Thank you very much to Naomi Seldin, who posted this on Simpler Living. The “Moving to the Pacific Northwest” part made me laugh. Hard.
Must go. Must write eBooks to sell to my audience. đ
Katy Wolk-Stanley
“Use it up, wear it out, make it do or do without”
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I may not have received a return letter from Kristen over at The Frugal Girl yet, (she just received it yesterday) but she did take the time to photograph her letter and post it on her blog.
We’re midway through the fourth week of the 52 Weeks, 52 Letters Project and despite there being an ahem, single week two/week three letter, I’m actually getting in the groove. I’m remembering that I like writing letters, and that they don’t actually take that long to produce.
The key to writing letters for me is to address and stamp the envelopes ahead of time, and even pop a piece of paper in, that way they’re ready to go as soon as inspiration hits. I’m noticing a tendency to have my letters be a bit complain-y, but that might just be because I’ve got a number of things going on in my life that I’m needing to puzzle through at the moment. Hopefully my letters aren’t a huge bummer to receive, and I’m trying to remember to include some positive spin.
And although I have yet to receive a return letter, Kristen over at The Frugal Girl did snap a lovely photos of the letter and tea bag that I had sent her during week three and post it on her 365 blog. Very cool.
My letter this week was to Naomi Seldin from Simpler Living. I had noticed that her interview with Dave Bruno of The 100 Things Challenge ran in The Oregonian newspaper, and she had asked that I mail her the clipping. I figured this was begging the perfect opportunity to check off a letter for week four. So Naomi, watch your mailbox, because a genuine scrappy Katy Wolk-Stanley letter is on its way. (Seriously, my handwriting has become downright insane. Charles Manson probably has better penmanship.)
Have you been participating in the 52 Weeks, 52 Letters Project? Please add your thoughts and words in the comments section below. Those with insane forehead tattoos need not apply.
Katy Wolk-Stanley
“Use it up, wear it out, make it do or do without”
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It’s time again for Non-Consumer Mish-Mash, where I write a little bit about this and a little bit about that.
When Tacky Meets Eco-Groovy
I was packing my son’s school lunch this morning, which consisted of leftover curry over rice, tangerines and a couple handfuls of tortilla chips. It all fit nicely into his tiffin, which was then completed with the addition of a bandana napkin and a tacky 1980’s stainless steel and plastic fork.
C’mon, You know the type. Your parents probably owned a set, and they certainly abound at garage sales and thrift shops. Me? I got my set at a Stuff Swap awhile back when my son’s elementary school was switching over from disposable to reusable lunchware. It turned out that the school didn’t need any more donations, so I kept them and they’ve been great for school and work lunches. Because with this silverware, I am at zero risk of heartbreak if a stray fork or two goes missing.
To buy eco-groovy reusable bamboo To Go Ware, will set you back $12.95 per place setting. Sure, it comes with an recycled plastic carrying case, but I for one would rather keep my thirteen bucks and roll it all up in a bandana or cloth napkin.
Because an already manufactured product will always trump the eco-groovy.
107 and Going Strong
My Friend Natalie McNeal, A.K.A. The Frugalista recently posted a link to an article about Leonard McCracken, a 107 year old Florida retiree whose frugal ways could teach us all an important lesson. Now 41 years into his retirement, McCracken is still shopping at garage sales and managing his own finances.
His motivation is influenced by working at a bank during the great depression and how “he watched people lose their shirts and learned from it.” He took low paying jobs rather than no work, avoided the stock market and built houses and later sold them at a profit.
“He remembers vividly the time that his wife was holding a garage sale and left him in charge. When she returned, he had sold the living room sofa for $100. “I had a very understanding, frugal wife (Dorothy, who died in 2002 at 95 after 75 years of marriage). We gave up a lot of things that other people were buying in order to break even.”
I love this guy. I think we should all gather at his feet and take notes from him. Of course, that’s where we’ll have to be as the savvy guy sold the furniture. đ
Click HERE to read the article in its entirety.
