The Non-Consumer Advocate

Today’s blog post is just a sneak peek from a wealthy neighborhood garage sale day, where I hit everything at the end of the day — you know when the homeowners are back inside and everything is free!

This sweet blue wooden table now resides on my front porch, where it serves to hold my crazy spider plant. As a point of comparison, here’s similar table, priced at $58!

Stay tuned for a future blog post where I post the good, the bad and the ugly!

Katy Wolk-Stanley 

“Use it up, wear it out, make it do or do without.”

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1. My husband and spent three-and-a-half hours opening and sorting his late parents’ mail, which resulted in 46 pounds of mail to be shredded at next week’s free shredding event! I’m so flipping happy to have this task in the rear view mirror! Plus we save a cool 46 bucks by not procrastinating this odious chore!

2. I stopped at Dollar Tree on my way home from an errand and picked up dental floss, Q-tips, bar soap, crackers and ginger snaps. I keep hearing rumors that their prices are going up again, so I grab a few extra essentials whenever I shop there. And yes, their crisp and spicy ginger snaps are essential.

3. I made a batch of okonomiyaki to finish up my four-pound cabbage. It included shredded carrots, sliced onion, bacon crumbles, Dollar Tree panko crumbs, eggs, sesame oil, soy sauce, chicken broth and a bit of flour. Cooked pancake style in oil and then drizzled with hoisin sauce and sprinkled with furekake and sesame seeds. It sounds elaborate, but it’s basically just a savory pancake. So delicious and surprisingly frugal, as you can adjust the recipe based on what’s in the fridge.

4. I used my free Domino’s coupon to get a medium-size pizza with double mushrooms for my husband and I to share. Not my favorite meal, but the price was right.

5. I didn’t buy a Lear Jet.

Katy Wolk-Stanley 

“Use it up, wear it out, make it do or do without.”

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1. My step-mother picked up a dozen clearance priced eggs and shared half with me. Unfortunately, my husband recently bought approximately 752 Costco eggs, but I’m never one to turn down free food.

   I’d forgotten how much my family likes deviled eggs, particularly when I embrace my inner Martha Stewart by using a schwanky piping bag. Hello, deviled eggs!

2. Portland hit 82° F today, which is the perfect temperature to break through an Oregonian’s winter chill. We do have air conditioner window units for genuinely hot weather, but for now I’m luxuriating under the sweet breezes from my Buy Nothing group ceiling fan.

3. I continue to take my daughter out for driving lessons, although we’ve temporarily switched from our minivan to a Prius. She’s doing great and should be ready for her drivers’ test in a few short months. (You’re supposed to have 100 supervised hours of driving before taking the test.) No reason to rush things. My efforts save us $50-$200/hour for her one-on-one driving lessons!

4. I loaned our minivan to our next door neighbors, as they needed to pick up their daughter from some activity. They only have one car and borrow ours maybe once a year when they’re in a pinch. I’m more than happy to lend ours out, especially as it supports our block’s sharing culture.

5. I didn’t coerce anyone into buying me an airplane.

Katy Wolk-Stanley 

“Use it up, wear it out, make it do or do without.”

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1. Someone in my neighborhood’s Facebook group posted this photo, letting people know about an upcoming free “Community Shred Day,” which is perfect as my husband has four full boxes of his late parents’ mostly unopened mail to sort through. He’s been procrastinating this task since last summer for all the obvious reasons, but we now have a deadline to check this task from our to-do list. Office Depot charges 99¢/pound for their shredding services and we’ve got a lot of mail to go through! Best part is that there’s “no need to remove staples, paper clips or rubber bands!”

   We have a shredder for our own personal use, but we don’t want to burn out the motor by running it continuously for hours on end.

2. My next door neighbor got more spring mix lettuce in her CSA box than her family could use, so she brought a baggie over to us. Perfect timing too, as we were about to sit down to tostadas.

   

3. I’m halfway through reading a library copy of Brooklyn: A Novel by Colm Tóibín. I know it was made into a movie, but didn’t see that it was available to watch on any of the streaming services that we mooch subscribe to. No problem though, as the library had seven copies of the DVD and no holds.

4. I dropped three things off at Goodwill and took a brief loop through the store without buying anything. I did photograph a few items for a future blog post, but kept my wallet in the upright and locked position.

5. I didn’t require a presidential pardon.

Katy Wolk-Stanley 

“Use it up, wear it out, make it do or do without.”

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Walking into a thrift store is a glimpse into the shopping patterns of American consumers. Whether it’s what people refuse from their parents, poorly constructed fast fashion, outdated furniture, out of style home decor or simply the stuff that was exciting to buy, but less exciting to hold onto.

