Reducing waste in the home

I'm a bit of a greenie at heart and fairly frugal, so my motivation for reducing waste and converting to reuseable products where possible is two-fold: save the environment and save money.  It is also very satisfying to glide by all the products you no longer need in the supermarket - our fortnightly shops are usually $120 - $140 which I understand is pretty good for a small family.  Here are examples of reuseable products or other ways that we reduce waste:

• Watering down products - You'll be amazed the number of products you can water down or use less of.  A plumber friend told me it is actually better for your dishwasher to use half measures of powder!  Try using half as much powder in your dishwasher, clothes washing and using less shampoo and conditioner.  I also tend to water down my liquid soap, shampoo, conditioner and moisturisers with about 1/3 water.  Lastly, once your white vinegar gets half-empty, top it up with water and leave it in a sunny spot for a couple of days and it will reach full-strength again.  You can continue doing this 3 or 4 times with the same bottle.  Vinegar has a myriad of uses around the home - try using it in your house cleaning.
• Make your own - we make our own bread, pizza bases, yoghurt, muffins, meatballs, pikelets and more.  We save the end-pieces of bread and any imperfect slices, blitz them in the food processor for home-made breadcrumbs.
• Grow your own - herbs are the easiest way to get started and save so much money by not buying fresh herbs by the bunch.  The best bit is the more you harvest, the better and faster they grow!  Vegies and fruit trees are also a fantastic way to grow your own but I must admit we've had mixed success with those.
• Use less meat - In stir-fries, curries and other dishes we generally use 1/3 - 1/2 of the meat a recipe requests.  For dishes in which a fillet is the main component we try to stick to the 150 - 180g serving size per adult, halving one fillet between us if necessary.  As meat is often the most expensive ingredient in a meal, this can save a lot of money!
• Find uses for kitchen scraps and leftovers - use leftovers as pizza toppings or sandwich fillers, or freeze unused portions of wine and sauces in ice cube trays or zip-lock bags and meals in single or kid-sized portions.  Use stray vegies at the end of the fortnight to make stocks and freeze.  Feed scraps to chickens if you have them (or someone elses' if you know anyone with chooks) or start a compost or worm farm.
• Tea towels, handkerchiefs and terry towel nappies - We generally don't buy tissues or paper towel, but use reuseable cloth options and simply wash them and reuse.
• Feminine Hygeine - I use a Femmecup, which is basically a small latex cup that is inserted much like a tampon, emptied, rinsed and reused over and over.  I haven't purchased pads or tampons in a long time, and it paid for itself in a matter of months but has an expected lifespan of 10 years.  There are many other brands available or other options such as cloth pads.
• Nappies - we use modern cloth nappies full time.  They are just as easy to use as disposeables, and so cute!  Almost all of our nappies are "one size fits most" and have been used since Geekling was 2 weeks old through to now (almost 20 months and counting).  Here's a couple of photos of Geekling in the same nappy at 5 weeks and again at 1 year - the same nappy still gets used but I don't have a more recent photo.