10 Ways to Re-Use Coffee Grounds

It's Thursday, time for my bi-weekly post on re-using things that you have around the house!

Let's see, we have talked about re-using ice cream buckets, egg cartons and milk jugs.  After reading through more of your suggestions, there was one that stood out to me.  Used coffee grounds.  When I first read that I thought, "You can't re-use coffee grounds.  I know I'll never do that one!"

Well, here I am....about to tackle that one.

Since my hubby was able to think of three of these right off the top of his head (hmmmm, maybe he should be doing these lists), I thought I would keep thinking and try to come up with a few more.


10 Ways to Re-Use....Coffee Grounds


1.  When my husband was a little boy, he used to collect nightcrawlers and earthworms and keep them in a container.  He would put dirt, torn up newspaper and used coffee grounds in with them and store them in the fridge.  Apparently, they would keep quite well for a week or two until he went fishing and used them squirmy little goobers as bait.  I asked his mom about this and she never knew he did that.  Can you imagine?  Opening a container from the fridge and finding a bunch of worms?  Ha ha.....boys.

2.  I've read in gardening books that ants, slugs and cats don't like coffee grounds at all.  So the grounds could be used to thwart off these critters.  I've never tried it and if I were going to, I'd probably do a little research first.

3.  If you make homemade soap, add some used coffee grounds to a few bars.  These bars work great to get stinky smells off of your hands.  Here is a pic of some that I made:

4.  Speaking of stinky smells, coffee grounds work great for deodorizing the fridge and/or freezer.

5.  They will also work for deodorizing drains.  Sprinkle a small handful of used coffee grounds down your stinky drain and then pour a good amount of boiling water down there.

6.  Dried used coffee grounds would make a great filler for pin cushions.

7.  Apparently, acidic plants love coffee grounds.  These would work for indoor or outdoor plants.  Again, you might want to do a bit of research to find out which plants are acidic.  Right off the top of my head, I think roses, carrots and radishes are.....but don't quote me on that.  ;)

8.  Considering set-in coffee stains can be a bit difficult to get out of clothes, I bet you could use coffee grounds to make some sort of dye.  That could be a fun experiment!

9.  I know people who run at least two pots of coffee through their coffee machine before changing the coffee grounds.  Now that's frugal!

10.  If nothing else, throw them in your compost pile.


I'm so bummed.  Last night, as I was laying in bed, I thought of THE best use for used coffee grounds.......but for the life of me I can't remember what it was.  Sigh.  I really need to put a notebook and pen right next to my bed.  Oh well.