seamstome

My cupboards are bare, I plan my quilts before I start them and I do buy extra for boo-boo's, I give away scraps and unused fabric as much as a yard. Heck, if somebodyelse can use it, they should, it will become a UFO at my house and we all know how many of the Board's UFO's actually get completed.

I dont like stashing because I consider it a waste of money although I have quite a bit right now that is going to go to somebody soon. To me a room with hundreds of yards of fabric is thousands of dollars that could be appreciating if invested wisely. Buying fabric that is never used, even if you sell it here at 60% of retail, is like investing in Greece's bonds. Personally I will keep my money liquid.

Since we are asking, for those that are stashers, how do you feel about your fabric being sold for pennies on the dollar when you cant use it anymore?

IrishNY

Ditto!

hairquilt

My cupboards are usually full as is my stash bins. I am retired so I can cook or sew whenever I want. Love scrappy & do the Quiltville method of strips.My DD & DIL both use out of my stash so I have to keep it full on the time. Life is wonderful & GOD is so good to me!!!

justflyingin

Too funny...and sad. :( I live in Europe, so it's forever in front of us over here...

And selling fabric you bought three years ago for 60% isn't good. But many buy it on sale and sell it for 60% so I'd say that many are breaking even (my guess) and just want to downsize.

And I'd venture to say that some bought it for $5/yard and are selling it for $5/yard. I also don't understand buying it at $10/yard and selling it at $6 a year later.

That makes me sad, but I think that maybe the fun (for them) was in the buying and if their pocketbooks aren't hurting, then it keeps the economy and LQS going...

greenini

As far as food goes, I try to have plan overs. I only cook for 2 so I will try to re-use for at least 2 meal. Ex: DH who mostly grocery shops from my list found an already cooked chicken for $2. First 2 meals were sliced chicken with some left over home made potato salad and another veg. 3rd go round was enough chicken salad for another 2 meals, plus the end of the potato salad. Also made home made chicken stock for the freezer with the bones and skin.

My pantry has staples for us, pasta, beans, cans of tomatoes, mushrooms olives, stuff that we use a lot. I also keep enough flour, sugar, baking stuff so if I want to bake something I can do so, but I don't stock pile that stuff I don't use it enough.

Quilting: my stash is mostly bought from yard sales and thrift stores so it varies. I've gotten more selective in my shopping, at one time I bought anything I found, which actually came in handy when I needed to recover the futon, I already had more then enough to do it ;) , but I am in the process of trying to sort and reduce my stash. I sure do use it all: my quilts have come from the fabric I already had, tho I have at times bought a backing and I don't have room for huge amounts of betting so that's a buy as needed.

Recently, I've bought a few special fabrics for projects I haven't gotten to yet, an OBW or two mostly. I don't have the energy to quilt as much as I would like.

gaevren

I keep the scraps from fabric projects (not just quilting) but I don't use them in scrappy quilts or anything like that, and I don't have a stash. I prefer to buy what I need for a project plus a little extra (in case of mistakes!) and then the scraps generally get used as "test" pieces, i.e. if I'm testing out a new technique and I don't want to use my project fabric, I use my scraps instead.

With food, I plan a menu for every week and shop for that week. I don't keep a lot of extras in the house, especially since most of what we eat is fresh and wouldn't keep much beyond a week. I don't keep a lot of canned goods and things at the moment because I hate the store bought varieties, and right now I don't have the time to make my own homemade canned goods, sauces, etc. (although I would dearly love to).

With the exception of a couple specific dishes most of us HATE leftovers with a passion, so I've gotten very very good at estimating exactly how much we need for a meal and buying only that much. It works pretty well- we have very little waste.

Stitchnripper

I don't have a gigantic stash. Very small. I save scraps and most of my stash is from the remnant bins at Hobby Lobby, JoAnn Fabrics, or Hancocks. We love leftovers. We pretty much always eat them all. Since I am retired and am out almost every day, I don't normally "stock up" like I did when I was working. Sometimes if it is not perishable and there is a very good sale. My friend's husband doesn't like leftovers and she is a great cook, so we are the happy recipients of her leftovers. She gets to cook and try new things, he doesn't have to eat leftovers, and we love them. Win Win!!

Glassquilt

Save scraps and keep pantry stocked.

gaevren

Sounds like a perfect system to me!

babalu

This sounds like me!