Tips for the Home Ecomomist

I have always been a jar saver. I blame my depression era parents who built a house with 2 basements just so they would have enough room to save all the possibly useful flotsam and jetsam that flowed their way. Maybe it's just my maritime heritage; drive through rural Nova Scotia and you often see houses with outbuildings and dooryards stuffed with debris. Dad just designed his storage to be vertical rather than horizontal. When I was a child the coloured pieces of plastic for the lite-brite were stored in baby food jars. So it is no real surprise that I have a fondness for re-using empty jars as containers for other things. Honey jars, pickle jars, and peanut butter jars are just the right size for bulgar wheat, corn meal and nuts. I use jars to store all those things that come in crinkly plastic envelopes because they are easier to stack and are mouse proof. How many times have I reached for the skim milk powder only to find it pouring out the bottom from a hole that shouldn't be there?
Lately, the labels on all jars have been rather stickier though, leaving a uniform gum on the jar when I try to remove it and resisting all attempts to scrub or soak it off. I'm not sure why the change happened, but it is annoying.
Maybe the chemical formula changed to make the labels resist washing off because everybody is recycling now, (except NL) and recycling places like jars clean but with the labels still on.
Maybe the companies are using alternative gums that are not derived from trees that are rain forest harvested. If that's the case, good for them, but I'm still annoyed.
Maybe it's just a cost thing.
For the past several months I have been wavering between leaving the labels on, so that the jar says Honey but obviously it is pecans, or taking them off and ignoring the permanent sticky residue. Neither is completely satisfactory.
Today I had a small success. I remembered back to when Studyboy was Carpenter Man and we were shingling the roof. We had to use roofing compound to seal around the flue, and it is a horrible sticky stuff that resists all the usual cleaners. Our friend Ron was helping that day and told us that butter would work. He was so right. It was amazing. So I tried it this morning on a Honey jar, and it worked. I smeared the butter all over the sticky residue, and then soap and water took it away. It only worked on the glass jars though, on plastic the gum just smooshed around and it didn't lift off any better than before.
I don't understand the chemistry, I just use it.