Errands are Definitely More Fun With a Friend!
I roped my friend Lise into being my date for a Goodwill/IKEA run and had much more fun than if I'd run these errands by my lonesome. I'm especially pleased this worked out, as I only gave her an hour or so of notice.
Before heading out, a fresh supply of gasoline was in order. Luckily I'd anticipated this need and had enough cash on hand to earn the 35¢/gallon discount from my favorite nearby gas station.
Our first stop was the Goodwill location on 122nd and Halsey, which was somewhat on the way to IKEA. All Christmas merchandise was already priced at 50% off, so I grabbed two rolls of 99¢ wrapping paper and a $6.99 three-pack of hand knit Christmas stockings!
My best deal was this hand blown art vase, priced at just $4.99. I did a quick Google image search and easily identified the artist, (Scott Beyers) whose work sells for hundreds of dollars. Picking it up to resell was a no brainer!
Here's everything I bought, which set me back a budget friendly $10.98. The wooden plate stand was the half-off color tag and will come in hand when photographing flat items for eBay. I don't get to this Goodwill all that often, but that might need to change as this location seems less picked over than other locations.
Our next stop was IKEA, where I grabbed a couple of their Trixig-15 tool kits to give as gifts. I tried to source them used, even setting an "alert" on Facebook Marketplace in case someone listed one, but the sellers were always too far away. It try my best always buy used, but it's not easy when there's a December 25th deadline.
Lise and I took the elevator upstairs to the cafeteria to grab free coffee, which is our routine. I always make the dad joke of "Can I treat you to cup of coffee?" which consistently gets a pity chuckle. They had cookie samples out, which was the perfect accompaniment to our beverages.
Free coffee + free cookies = my love language!
Lastly we went to the downstairs food court, where I treated myself to a $1.40 veggie dog, because I'm fancy that way!
I immediately got to work once home, spending maybe fifteen minutes photographing and listing the vase. No opportunity to make money, if I procrastinate the task!
Click HERE to see the eBay listing! And that backdrop? It's just marble print Contact paper stuck onto a piece of poster board. It's great for when I'm photographing 3-D items, as I can bend the paper. The lighting is courtesy of the sun on my front porch.
I love having a companion who's willing to anchor our friendship with seemingly dull trips to grocery or thrift stores. Neither of us needs to anchor our socializing with restaurant meals or drinking. It's frugal and feeds both our souls.
Katy Wolk-Stanley
"Use it up, wear it out, make it do or do without."
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Wow! That vase is beautiful. It would be hard for me to give it up if I'd found it.
My frugal win last week was an enormous side of salmon that my coworker's MIL gave her. She *hates* salmon, which MIL knows, and I offered to buy it from her when I heard her complaining in the break room. "Girl, you can HAVE it!" And she brought it in the next day. I've had it for dinner twice, made a batch of salmon corn chowder for lunches this week while WFH today, and cut/wrapped the rest for the freezer. I also cut a large section of the skin into strips & roasted them. The pieces make good treats for my kitty & another friend's chihuahuas.
Donated books to a couple of little free libraries and took some of my late mom's winter clothes to the women's shelter. They told me they'll take any season clothes because some residents arrive with nothing, so I'm going to bag up some more & drop them off after work tomorrow.
I would never, ever give my salmon strips to cats or dogs. I WOULD EAT THEM ALL MYSELF! My favorite thing is to pan fry our salmon and eat the skins while my husband eats 2/3 of the meat and I get the rest of that. Most of the year we eat salmon several times a week and I look forward to that dinner more than most others. Our salmon is wild caught and farm salmon tastes different, so perhaps the skins do as well?
While I only eat salmon when it is in lox form, I do love turkey skin so I hear you on your love of salmon skin. To each her own to enjoy.
I'm with Lindsey about the salmon. And I can't help making up a letter to Dear Abby about the MIL who keeps giving the DIL salmon when she knows the DIL hates it. 😛
Merry Christmas to all who celebrate it! The big day is getting close!
--1. I got not one but TWO invitations to celebrations (+ church service) on Dec. 25. My church will do communion at 10; two friends will have a come-and-go thing from 11-2 and my neighbors invited me over for supper at 5. So this Christmas Day will not be spent alone! (Or, should I say, just me and the dog....sorry, Snuggles. But I'll leave you with a nice big chew toy.)
--2. Neighbor wanted me to bring the rolls. So I went to our store on my day off and grabbed up some.
--3. I have to work on Christmas Eve, but as usual, boss will bring BBQ for us. How Texan is that? 🙂
--4. Salvation Army piano player was on the store's front porch, and liked the church bulletin (with Advent/traditional sheet music printed in it) that I gave her. I got her 4 copies, in case she wanted to do a quartet.