It’s a lesson in perceived obsolescence, which is described as “A consumer’s belief that a product is outdated or unusable, even if it’s still functional.”

Let’s use big-grommet curtains as an example. These hit the home decor world by storm in the early 2000’s, likely due to the popularity of the homogenized HGTV style. They were the height of home decor sophistication, but like all things that rapidly come into fashion, they quickly fell out of style.

You see them in every Goodwill, at least here in the Pacific Northwest. Did they lose functionality? No. Was there a problem with their safety? No. American consumers were convinced en masse that they were a time stamp from an unfashionable era; and thus, no longer acceptable.

Convinced by people that make zero dollars when we’re content with what we already own.

Is this a statement about curtains? Yes, but also no. Designers of consumer goods make their money from us viewing our belongings as having the ability to go embarrassingly out of style. You see it with constantly changing hem lines, shoe heels, couch arms, light fixtures, electronics, the width of our pant legs and apparently — curtains!

Let’s take a moment to recognize what it took to grow the cotton/extract the petroleum for the fabric, ship it to a factory, sew the curtains, package them up and transport them to the store. Only for designers to later convince us that our perfectly good curtains are now out of style. It took me all of ten seconds to find multiple articles informing their readers how grommet curtains are *gasp* “outdated.”

My example of this specific style of curtains is a place holder for any number of things. If we can be convinced to buy something, then we can be convinced to unnecessarily replace it.

Once we open our eyes to the concept of perceived obsolescence, we become better armed to resist marketers and people who have something to gain from our needless discontent.

My point? Use it up, wear it out, make it do or do without.

Katy Wolk-Stanley 

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1. I gave away a skein of yarn through my Buy Nothing group.

2. A neighbor posted on Facebook about how a local carwash had used overwhelmingly scented cleaning products on her car’s upholstery and was asking for advice. I offered to lend her our portable shampooer, which she’s now coming to pick up this afternoon. Both a borrower and a lender be.

3. I had an e-coupon for a free medium Domino’s pizza, which I’d earned from ordering gluten-free pizzas for my daughter. Unfortunately the gluten-free crust only comes as a “small” as the crusts are pre-made. In the past I’ve gone to the physical location to switch the order, but the staff wouldn’t budge this day on using my “medium” coupon for a “small” pizza.

   I’m not one to force my will on retail workers, so I stepped aside and scoured both the app and dot.com website until I found a decent coupon that worked for a gluten-free pizza. $7.99 later and I was able to bring my daughter a treat.

4. One of our kids is off on a two-week European vacation and I let them borrow a number of things from us. Think portable cell phone charger, small toiletry bags, etc. I also treated them to a variety of flight friendly food options from H Mart and a ride to the airport.

   I like to have a set routine for frequent tasks so I’m not reinventing the wheel, but somehow I’m always at a loss when it comes to figuring out food for longer flights. I end up wandering around Trader Joe’s and am never happy with what I’ve chosen. However, H Mart had excellent inexpensive premade food choices and will definitely be my go-to for future flight prep!

5. I didn’t buy a Lear Jet.

Katy Wolk-Stanley 

“Use it up, wear it out, make it do or do without.”

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1. My husband had a box of CPR supplies to drop off across town, so we made the most of it by also stopping into the William Temple House thrift store. It’s been a year or so since I last stopped in, but they’d made changes in the interim. Think used shoes for $18-$24! My highest level of sticker shock was this small wooden wastebasket that I thought would work as a recycling bin, except that it was priced at $30! For. A. Small. Used. Wastebasket!

   I still browsed the store and bought a used but “new with tag” rubber spatula for a buck. I spied a sign for a 10%-off senior discount on my way out, but it was too late.

2. I made sure to have enough folding money to take full advantage of my gas station’s 40¢/gallon cash discount. My tank holds 21 gallons, which means I save $8.40 per gas tank fill up. (Were my tank actually completely empty.) I rarely let the tank get super low, but the low fuel warning light was on!

   

3. My friend cut me some pretty orange poppies from her backyard, which prompted a small flower arrangement.

   

4. We somehow broke the electrical outlet plate behind the couch, but I replaced it within 24 hours of noticing the damage. I always give myself massive credit for not procrastinating a task. Even better is that we already already had the replacement part in the basement.

   

5. I sold a baby blanket on eBay* for $20, not newsworthy, but still worth the five minutes it took me to package it up and set it on the porch for the mail carrier to pick up!

Katy Wolk-Stanley 

“Use it up, wear it out, make it do or do without.”

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