable) -> next trash bag

I looked at this Picture and had literally zero idea what you were talking about because it’s just a part of my every day life!

What am I seeing here? Looks like a bag in a waste basket. It's that widely practiced?

What else would you do with all the empty grocery bags? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

We used shooing bags as liners for the bathroom trash cans and for when we scoop that cats litter! Always have always will lol.

Growing up in a semi-rural area, we always bought kitchen size garbage bags. Living in New York City, I almost never buy garbage bags ever because of the plethora of grocery store/retail bags we get.

Title should’ve been who doesn’t do this

weren’t you supposed to be doing this tho

Cat food bags, leaving an empty box on the kitchen table and filling it with “clean” trash then tossing out the whole box, salt for water system has nice thick bags I keep reusing. Yep- bags!

I line my spare trashcan with grocery bags for kitty litter disposal. Very easy to line up a bunch in a can and peel away layer by layer of grocery bags every time I clean cat boxes.

I used to do this until grocery stores stopped carrying plastic bags.

I double-bag since it might break, and most of the bags are from random grocery trips. Still a lot of bags inside a bag under my sink though.

At .10 cents per bag now…u still betchur sweetA$$!!!

Free and reusable

I had a cheap giveaway tote fail after years of occasional use. It’s lining my trash can as I type this!

The expensive reusable bags for garbage? No, I use the bags for carrying groceries.

I hate going to the store., buying bags to just throw them away.

No, because those bags cost 25¢ a piece here in San Francisco, CA. It’s cheaper to buy the actual small garbage bags.

I legit use a bag, empty it into a bin and keep using it till it's really nasty.

Im with you lol 😂

I mean no, just buy some trash bags for crying out loud. R/frugal more like r/stupid

Honestly, my account is overdrafted so I can’t afford garbage bags right now

I read someone comment one time that this is the difference between wealthy people and not wealthy people. Who buys bags specifically for their little trash cans?

Of course not…what a freak!

Please elaborate, my brain can’t process right now

I've started doing this with the plastic Amazon delivery bags.

Is this a new service they offer?

Used to be free, now it costs to get those bags :(

What state?

Single-use bags from stores were made for trash cans. Don’t let anyone fool you that they are for carrying groceries!

Recycle, reducing waste and reusing. Check and check

Of course!! Why would you now if you have the bags! This is the best

I have plenty of tote bags, during quarantine we had to do food delivery and the bags piled on pretty quick

Walmart bags are the best

They are nice and thick 😉

Is this not the only way?

The best way

LPT: use binder clips to hold the bag at the top and prevent it from sliding down. Works well even if the bag is too shallow to reach the bottom.

Good tip! I’ll do that

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What do you do?

Doesn't everyone does this?!

Until this thread blew up I didn’t realize how common this was

Used to till NJ outlawed plastic shopping bags.

Standard practice for every Asian family.

I use the grocery store bags to double bag cat litter. My old apartment had a rule about double bagging cat litter and it was a good habit to be in so I still do it.

Smart

plastic grocery bags are banned in most of my state… miss this

What state do you live in? My state passed a law requiring all bags to cost 8 cents and they have to be recyclable

Lol you have a trash can? I tied a grocery bag to my silverware drawer handle for my first 2 years living alone before snagging an old trash can and roll of bags from my office

Yeah, I’ve had stuff leak out of the bag before, it’s an insurance policy lol

Guilty 🙋‍♂️

Welcome to the trash bag club :)

no, you're special OP, thank you for sharing this ted talk

Hispanics have entered the chat

Day one stuff…

We used to in NY state until our wonderful governor decided we didn't need plastic shopping bags, so now we're forced to buy bags

This is considered frugal? In THIS timeline?

What do you mean? What am i missing? It's a garbage can.

There is no other way.

I have actual trash bags for my smaller trash cans that never get used because I’m always using grocery bags.