Thrift Stores + Decluttering = A Bizarre Companionship
I am in the midst of a current obsession with decluttering my house, and as I know this motivation can be fleeting, I am dedicating full energy to the effort. Craigslist and Freecycle are helping with bulky items and the stack of garage sale merchandise in my basement is growing faster than a Texan restaurant serving size.
But somehow, my urge to purge meshes well with my thrift store obsession.
Make no sense? Well, I am always on the lookout for organizing products, and we are slowly but surely replacing all the lower quality Stuff in our lives with higher quality items. An perfect example of this would be my oriental rug or the Pier One patio chair that I picked up at Goodwill earlier this month. The chair perfectly matched one I already had, and the addition of this chair meant that a nasty plastic stacking chair that I had pulled from a free pile went back out into the world. I also recently bought a glass butter dish from a thrift store with a chipped bottom. This was no problem, as I already had an intact bottom, but was missing the top. I think you get the drift.
Indiscriminate stockpiling of thrift store crap would certainly be counterproductive to my goal of a clutter free home, but you know I’ll never be able to go cold turkey. I would sooner give up tea or wool socks. And that, my friends would be the day you can be certain that the pod people had taken over.
Katy Wolk-Stanley
“Use it up, wear it out, make it do or do without”
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The following is a guest post from the delicious Naomi Seldin over at Simpler Living. She had e-mailed me yesterday asking for a few joke methods to add clutter into our lives. I contributed numbers 5, 11 and 20. Although sadly, Naomi did not included my favorite cluttering tip, which was:
“Why let the recycling crew have all the fun? Gather up all your neighbor’s newspapers and magazines and throw a periodicals party. Newspaper hats, magazine collages and the excitement of an indoor maze constructed entirely from stacks of Wall Street Journals. Your only limitation is your imagination. Your great aunt Hilda never threw away a newspaper, and neither should you!”
Seriously, how could she not have included this little gem?! Oh well, geniuses are never appreciated during their lifetime.
Do you have any cluttering tips to add to the mix? Please share them in the comments section below, I know we’re a creative group and can come up with some real humdingers!
20 Ways to Create Clutter
Most days I share ways to minimize clutter. But not today. No, sir. Today, Iâm giving you 20 ways you can add stuff to your life instead of subtracting it:
1. Whenever you stay at a hotel, take the tiny shampoos and soaps home with you. Donât use them, though. Hoard them in your bathroom for the coming zombie apocalypse.
2. Treat your home like a museum. Be sentimental about everything, from your first-grade report card to family heirlooms.
3. Agree to store things indefinitely for other people, including your children.
4. If someone offers to give you something you donât really need, like an extra set of dishes, say yes. Itâs free, isnât it?
5. Combining households with your sweetie? This is the perfect opportunity to bask in the thrill of double ladles, DVD players and litter boxes. Donât be tempted to get rid of a single object; you never know when you might need those extra dining room chairs.
6. On to your wardrobe. Donât weed out old things when you buy new ones, and keep clothing in a wide range of sizes in case you shrink or expand like Alice in Wonderland.
7. Solve all of your organizational issues in one fell swoop with a quick trip to The Container Store. Buy loads of stuff, but donât measure spaces beforehand or create a clear plan for how youâre going to use them.
8. Deal with every stray emotion by going shopping. Spend more than you planned to so you can get the free gift at the cosmetics counter, even if you never use eye shadow or flavored lip gloss and already own enough toiletry bags to last a lifetime.
9. Take your âmiscellaneousâ pile of papers.
Sort papers according to category/subject/urgency.
Label each pile as such with a sticky note.
Paperclip each pile together.
File under âmiscellaneousâ in your filing cabinet.
Voila!
10. Instead of appreciating what you have, dwell on the nagging feeling that youâre missing something important.
11. Thereâs nothing in a âfree pileâ that canât become your new best friend. Broken TVâs become objects dâart, and rain-soaked couches transform into guest bedding for the in-laws!
12. Buy sale items because they are such an amazing deal, regardless of whether you actually need them.
13. If you canât sell your old things for what you think theyâre worth, keep them instead of donating them.
14. Take up a hobby or activity that requires lots of specialized gear or supplies, like ice hockey or scrapbooking. Oh, sure, it seems innocent now. Just wait until an entire room in your house has been devoted to your spouseâs model-train collection.
