Ten Uses For Junk Mail

Everyone gets junk mail. Tons and tons of it. And everyone does the same thing toss it straight into the trash. Well I’m going to show you ten things you could do instead to save some money.

#10 clean skillets.

I have made the switch from Teflon coated pieces of crap to two, soon to be three, cast iron skillets. It took me a bit to get the hang of proper care for them but now I love them. Cleaning them is so easy too. Just wipe them out after cooking. At first I used paper towels but using three or four paper towels per skillet each time goes through towels quick. My solution is to use the news paper like adds that come in the mail every week or so. I get easily enough per week to clean my skillets. If I have any left over I save them or use one of the other uses on the list.

#9 Drying rack

They make great drying racks for various needs. I’ve used them under dishes, paint projects and Biltong making. Most times you can reuse the same paper several times. I would suggest not to reuse Biltong paper however.

#8 heating home.

I heard about a guy that built a rocket mass stove to heat his home and one winter only used junk mail to heat it. To me this adds even more of a desire to build a rocket mass heater. They often times only need to have a fire in them once a day and a small fire at that and radiate heat for the rest of the day and more.

#7 compost

     Tired of getting credit card offers? Throw them in your compost pile. The tiny organisms in the soil will enjoy eating them and later you’ll enjoy eating the plants you grew from the soil visa and MasterCard gave you.

#6 patterns for sewing

 I’ve used this one several times making small things. There are tutorials online on making much larger patterns for clothing using whole news paper sheets. For smaller pieces of mail you can easily make wallets and bags.

#5 Duct Tape holders

     This is another one I use regularly. Anytime I get one of them fake credit cards made of plastic in the mail I wrap it with duct tape. It make the roll much more compact and easier to carry. I’ve done thing with as few as a couple of wraps to have some tape in my wallet and as much as a whole roll before. Its my preferred method of carrying duct tape

#4 seed starting

This is a neat one that I have not done yet. You take news paper and wrap them into little pots to start seeds in then just plant the whole pot.

#3 windows

Want clean windows? One of the best window cleaning solutions out there is newspaper and spray vinegar. They leave you streak less every time and at a fraction of the cost of commercial cleaners.

#2 gardening

Have too many weeds? Trying to kill you horrible lawn and replace it with something edible? Cover your ground in junk mail, newspaper and cardboard. Then mulch heavily on top. That should eliminate most everything.

#1 Bag from envelope

This is a cool one and one that Ill be working on real soon. If you get any mail in one of those plastic mail envelopes keep it. The plastic is tyvek the stuff used to insulate houses. Its extremely strong and waterproof. Ill link to a tutorial on making one into a keep sack. Heck even without modifying you have a free dry sack to keep things in. Here is an article by ITS Tactical

That’s it for my uses for junk mail. If you have any suggestions that you use let me know in the comments.