The Non-Consumer Advocate

1. I got together with a few of my old work friends, which was fun. They wanted to go out for lunch and thrifting, so I suggested IKEA for lunch, as their entrees are half-off on Thursdays! We then drove over to the Goodwill Outlet, aka “the bins” as it’s maybe five minutes away.

   It was really enjoyable to see my friends outside of the hospital where I worked for 24 years.

   

2. I didn’t buy anything to resell at the bins, but I did choose a heavily stickered HydroFlask water bottle, four organizing bins and ten or so fake plants to add to my built-in second story window box that scorches actual plants. I spent $7.76.

   • I easily removed nine vinyl stickers from the Hydro Flask by using a hair dryer to soften the adhesive.
   • I hung the dusty fake plants on my laundry line and spritzed them with the hose.
   • I ran the plastic organizing bins through the dishwasher.

   

3. My lunch was the IKEA salmon plate, which cost just $5.49. (No tip!) I also enjoyed a free coffee and downloaded the IKEA app for a free Frakta bag. The salmon plate was actually pretty bland, I kind of wish that I’d just chosen their $1.15 veggie dog, which is weirdly delicious.

4. I called my friend Lise to ask if she wanted to go for an evening stroll. She didn’t have time for a proper long walk, but she suggested walking to New Seasons Market to drop off our plastics recycling. Honey, that is my kind of friend date! I ran this specific errand recently, so I only had a couple plastics items to recycle, but it was still fun to hang out for a half hour or so.

5. I got caught up on episodes of HBO’s Back to The Frontier, which is okay-ish enough to be worth watching. I wish they’d focus less on the interpersonal conflict between the families and more on how the three families are recreating daily life on an 1880s homestead. Again, thank you to my step-father for letting me mooch off his HBO account.

Katy Wolk-Stanley

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

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1. I stopped into Fred Meyer, thinking they had Tillamook cheese on sale. I was wrong, but I did grab a couple of “reduced” price items. I probably should’ve picked up more of the coffee, but I’m not sure if my finicky husband (who’s the coffee drinker in the family) will like it. I also grabbed these cheddar brats, which’ll pair well with my $1 Franz hoagies rolls, not to mention my homemade sauerkraut that’s just about done fermenting.

   I had a weird coupon for $1-0ff-$5 of “natural food.” This was a confusing coupon, (what the hell is “natural” food?!) but it worked for the two dozen eggs I bought, which were on sale for $3.50 apiece.

   

2. I used up my clearance shelf eggplant and bell peppers along with this dented can of diced tomatoes to make a mixed veggie pasta. I think I paid 50¢ apiece for a couple dented cans of tomatoes, but had kind of forgotten about them. Worry not, this can was intact and safe.

3. I donated platelets at the American Red Cross this afternoon, which was a first for me. I was curious what it would be like, plus they were offering $35 in gift card incentives to sweeten the deal. They also offered backpacks and T-shirts, but I’m a firm believer in not accepting things that clutter the home.

   I’m not sure I’d do it again as the anticoagulant made me feel super woozy, complete with numb lips which progressed to my entire face. (Apparently you can avoid these known side effects by taking the maximum amount of Tums the day before your donation, so I might give it another go at some point.) The process takes a few hours and keeps both arms out of commision throughout the donation, which means you can’t read a book, scroll on your phone and even scratch your nose. They did set me up with a TV and streaming services to watch, (I chose Project Runway) but it’s hard to watch that much television in one sitting. However, platelet donation helps those in need, so maybe it’s not so bad to undergo a couple hours of discomfort.

   I enjoyed the Nutter Butters, (my favorite cookie!) and even took a handful of packages home, with encouragement from the volunteer. I like to try out new experiences and this certainly falls under that category.

4. My husband and I ran an errand way across town yesterday and decided to grab lunch afterwards. There were endless restaurants to choose from, but we chose American Dream Pizza for slices. A single mushroom slice was enough for me, which I think was around $5. We’d paid for a full hour of parking, so we walked around the area and then rushed through Trader Joe’s to grab toilet paper, pasta, bananas and yogurt. We made it back to the car with a few minutes to spare, which was fortuitous as the meter maid was already writing tickets up the block!

5. My sister mailed back three spare keys to my house that always seems to bring back with her to New York.

Katy Wolk-Stanley

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

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1. I helped myself to five unused produce bags from this abandoned grocery cart to bring home for my litter boxes. I don’t buy plastic bags for the sole purpose of filling them with cat excreta. There’s enough plastic in the world without manufacturing more to just hold pee and poop.

