My parents were born in the early-mid 1920's and like many folk from that era, were particularly frugal by modern standards. On top of that, my father was quite pre-occupied with neatness. Nowadays, he would probably be referred to as OCD, or something similar. Like many other frugal people, very little was thrown away and all manner of items were re-purposed. In the case of my father, his obsession with neatness, and his desire to maximize efficiency and always use space in the best way possible, led him to take a great deal of care when packing trash into the garbage can (or rubbish bin as I think we used to call them in England). Trash of different types (food or non-food, and also sorted according to size and shape) would first be packed, as it was being generated, in old milk cartons, tin cans, bags etc. Then, just before trash collection day, he would carefully pack them into the plastic bag that fitted into the rubbish bin. IIRC, larger, flatter items were packed at the bottom to evenly distribute the weight of the trash along the bottom of the bad and prevent it from bursting, then everything else was packed in, according to his fairly stringent pre-determined rules. I won't even attempt to guess what some of them were!
This isn't so much a story about frugality, as it is about OCD-type behavior. It somehow fits in with my parent's frugality though, as this extreme attention to detail and neatness by my father led both my parents to achieve all kinds of savings throughout their lives. One of these days I should write a small book!
