The Non-Consumer Advocate

1. It worked to lower my eBay prices, as I made two sales just this morning! A mug for $15 and a single marble for $36! (I accepted an “offer” down from the $40 asking price.) I thrifted a florist’s vase full of antique marbles in 2005 or so and researched the subject so deeply, that I’m still able to identify valuable marbles when I see them. I think I made around a thousand dollars from that solitary vase of marbles. This marble was a more recent purchase.

   I packaged both items in secondhand supplies and set them out on my porch before the mail carrier hit the house.

2. I asked for fake plants on my Buy Nothing group, as I’m wanting to fill my built-in window box that perches outside my second story bedroom window. You may remember that I curb picked four fake plants last week and I’m still giddy with how real they look when viewed from the sidewalk. Let’s see if I can fill the window box without spending any money.

   I was actually behind someone donating a handful of fake plants to Goodwill the other day and it took every last bit of my self-discipline to not ask for them.

3. My step-mother had an excess of apples and tomatoes and sent me home with a baggie of free fruit. I then enjoyed an entire tomato in my breakfast burrito and have plans for a tomato-tastic salad this evening.

4. I drove a family member to a doctor’s appointment yesterday and brought along a library copy of The Berry Pickers to pass the time. I’m only about four chapters in so far, but it’s already so good!

5. I didn’t dismantle a government agency.

Katy Wolk-Stanley

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

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1. I donated five colossally huge bins of books to Goodwill from my late in-law’s estate. They’d been stagnant in my basement since last summer and I finally convinced my husband that it was okay to let them go. We’re far from the finish line when it comes to dealing with the last of their stuff, but it was good to put their books back in circulation. Also, I relish having the free space back in the house. I’m no fan of clutter.

   You know I got a receipt for next year’s taxes!

2. My friend Lise and I went for an after dinner walk, even though it was raining. She’s jokingly texted “Should we do a free pile walk this evening?” earlier in the day, but alas there were no “free piles” due to the soggy state of affairs. However, the rain wasn’t heavy and you can’t be a true Oregonian if you hunker down every time there’s a bit of precipitation.

3. My husband went through some things in the basement and came across a pair of brand new smoke detectors that must’ve been from his parents’ estate, as ours are hard wired into the electrical system. He listed them in our Buy Nothing group and now someone’s coming to pick them tomorrow and that’s two more things out of the house and back in circulation!

4. • I renewed my Facebook marketplace listings. Patience . . . .
   • My outdoor plants enjoyed a proper watering from yesterday’s rain. I suppose the weeds did as well, but that’s a problem for another day.
   • I didn’t want to buy eggs at Fred Meyer as they were $6.50/dozen and told my husband I’d pick some up at Trader Joe’s for $3.50. Unfortunately Trader Joe’s had zero eggs, so I ran into Safeway and grabbed a dozen for just $5.50. You have seen how egg producers are enjoying triple profits, right? In other news, I had oatmeal for breakfast today.

5. I didn’t buy a egg plated apartment in the sky.

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.
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1. My husband and I took a nice long walk through the neighborhood today, which included the library, Fred Meyer for work lunches supplies and H Mart for steamed bao. The weather was perfect and since my ideal date is “errands with a snacky ending” I really couldn’t have asked for anything more.

2. I scrolled though my stagnant eBay listings and lowered the prices on almost everything. I’m thisclose to donating everything back to Goodwill to in the name of getting my downstairs spare bedroom back, so hopefully this’ll prompt at least a couple of sales.

3. I hung out with my youngest at their apartment last night and treated us to takeout. However, I kept it on budget by choosing “kid’s meals” for both of us from a nearby burger restaurant, which brought each meal down from $13.20 to $7.95! It was probably fewer fries, but that’s probably for the best anyway. We then watched an episode of Black Mirror through my Netflix account to complete the evening.

   

4. I brought home a small carabiner that someone put out in front of their house. They’re very handy to keep on hand, but I’m pretty sure that I used the last of my stash of random carabiners when I hung my backyard string lights a couple years ago.

