How to Avoid Large Amounts of Dishes and Still Eat At Home

I have been trying to work on my house and work on my health and work on my computer and in the middle of all of that work is sandwiched a whole lot of dishes.

Do your dishes ever get stacked up this bad?

While I and my husband are trying really hard to instill in our children the initiative to clean (and it is working to some degree) I have discovered some ways to avoid plates.  I hate always spending my money on paper plates; therefore I have opted for some picnic and recycle type solutions.

#1. Pizza Boxes - cut into shapes to form plates

#2. Card board boxes of all types (mac and cheese, cereal)

#3. The news paper spread out over the table.

#4. Plastic Grocery Bags one for each person tied in a knot to form a disposable plate or fused to form a more durable plate and cut to size. (the later was Zach's idea:)

#5. Plastic lids that you have no use for. I have tons of plastic or rubber lids that I have no other use for so we often grab some of these and eat on the top side and that works just like a plate. Although you do have to wash these if you want to repeat this in the future but it really makes things stretch if you already have a load of dishes in the dishwasher and don't want to stop them.


Do you know of any other clever ways to decrease the dishes without going out to eat?


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