   I may have also scanned the receipt into the Fetch app.

   

2. I stopped at this grocery store specifically to scope out the clearance produce shelf and I’m glad that I did, as I was able to buy five colorful bell peppers and four eggplants for just $3. (I was low on veggies, but not in the mood for a full-on Winco shopping excursion.) I’ll make some kind of eggplant/pepper combo to serve with pasta. Ooh . . . I just remembered that I have sautéed spicy sausage in the freezer, which’ll complement this imagined dish!

3. My husband starts his annual two week vacation next week, but we’re going to mostly take it easy as it’s so expensive to pay for accomodation this time of year. We’ll likely go up to Mt. Hood for a few days, as a family member owns a cabin we can use, but we’ll mostly stick close to home as we pay thousands of dollars each month for the priviledge of living in our own house.

   Portlanders are incredibly lucky to live an hour or two from the Pacific Ocean, Mt. Hood, Mt. St. Helens, wine country and countless beautiful outdoor areas. I don’t really really need to “get away from it all” when “it” is already idyllic. Plus the city of Portland has become a mecca for people wanting to vacation somewhere with mild weather, hundreds of amazing restaurants and very few red baseball caps.

4. I hung out with my friend Lise while she pruned her native dogwood tree and she mentioned that the small branches make excellent stakes for gardening, so we stripped off the thin bark. This is how I now have six new stakes for my pitiful tomatoes.

5. I took out $60 from an ATM to have enough cash to fill up my gas tank, as you get a 45¢/gallon discount when you pay with cash. The predatory ATM charged me $3.50, but I belong to a credit union that reimburses a certain number of ATM fees each month. I really don’t understant why anyone would choose to bank with a traditional bank over a credit union.

Katy Wolk-Stanley

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

Click HERE to follow The Non-Consumer Advocate on Instagram.
Click HERE to join The Non-Consumer Advocate Facebook group.

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1. I stopped by the Franz Bakery Outlet on Saturday to grab a couple loaves of of their $1 bread for our basement freezer. (First Saturday of the month, bay-bee!) I’d hoped to score a couple more sleeves of their restaurant packaged English muffins, as each bag holds a dozen or so muffins, but such was not my luck. Instead I picked up two sleeves of bagels, one bag of their mini-bagels, some hoagie rolls and a loaf of multi-grain bread.

   All for $5!

2. I had three different neighbors ask me to keep on eye on their houses and water their plants while they vamoosed town for vacation. Not my favorite timing to have everyone leave town at the same time, but I’ll still honor the unwritten neighbor agreement that we help one another. My husband and I vacation a lot less than our neighbors, but they all do the nicest things for us on a regular basis to thank us for our efforts.

   “It takes a village” is not just about raising kids.

3. I popped into Fred Meyer (Kroger) for a half gallon of milk. I’d already loaded a digital coupon for the $1.39 milk, but also had two paper coupons for free pints of Haagen Dazs ice cream. I pulled two vanilla ice creams from the freezer case to keep to accompany fruit crumbles, but the cashier informed me that I could only use one coupon at a time, so I told her I’d only be buying the single pint. I then got home to discover both containers of ice cream. Did she do this on purpose? I’ll never know.

   I also grabbed a $1.50 bag of organic Roma tomatoes from the clearance shelf.

   

4. I baked a mixed fruit crumble, all the more delicious with my accidentally shoplifted ice cream.

5. I continue to wear my long ago thrifted clothing, maintain my own yard and garden, read library books, plan short inexpensive summer getaways, accept a less than exciting hair color, drink tap water, minimize gift giving, curb pick most “new” items that enter my house and write a blog that encourages people to use it up, wear it out, make it do or do without!

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1. I stopped into a Goodwill to see if I could find anything to resell or at least photograph for the blog. I found neither and left with my wallet intact. Poor quality crap in the stores = poor quality crap in thrift shops.

2. I had more figs than I could possibly eat, so I chopped and froze them for some future mixed-fruit crumble. A couple of them were super squishy, but that’ll be fine in a baked dessert as the texture breaks down anyway. My step-mother’s fig tree is producing a tremendous amount of fruit right now, but there’s only so many fresh figs that I can eat in any given day!