15. Out of sight, out of mind. If itâs tucked in a container or hidden away in a cupboard, itâs not clutter.
16. Speed up your impulse shopping by signing up for âflash saleâ sites like Groupon.
17. Value quantity over quality.
18. Subscribe to half a dozen weekly magazines and a couple of newspapers, and refuse to get rid of anything until youâve read all of them. Stack them until you can get there, ideally on tables that are slightly too small for them, enhancing the likelihood of landslides.
19. If you have a yard sale, put everything you canât sell back in the basement until next yearâs yard sale. Repeat annually.
20. When in doubt, box it up and put it into paid storage!
Many thanks to my all-star team of contributors to this post: Teri Conroy, Ruth Fantasia, Danby Minor, Liz Rotundo, J. Eric Smith and Katy Wolk-Stanley.
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Week two of the 52 Weeks 52 Letters project came and went. And guess what? I sent out nothing. (When in doubt, blame the virus!) I did however have the pleasure of being on the receiving end of not one, but two pieces of actual mail.
The first piece of mail I received was from my Compact buddy Chelsea. She and I had scheduled a get together for a cup of tea last week, but my nasty virus butted in on the plans. So instead, she sent me a darling card with a bag of Throat Coat tea, which I promptly brewed up and put to good use. (And no, wasn’t as disgusting as it sounds.) Chelsea and I met in January of 2007 when we were co-interviewed about The Compact on NPR. It turned out we were neighbors, and we’ve kept in touch ever since, even getting together a time or two.
So thank you, Chelsea! It was a wonderful treat to find that particular goody in my mailbox, much nicer more than the usual advertisements and RN junk mail. (Seriously, the nurses’ association must make a buttload of money selling our names to anyone with a pulse!)
The second piece of mail that I received this week was from an old college chum, Christopher. Although I went to Antioch College in Yellow Springs, Ohio, he and I actually met here in Portland, a few years before I was college bound. He was living my with best friend Mara, and working in her mother’s basement preschool. He was a *giggle* college boy, so I can’t remember any actual conversations we might have had, but he was a welcome familiar face nonetheless.
Christopher turned out to be a buddy of my future husband, and Facebook brought him back into our lives, even warranting a enjoyable visit from his family of five during the summer of 2009.
The piece of mail I received was a padded envelope that included a hand written letter, as well as two cakes of homemade, fresh from the garden lavender soap. How sweet is that?!
I do have two addressed and stamped letters ready to send, I just need to write the buggers. The kids are back in school today, so I have no excuses to shirk this duty. Hmm . . . maybe I should brew another cup of tea first.
Are you participating in the 52 Weeks, 52 Letters Project? Please add your thoughts in the comments section below.
Katy Wolk-Stanley
“Use it up, wear it out, make it do or do without”
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Take that, you demon virus!
I am getting good and tired of the viral menace that has taken up residence in my body. Being sick can be kind of nice for a day or two. Laying about in bed while adoring husband types set up TV’s, bring tea and take care of kid school lunches. Sure, there’s the body aches, wheezing and feeling like crap thing, but it’s amazing how soothing the fifth season of Buffy the Vampire Slayer can be to an ailing middle aged mom.
Yesterday I decided I was feeling much better and made the decision to abstain from sleepwear, which means that I:
Okay, maybe I did too much stuff.
Today I’m paying the price and am feeling somewhat hit by a bus, although I did take a moment to list on Freecycle a big bag of Christmas lights and a pedestal table that’s been on my project list and needs to go bye-bye. Because there’s something very healing about the space created by less crap in my life.
Now if someone could just tell this to the viral encampment in my sinuses. Gotta go, Buffy’s on.
Katy Wolk-Stanley
“Use it up, wear it out, make it do or do without”
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I am nasty sick at the moment, with mucous, asthma, body aches and more mucous. (I’m having a hard time staying hydrated due to all the mouth breathing. Blegh!) I doubt I’ll be writing any actual blog posts in the next day or so, but that doesn’t mean that you have to be Non-Consumer free. There is a Non-Consumer Advocate Facebook Group that includes a highly underutilized discussion area, to which I regularly add cool links and random bits of flotsam.
