One Frugal Thing — Selling to Powell’s Books
by Katy on September 29, 2025 · 10 comments
I finally brought a crate of books I’ve been schlepping in the back of my car since June into Powell’s Books. Mind you, these are all free books I grabbed after a neighborhood garage sale day. The Powell’s in my neighborhood only buys books on Friday, Saturday and Sunday, plus parking is a challenge on this specific street, which is how this task took so long to complete.
They only took a half dozen or so books, which was fine as I got them all for free! I ended up with a bit more than $20 in store credit, which’ll be fun to spend at some point.
One thing I made sure to document was their info on what books they actually want:
As well as authors:
I put the remainder of the books in my little free library for my neighbors to enjoy and I can put my “Crap, I need to deal with that!” energy towards better things.
Now your turn, what frugal things have you been up to?
Katy Wolk-Stanley
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{ 10 comments… read them below or add one }
Cleaning the house myself. I am 77 and there are 5 of us in our house. My adult kids with Down syndrome help a lot but no one deep cleans like a mom. Cooking meals from scratch even when I don’t want to. Thrifted Halloween costume for daughter, pumpkin shirt and home team soccer shirt. Reading books from free library, library and Libby. Donated 2 hydrangeas to plant swap at farmers market. Brought home 2 house plant cuttings to root in water and then pot up.
1. I roasted the cherry tomatoes that our house sitter left. Neither my partner nor I like cherry/grape tomatoes raw, but are fine with oven-roasted.
2. I just ordered 10 pounds of coffee. While excessive, it means that I can get it for $6.56 per pound, it is a type that my partner and I both like, and I was able to pay for it with a gift certificate that I had received for fun “work” (being a trendspotter). This should keep us in coffee through the end of the year (we make 1 French press pot per day).
3. Partner brought home another bouquet of flowers (this time dahlias) from work, as someone didn’t pick up their CSA share. LOVE fresh flowers in the house, but I’ll only pay if we are having a dinner party, so this feels fancy! Partner was also given 6 bottles of Sabadi Aranciata Madre (high end Sicilian orange drink mixer), which retails at $16 per bottle. It is at its “best by” date, which is why they were pulled from the shelf, but SCORE!
4. I downloaded a new game from Fetch to get the bonus “play” points. I always download a new game, as the earlier one, the easier it is to reach the milestones. I was able to earn 4000 points for about 15 minutes of playing. This is really the only way that I can earn big points on Fetch as we rarely buy name brands (and I had no luck finding an extra receipt at the store yesterday!)
5. Partner’s brother screwed up (big time), and so his lovely girlfriend broke up with him. We are bummed. The frugal result is that it means 2 fewer gifts at the holidays (she has a son for whom we would have also gotten a gift).
(Also belated: I hope your husband is on the mend!)
I made a chicken pot pie from scratch for dinner with my MIL and middle daughter. I took the leftovers for dinner the next night with my mom and sister. It was delicious and very frugal.
I’m happy to hear that your husband is feeling a little better today.
Glad you were able to get it done. I have cans in my car that I need to do. Sometimes I’m in a rush, sometimes there is a line and sometimes the machines are full. I do love when I get them done.
1. Hubby and I went to a free yard sale at a local church yesterday morning. They asked for toiletries for their Outreach program. I went through my stockpile of things I get on sale and clearance. I put together a nice bag of stuff. I hope it helps some people. At the free sale I got 2 puzzles, 2 books, 3 leaf plates, a DVD, a CD, a small basket, a picture frame, and a bunch of loose colored pencils. They also had tons of bananas and Krispy Kreme glazed donuts. We each took a bunch of bananas. Some are slightly spotted and will be fine. Some are still green. I ate one on the way home. We passed on the donuts. I made muffins with some of the bananas last night and Hubby took some of them to work with him
2. We stopped at 2 yard sales. I bought a DVD and 2 WII games. They were supposed to be 50¢ each but they gave them to me for $1 total. The second one I got 2 small Christmas pillows for $1 total. Hubby and I stopped and went for a walk in a local park. We saw people riding horses and lots of dogs and children. It is a beautiful day out.
3. Hubby made a double batch of chili last night. Still trying to use up everything in my garden. Saturday I made 2 zucchini pies, 1 regular and 1 dairy free for Hubby. I need to fry up some more eggplant too and make more pickles. These are good problems to have. I have been sharing with family and friends.
4. I have a day off today. I am cleaning out the office. It is way overdo. I have bags labeled with each of our adult children’s names on them. I have put yearbooks and photo albums in them so far. When I see them I will give them their bags. I have enough of my own stuff so they need to take theirs. If my son wants the stuff I will put it into a Rubbermaid bin in the basement for him. He lives in a small apartment. The other 2 have their own homes so it is all going.
5. I did a load of laundry yesterday 1st thing in the morning and hung it out while we were gone. I waited to turn the dishwasher on after 7pm because that is when our electric rates drop. Today I have the windows open. Water from washing garden beds was poured onto my fruit trees. The dog’s bowl gets dumped and washed every morning. I use the water in house plants. She always gets the water dirty.
I hope your husband is recovering.
Nice that your used book store is so specific about what they want. Ours is not. We have been trying to get a few boxes over to them every couple of weeks this summer. Many, many books in our house! We sometimes get cash, mostly store credit which I usually share with a few homeschooling friends. We do not need more books!
Did a big shop this week so stocked up for at least two weeks. It is finally a bit cooler, so I have soups on the menu.
Gave a few bigger office items to our niece, good to share and good to have those things out of the house.
Staying home and enjoying the cooler weather on our deck. No shopping happening there.
I used to see people at thrift stores, scanning books into an app that let them know the value. What do you know about that? I assume that goodwill has some sort of automated process to find the “good” books and send them to e-commerce, since I don’t see people doing it as much anymore.
Good for you for clearing out the crap. I need to do that! There are too many books at my house.
I had good luck with such book, CD, DVD services a few years ago, (though I never did hand scanning, just entered bar codes at home), but one company closed, and another changed its name or merged with another. I was very disappointed when I tried it a month ago. They would make an offer, then drop it when I logged on, something in their search algorhythm just didn’t seem right. As they offer free shipping with at least a $7.50 total, yet several of the books were only going to make 23 cents, I gave up and donated them.
What? No Jane Austen on Powell’s author list? I’m shocked.
And I hope that Mr. NCA is continuing to heal after his accident. Best wishes to you all.
1. Our Jewel grocery store gives something away for free every Saturday. Usually it’s something I’m not interested in. But this Saturday they gave away a liter bottle of cold brew coffee. Now that I like! Got one. Also picked up a couple of receipts.
2. I found a dime in the alley.
3. The little free pantry had day-old bread. I took a pack of hot dog buns.
4. I found two clean plastic bags to reuse as wastebasket liners.
5. While at Jewel, I inquired about an online “clipped” coupon I didn’t get credit for last week. They gave me the 50¢ in cash, which immediately went into my laundry cup.
Free piles are rare around here, so it’s worth saying that I did encounter one the other day. Unfortunately, it was all toys, and my grandchildren are all too old for that. I did pick up a set of dream catchers from one of the little free libraries, but I decided my grandchildren wouldn’t really care about that, either, so I returned them to another LFL. I saw later that they were gone, so I’m glad I gave them up.