--5. Found a secondhand garden flag holder for under $7. Was able to put it up with my Christmas flag in the front yard. Bought the latter on clearance last summer when a store was going out of business. When the holidays are over, I can use it for political flags.
1. Yesterday my husband installed new brakes in our paid off car. He picked up tools for the job from O'Reilly's as part of their rental service and returned them today on his lunch break, we'll get the money refunded ($75!). We paid around $65 for the brakes which is a far cry from the ~$300 we were quoted from the mechanic.
2. I made a solid dent in my meal prepping between last night and today! A little over 10 cups of oat milk, a batch of vegan 'buttermilk' biscuits- half of which was dinner and half was turned into 'dumplings' for our chicken and dumplings, three loaves of bread, nine hoagie style rolls, nine dinner rolls for Christmas Eve dinner, pumpkin muffins, and banana muffins.
3. My oldest daughter has been obsessed with building forts with cardboard boxes in our living room over the last few days. Free entertainment! She and her little sister are also using our hodgepodge of crayons to color and decorate their creations.
4. Caught up with a friend a bit today between errands and let her know that our house is for sale as she was looking the last time we were together. She let me know that it's not in the area they're currently looking but will pass it on to people she knows. Hopefully the power of word of mouth works in our favor! Can't beat the cost of free advertising 😉
5. Confirmed plans for Christmas Eve dinner and plans this weekend with various family members. All of our gifts are wrapped and ready to go under the tree. My oldest daughter told me she wanted me to ask Santa for a new hairbrush for Christmas since hers has seen better days. Lucky for her we had the same thought when we purchased our stocking stuffers!
Gorgeous vase! I am always amazed at your GW finds.
Making fish tacos out of Sunday family dinner halibut fish sticks dinner. Using fresh baby cilantro from the greenhouse and cabbage still growing in the garden.
Used my year end farmer co-op share/rebate to buy road diesel at the current awesome prices.
picked up 2 grocery totes of cans on my walk with a neighbor this morning. They are all the same energy drink brand, maybe the same person littering everyday?
Today i planted garlic, shallots and more tulips. The tulips were a Yule tide gift.
A house flipping friend offered me wet wood from a backyard shed that had a holey roof. I am decorating my hearth with 5 pieces of wood, turning them until they feel dry, then burning them the next day. About one month's worth!
What an amazing find! Our Goodwill never offers up anything like that!
I did an hour's worth of walking today. It was warmer than it has been. I have to grab the walking weather when I can. I found two receipts, and at the little free pantry I got carrots and celery which I'll use in soup tomorrow.
I bought gas at Sam's. I make sure to keep the tank at least half full in winter. I noticed that the price -- 2.64 per gallon -- was quite a bit less than anywhere else.
I sent cash to my son in Oregon via PayPal -- Christmas gifts for the family. Local son's family is getting cash, too. Happily, I didn't even have to raid my savings. Christmas prep is done, except I might do some baking tomorrow. Or not. It's not expected.
(1) Transported rescue puppies ( kennels in the cargo hold with 5 dogs total)on my airline ticket. Did it before the airlines stop during the holidays. No cost to me, other than arriving at airport two hours in advance.
(2) Purchased and made offers on Ebay for potential future gifts for grandchildren. Some were NWT items, though their parents are fine with used items as gifts.
(3)Used a lounge pass for a breakfast at the airport before I left. The pass was my daughter’s and would have expired on the 31st.
(4)Brought in my carry on luggage ( only luggage I had) LED light sticks from a family wedding for all the grandnieces and nephews.
(5)One flight was delayed 6+ hours. I checked the laws in my country and found that the delay might entitle me to a monetary reimbursement or a larger flight pass reimbursement. I tried submitting within 48 hours but they do not have to begin a claim until 72 hours have passed. I waited, I submitted, supposedly I should hear within 30 days.
I envy you your access to Ikea - the closest for me is about 5 hours of travel (including waiting) - driving an hour, wait at ferry terminal at least an hour, drive another 40 min. then turnaround and do it all over again. so I have only been to an Ikea 3 times in my life.
Even Costco is an hour away, however I do make an effort to get one of those chickens if I am at all able to time it right, when travelling to see my Mom.
1. The used bookstore 'caught me' again when I was at the pharmacy – in their display window was a “Yoga for Babies” book that was so cute, perfect for my grandson's parents.
Of course, there were a few other books that caught my eye when I was trying to pay (I had to almost crawl into the window to pull the Yoga book out, so I was way inside the store, always a challenge to get out with only one book! LOL).
Anyway, I only pay half price for the books (half of the already low used bookstore price) because I have a credit from bringing in many books of my own, my Mom and Dad, and one of my buddies who has gifted me books to pass along. Apparently I have over $500 in credit, so.... dangerous.