All are welcome to post on the wall and I encourage involvement from any and all non-consumers.
You can also follow me on Twitter.
Enjoy your healthy lives and steer clear of me for a day or two. It ain’t pretty.
Katy Wolk-Stanley
“Use it up, wear it out, make it do or do without”
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“Everyone has a set number of items. For example, BĂ©a caps out at 6 pairs of shoes, 7 tops, 7 pants, and 2 skirts (1 also wearable as a top). Same idea goes for Scott and the coupleâs 9- and 10-year-old boys (each has 7 casual tops, 1 dress shirt, 4 bottoms, 3 pairs of shoes, and 1 pair of PJs per season).”
“When we started getting rid of things, it was kind of addictive,â she continues. âIn a recession, people are inclined to keep things, but I feel the opposite. The less I have, the richer I feel. Stuff weighs you down.”
“We donât do everything right,â she says. âWe do have garbage. We do fly overseas to see my family in France once a year.â Despite the regressions, the way the family lives makes others at least sit up and take notice: BĂ©a says one neighbor visited, remarking that the house is âfuturistic and alien-like,â opening cupboards and asking, âWhereâs all your stuff?”
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Help, I'm drowning in 2010 Goodwill donation receipts!
If you’re like most Americans, you wait until the absolute last minute to donate to your area’s charitable thrift stores. The combination of the end of year unwanted crap-fest, with the tasty tax deduction is too good to pass up.
Gee, aunt Myrtle — thanks for the off-brand salad spinner/scented gnome candle set/gold plated Elvis statuette!
I, for one, have kept the donation train chugging along throughout the entirety of 2010. So much so, that I ended up donating to Goodwill the somewhat embarrassing number of thirty times! Thirty! Thirty. No, I’m neither a hoarder, nor a recovering hoarder, I just seem to accumulate a lot of unwanted stuff. Old towels, books, clothes, toys, stuffed animals, soccer equipment, you name it, I’ve donated it.
But my twelve-year-old son and I just did a huge decluttering/cleaning of his room and a lot of the discards still held some decent resale value. I sold a few things at the consignment shop, but instead of dumping the remainder at Goodwill, I decided to start a garage sale stash in my big ol’ basement.
I put together two one-day garage sales in 2009 and was able to glean around $700 from our unwanted crap belongings. (It helped that my husband has always picked up vintage cameras from thrift stores, and that a dealer showed up nice and early to pay us a couple hundred bucks for them.) Keep in mind that this was during full recession panic era, so people were holding tight to their dollars and cents. I have two, count ’em two Japanese exchange trips to pay for in 2012, which I estimate will set us back around $5000, and honey, even Coin Girl can’t find that much change on the ground.
My son’s Iron Giant stuffed robot didn’t make the cut, so I checked on eBay to see how much they’re going for. And guess what? There’s an admittedly new-in-box twin robot selling for $500, so I’ll sell that puppy cyber-style.
So yeah, our taxes will be flush with charitable donations for 2010, but there’s really nothing like cash in hand. Especially when a certain non-consumer type has an addiction to Japanese youth exchanges. And I know that I came across another stash of vintage cameras somewhere . . . .
Katy Wolk-Stanley
“Use it up, wear it out, make it do or do without”
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Peaches and Herb may think they own the whole Reunited thang, but I beg to differ. I think the best gifts/ thrift store finds are those that reunite like items. Please glory in all that I received as birthday gifts from my mother and what we then gleaned from local Goodwills today.
My mother gave me the red Pyrex mixing bowl, which was "needed." (Okay, not needed, but really wanted.)
The beauty of a perfectly nested vintage bowl set.
I bought one of these Pier One patio chairs at Goodwill today. I already had one from another thrift store excursion, maybe two years ago. Don't they look cute together?
I had been actively coveting this one of these unused Hall China kitchen canister from my mother's house. (I already had the other one.) Guess what showed up in a gift bag for birthday number 43?
And it feels so good . . . .
Katy Wolk-Stanley
“Use it up, wear it out, make it do or do without”
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