3. My daughter was working a later shift than normal, so I brought her some hoisin tofu over rice and a nice chilly can of flavored seltzer to get her through the dinner hour. I don’t normally buy canned water, but I had a pair of coupons for free cases of Polar water seltzers with “$5 purchases” last week.

   My $5 purchase was precisely $5 of bulk spicy sausage from the meat counter, which I cooked up and froze for future use.

   It’s been nice to have these drinks to offer up to visitors and gave three away yesterday when my husband stopped at the house midway through his work shift. He had two extra people in his vehicle, so I sent him out with a can for each of them.

4. My mother’s cherry tomato plant is producing more than she can eat, so she sent me home with a nice big container of my own home grown tomatoes. I have a couple of tomato plants, but I must be doing something wrong as they’re spindly as hell and hardly growing anything.

5. This one puts the “tiniest” in “five tiniest frugal things,” but I was getting ready to pull down and launder the curtain in our bathroom, as there’s one side that accumulates cat hair from Zelda jumping up to look out the window. Instead I cut off a piece of packing tape and used it to remove the offending cat hair. The rest of the curtain was fine, so it was just this one spot that appeared dirty. Bing, bang done!

Katy Wolk-Stanley

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1. I picked more wild blackberries for the freezer. I know this a repeat “frugal thing,” but I’m determined to get my lazy tuchus over to my secret berry patch once a week! I plan to take full advantage of this brief seasonal opportunity. Free amazing food that’s easy to either freeze or transform into jam? I’d be a fool to ignore this nonconsumer opportunity!

   

2. Someone in my Buy Nothing group offered up a baking sheet for my friend who needed one. I then thanked them by walking over some propogated pothos starts, as they’d asked for some a couple months ago.

3. I stopped at Trader Joe’s on my way home from berry picking. I bought the one thing on my list — six of their 23¢ bananas. Nothing more.*

4. I made my own salmon schmear using some leftover salmon. I simply mixed it into cream cheese and then added lemon zest, garlic powder and salt. I didn’t have any bagels, but it was rather tasty on crackers. Eating whole leftover cooked salmon would’ve fed a single person, but mixing it into cream cheese expanded it into something to be enjoyed by multiple people.

5. I didn’t cut funding to health care, public radio, medical research, education, national parks and LGBTQ+ crisis lines in the name of fiscal responsibility; and then build a vulgar $200 million ball room.

Katy Wolk-Stanley

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1. My youngest’s friend just moved to Portland, so I’m helping them source a couple items they need for their new apartment. I asked for a few items just yesterday, (a cast iron skillet, baking sheet and wall shelves) through my Buy Nothing group and have already picked up a pair of cute wall shelves that should hold plants, books and maybe even a knickknack or two. I also encouraged them to join their own Buy Nothing group.

2. My neighbor brought over a full gallon-size ziploc bag of freshly caught salmon as a thank you for taking care of her garden. She and her family are heading out for another vacation and I’ll happily water her plants again. She has discovered that my favors can be purchased with fresh food and I couldn’t be happier.

3. I’m getting another set of houseguests in a couple of weeks, which’ll be fun. Portland is an amazing city to show off and I’m always happy to give friends a free place to stay while they save their hard earned dollars.

4. I curb picked up an Ikea fabric storage cube that’ll come in handy in some way or another. I’m thinking maybe to corral miscellaneous items in the back of my car, but I’ll give it a couple days of thought to come up with the right answer. In the meantime I’ll give it a good scrub and let it dry in the sunshine.

5. No one ever stole any of my 16-year-old massage therapists. 

Katy Wolk-Stanley

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1. I washed our bedding and hung it to dry on the backyard line, even thought it was shady and late in the day.

   

2. It was just me for dinner, so I heated up some homemade refried beans and topped it with whatever I had on hand. I then scooped it up with Juantonio’s tortilla chips, (if you know, you know!) and called it good. Absolutely delicious and decidedly frugal!

   

3. I started listening to Jennifer Weiner’s The Griffin Sisters’ Greatest Hits through the library’s free Libby app. Weiner is one of my favorite authors and I had to wait a couple months for this popular  audiobook.

   

4. I walked our plastics recycling over to New Seasons Market without buying anything.

   

5. However, I did nab this accordian file from a free pile along the way. A perfect find, as I assembled one for my daughter’s important paperwork last year and have been meaning to put one together for my other kiddo. This specific brand sells for just under $25, which makes this an extra enjoyable find. Free organizational supplies? You know that’s my love language!

Katy Wolk-Stanley

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