2. Turkeys aren't as cheap as they have been, but my local grocer had a reasonable price with a $50 grocery purchase (including the turkey). I should have bought last week = the same deal but the turkeys were smaller. However, I have some plans for the extra meat and a freezer so nothing will go to waste. Butter was on sale (again, nothing like we have seen but I will take what I can get) so I loaded up with the max 4 pounds and those are in the freezer.
3. My favourite thrift store, where my thrift store buddy volunteers, was having half-off on their Christmas stuff. I found a really simple cute golden 2 ½ foot tall table top Christmas tree (more like a Christmas cone – with a star on top and a gold bauble dangling inside. I already had some teeny coloured led lights on a string - powered by a couple of AA batteries, so I wrapped that around the tree and essentially am fixed for decorations.
I have more coloured lights hot glued to my living room windows, and a white one wrapped around a philodendron.
I'll find the red table cloth for the coffee table and call it a day. I'm not really bah humbug but the un-decorating part of Christmas is a huge anxiety trigger, so the least done at the front end the easier when the season ends.
4. My big pack of 48 Duracell AA batteries has a few duds that are leaking out the negative end. The package says they are guaranteed for 10 years, so I have carefully collected them with the code and the phone number and will call on a working day. Such an annoyance!
5. I get to clean up my office because a friend is staying over during Christmas and needs a bed. My mom is coming and staying in what is currently my only remaining guest room (as my Roommate is in the bigger guest room).
There have been many boxes of things dumped in my office, (including 4!! of books) and tackling it has been a scary thought for far too long. I used the “How long will it Actually Take” approach to get myself started (although, per usual, I forgot the before photo).
After only 75 minutes, I had sorted all the present wrapping supplies (mostly bags, tissue paper and a few ribbons) into three tidy bags, put aside several dozen books for the used bookstore in January, moved more books to various household bookshelves, collected a slew of feel good DVD's to post on our Buy Nothing Facebook Group, offered a piece of exercise equipment to my trainer (she said yes), moved an annoying chair into a corner out of the way, and found my missing red scarf and some Christmas stockings. Whew. The cleaner is coming and I will send her and her vacuum in to deal with the spiders and dust.
Tomorrow #2 son will bring me a cot and a mattress for my friend (as my own cot is hidden somewhere in the house by my too efficient cleaner), so I can make up a nice bed for her before she comes.
Wow, that vase is beautiful! It's immediately obvious that it's high quality and of value, a great find.
* One of my son’s peers left a reusable water bottle in his car. He asked everyone he could think of but nobody claimed the bottle so we have now adopted it.
* Mended yet another pair of pyjama pants. Last mend for this pair, if it rips again it will need to be discarded.
* My son was able to fix my daughter’s laptop by replacing the charging port. He had to disassemble and reassemble the whole laptop and it took him a long time, especially as the keyboard was not working when he first reassembled ti, but he got there in the end!
* Recent favourite library read: Perfect (Rachel Joyce)
* Resisted buying tea that I tried at a friend’s house and really liked. We have SO MUCH tea at home, we really need to make a big dent into the current stash before I will consider getting more.
The vase is gorgeous. Even better is your genuine friendship. Relationships can make all the difference in our lives.
We are hosting our annual big Christmas Eve brunch tomorrow. It's the one party we host all year and much looked-forward to. (People stop me in June to ask if we're having brunch again this year.) It's not cheap, but I have the same menu every year and keep a list in my phone of ingredients, so that in the weeks prior to the party I can snatch up any sale items. Over half the items this year were scored on sale, so that helps. Most of the serving pieces are borrowed or thrifted and I don't buy any additional decorations, just use what we have.
Some of my closest friendships are anchored in hiking or workout classes (no additional money out of pocket), and I really enjoy weaving my friends into every day activities, like working out.
1) DH taught DS19 how to change the oil in his car. Less expensive for sure, but also a useful skill. We have to bring the old oil to a specific place to pay for safe disposal, and the staff always comments about how we are some of the only people around who change our own oil. 😉
2) Booked out a flight for DH using a credit set to expire. It was a bit of a hassle, as I had the confirmation code with one extra digit, but we ended up getting it sorted.
3) We set up a donor advised fund to pave the way for lots of future gift giving. We maximized the benefits by doing it this year before the tax changes, and choosing our lowest cost basis stock. This allows us to give even more, and I wish we knew about this earlier. Dang it. But, better late than never, and we are excited about our future gifting & already planning what we will do with this money. We definitely want to do a scholarship at the high school DS18 & DS19 went to, but we are thinking we need a bit more to allow that to be a yearly thing.
4) We are bringing my nephew's birthday gift vs mailing it (poor December birthdays), as it was going to be nearly $30 to mail.
5) We are using free flight credits (we were supposed to go to Spain in the spring, but then both of us were unexpectedly not working, so we decided to postpone) for our holiday travel this year. A trip for four, even a relatively short jaunt from San Francisco to Portland is very pricey. Luckily, the credits more than covered the cost.
