Ruth Callaway | Waste Not

My grandmother came up in the Depression and never quite left it behind. I grew up in her house in rural Missouri, where a jar was never just a jar, a torn hem got mended before supper, and throwing something away was the last resort instead of the first one.

I've run my own home for forty years the same way. Along the way I've learned what actually works, what's a quiet waste of money, and a few things certain companies would just as soon you never worked out for yourself. This channel is where I pass it along.

Some of it's cleaning, the four-dollar fix instead of the forty-dollar one. Some of it's food you were about to toss that still had a week left in it, or a repair nobody needs to be hired for, or the small kitchen habits that add up by the end of the month.

That's the whole idea behind the name. Waste not, want not — she said it so often I still hear it.

If you're tired of being sold to, pull up a chair.