20+ Lean Solutions That Made People’s Life Easier, Better, and Cheaper

Human ingenuity has no limits, and that becomes clear when money is an issue. Finding solutions for all kinds of situations that are simple, good, and cheap seems to be a favorite pastime for many people, and we can only admire their creativity.

Bright Side has put together a compilation of ideas and ingenious solutions used by people all over the world, which may serve as inspiration to save you a few bucks. In the end, it could come in handy, couldn’t it?

1. “My apartment complex rented out 200 goats to eat away at the overgrown path and riverbed behind our buildings!”

2. “Adopted a pup and didn’t want to spend $200 on stuff.”

“Here’s the outcome: a cushion from my mom, old harem pants as cushion cover, old sweatshirt I cut up to make a blankie, a random rope, and a tiny stuffed animal (of undetermined origin) as toys. Pic of exhausted pupperino after our first walk.”

3. “Saved a really nice office chair that was in the trash because it was missing a caster. The ball was found on the side of the road.”

4. “Dog kept getting into the litter box for snack time. Made a gate with some scrap ‘wood,’ tiny nails I had lying around, and a few zip ties.”

5. “My kids loved/read this Bustletown book so much that it started falling apart, but I realized the illustrations were in a sequence, so I pulled apart the pages and put them up on the wall!”

6. “Take-out food containers (mostly collected during the past year) are proving extremely useful to keep our kids‘ Legos sorted.”

7. “Add vinegar, olive oil, and salt to an almost used-up jam jar. Shake vigorously. (Fruit) vinaigrette for basically free!”

8. “Zero waste beach tent”

“Everything from our home. Blanket, kayak ores, and hiking poles for support. Hair ties to attach the blanket. Very sturdy — while others umbrellas were flying away ours was great!”

9. “Instead of buying a new lid (or bottle), I repaired the opening mechanism of my 2-year-old reusable bottle by using the spring of an old pen”

10. “Silly or smart? Laptop heat to warming pad for germinating seeds! 😅”

11. “Peanut butter jar caps fit ball jars perfectly”

12. “$3 dye = new life for my dingy hand towels”

13. “Apparently my father-in-law had been saving the tiny unusable slivers of soap to make one big soap.”

14. “Accidentally cracked my mirror, and instead of throwing it away I decided to make it into something nice.”

15. “This is our bag of used gift bags, tissue paper, and bubble mailers.”

16. “My glass measuring cup fell and shattered. Instead of buying a new one, I started using an old pasta sauce jar.”

17. “My husband had a hole in his favorite pants, so I embroidered a little turtle”

18. “My wife and I thought that we could do a better job than Mattel.”

19. Ready-to-go homemade iced tea

“In an effort to make my iced tea obsession less expensive and also in trying to be less wasteful, I took the labels off of a pack of Snapple bottles and I’ve been using them to make my own iced tea for a while. It’s seriously has cut my drink cost down by like 90%.”

20. “Too broke to buy materials to build a proper raised bed high enough to deter dogs. Repurposed materials I had laying around.”

21. “My wife melted crayons in a silicone ice mold shaped like dinosaurs.”

22. “This is so common with pump bottles. When the pump on this moisturizer reached ‘empty’ I cut open the bottle and put the rest in a container. Should last another few weeks or months.”

23. “My girlfriend practices her tattoo script on bananas”

24. A hot chocolate at your disposal

“When you get down to the last dregs of Nutella, heat a mug of milk of your choice, pour it into the jar, and give it a good shake (open the lid every few seconds to release the pressure), and you end up with a delicious frothy hot chocolate and a clean jar ready to be repurposed after a quick rinse.”

25. “My fiancé capped the end of a cut banana with banana skin.”

26. “My Lyft driver made sure I was able to feel the nice cool AC.”

27. “We never use the top sheet in our sheet sets, so I like to turn them into summer dresses for my daughter.”

And you, do you have an original trick up your sleeve that helps you save a few bucks? Don’t hesitate to share it in the comments.