Fantastic find on the vase!
1. My sewer lines are fixed and so is my water line that they accidently cut. I paid zero for the above! Unfortunately the sewer people ending up cutting the town's main water line one street over from my house, and we were without water for about twelve hours. It has now been fixed and I am so happy!
2. I plan to walk in my neighborhood, as I did yesterday and do most days.
3. I plan to clean my house today because the workers going in and out brought in a lot of red mud.
4. I plan to take a nap today.
5. Tomorrow, I plan to pick my ex husband up and we travel to see our oldest son in the northern part of the state. That is not necessarily frugal for me but it is for him because I am driving. He does not need to drive long distances with his health issues at the moment so it is perfect we can go together and his house is on my way to visit our son. Perfect!
I’m surprised you didn’t swing by the bins on your way to or from IKEA. I always use an IKEA run as an excuse to visit the airport bins. That’s how I stumbled into my recent $275 bins sock windfall. (I’m still excited about it!)
Good eye on the vase. I would have assumed it was some sort of Home Goods thing.
My frugal thing right now is that I am using the wrapping paper I already have. I have a hard time resisting exciting new wrapping paper. I think I have enough to get me through several more christmas seasons. Of course, none of it was purchased at full price. Some of it came from free piles. I’m resolved to not acquire any new wrapping supplies EVEN IF THEY ARE FREE. (The same goes for seasonal decor!)
Another frugal thing is that we’ve come to an agreement not to exchange gifts with the snobbish sister-in-law and her family. It’s such a relief! We usually spent more on her kids than we spent on our own kids.
It's so hard to just pop into the bins, as it always takes at least a hour.
What are the airport bins?
It's a Goodwill Outlet store, aka "the bins" that's close to the airport here in Portland.
I learned that my husband’s cousin has a new foster daughter, and was thrilled for the opportunity to go out and hunt down a last minute gift, as we’re spending Christmas with them.
I found an adorable pop-up version of the classic winter story “The Mitten” for $1.99 at goodwill in perfect condition!
With DH gone until 1/4, I am enjoying peace and tranquility with being able to STAY HOME. I didn't even go out to our rural mailbox to get mail. It will wait until tomorrow.
Amish school cancelled today on account of weather (icy). A kink in the paycheck; however, DH reminded me this morning that I can apply for partial unemployment for this week and next. My next paycheck on 1/9 is really going to hurt (less than half of what I normally get, so I'm diligently working on getting all the bills possible paid that are due before my next regular paycheck on 1/23. May be beans and rice for a few weeks and DH is just going to have to "sùck it up."
DH's bro gave us a large ham for Christmas. The people DH is house/dog sitting for told him we're getting another huge ham from them. I can eat ham, but not a huge fan. Lots of ham, string beans, and potatoes in DH's future.
Heating oil got delivered today! I don't have to keep the thermostat at 60 to conserve the less than 1/4 tank we had. My sister loaned us $225 and we were able to come up with $225 which I prepaid yesterday so that the fuel could be delivered. 125 gallons minimum for delivery. Told the secretary to give us however much we could get without going over the $450. We got 155.4 gallons and the total was $449.96. We have a whopping $.04 toward our next delivery. I'll take that as a win...no matter how small. The gauge now reads just under full, so; hopefully, that will see us through until spring.
Making cookies to give to my Amish families for Christmas. Cake mix + 2 eggs + just under 1/2 cup oil would make Cookie Monster very happy. I made lemon to which I added Craisins and coconut; spice with raisins, walnuts, and cream cheese frosting; and I have pineapple with a candied cherry yet to make tonight. I have a small cookie scoop and I'm scooping up 1 scoop, then dividing it in half for bite size cookies. I had all the ingredients and, making smaller cookies will actually give the illusion of lots of cookies once I package them.
Having a Banquet Turkey Pot Pie for supper. $1.39. Had a nice bowl of hot oatmeal and a cup of hot tea for breakfast for pennies.
The few "Christmas Cards" I sent were not actually Christmas cards, but rather free religious postcards available from my church. Wrote a Christmas message on them, applied postcard postage (less than 1st class mail) and mailed them saving me quite a bit of money.
Hung Christmas cards we recieved on a piece of green posterboard, which is hanging from a curtain rod. Once Christmas is over, the whole shebang can go in recycling.
Wow, that vase is stunning! A little out of my decorating budget but I can appreciate the beauty of seeing it online 😉 I love your last-minute goodwill finds.
Someday I hope to have a frugal buddy. 🙂 Good luck with the vase sale - quite the score!
I live where Orient and Flume is located. I LOVE their stuff. What a great find! I only have one item from there and it was a graduation gift from a former college instructor.