5. I didn’t buy a Lear Jet.

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. My daughter and I hung out at the house yesterday, so I mixed up a depression-era Wacky Cake, but substituted gluten-free flour. I had my doubts as the texture was definitely off, but I put it in the oven with a “how bad can it be?” mindset. People . . . it was amazing! Like a chewy brownie, but somehow better!

   Cheap and gluten-free? Perfection.

2. I unzipped the cushion cover off my got-it-from-buy-nothing Joybird couch and gave it a wash in the bathtub. Their website is vague and risk averse about whether the cover is washable, but I figured I’d throw caution to the wind. I was pretty nervous that it would shrink it or I’d otherwise fuck it up, but it turned out great with just a gentle soapy swish and a couple hours on the clothesline. I also gave it a spin in the washing machine to remove excess water.

   The best part was the satisfyingly murky wash water, plus of course how nice and clean my couch now looks. Ahh . . .

   Reminder of the couch:

   

3. I cooked fresh batches of both rice and black beans to keep in the fridge. Both these ingredients can anchor an endless variety of meals and help to keep me from succumbing to Portland’s amazing food carts. Those who don’t live in Portland don’t understand how the temptation is ever present, especially as there’s a new “pod” that just opened up a couple blocks from the house!

   I fixed myself a bean and cheese quesadilla for lunch and we had taco salads for dinner.

   

4. I listed a pair of vintage “Jaru” ceramic bookends on eBay, as I’d recently learned the brand and that they sell for a pretty penny. Mind you, mine have a couple of tiny chips, so I listed them at just (ha!) $75 rather than the $135 they’d otherwise sell for. However, I picked them up for a buck maybe twenty years ago, so I’d be happy to get that amount. Can’t hurt to try!

5. I saw on Instagram that the new oval office “gold” trim is actually just $58 stock Home Depot polyurethane pieces (aka plastic!) with gold leaf, so I had to try and find it for myself.

   Oval office:

   

   Home Depot:

   

   If there’s a more on the nose “It looks like gold, but is actually plastic” metaphor about the current white house inhabitants, I don’t know what it could possibly be.

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.
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I was driving with the radio on yesterday and the Z100 DJs were talking about how “frugality” had become trendy, which gave me a laugh. It reminded me of when I was interviewed in 2009 for a NY Times article titled In an Age of Austerity, The Miserly Thrive.

If you recall, 2009 was the middle of a nasty recession and headlines like this sold newspapers.

“My behavior has become less strange and more of a resource,” said Katy Wolk-Stanley, 41, a nurse in Portland, Ore. A practicing penny-pincher for the last decade, she is now spreading her gospel. Last May, she started a blog with tips and tactics for cutting back called The Non-Consumer Advocate.

She knows whereof she blogs. She darns socks, dries clothes on a line she recently hung inside her house (even though it takes a few days for the clothes to dry inside), washes and reuses plastic bags and takes used clothes and furniture people leave on the street — like the slightly torn Garnet Hill duvet cover she found recently.

“It was wet, and covered with dog hair,” she said. “I washed it really well a couple of times and mended it.” Her quest for money-saving ideas “is very energizing,” she says. “You see opportunities everywhere.”

I don’t consider myself “miserly” as I want nothing more than for everyone to have the tools to live a full rich life on whatever income they happen to have. I’m hardly sitting on a pile of gold coins as I bow down to the right and honorable Scrooge McDuck!

I remember that the NY Times photographer came to the house with specific instructions to photograph me hanging laundry on my inside line and was somewhat derisive, commenting “Is this all you do?” as if I thought my simple act of hanging laundry was revolutionary. Of course it isn’t. Extreme frugality touches every aspect of my life, from my 19-year-old edict to only buy secondhand, to my twenty-year-old car, to the practice of mending and repairing pretty much everything we own.

Telling the American public that “frugality is trendy” feels akin to wartime propaganda to manipulate people into feeling proud of their frugality, when this specific situation is actually being forced upon us by corporate greed and tax breaks for the wealthy.

This may seem odd for me to write, as I’m certainly proud of my frugal creativity, but I’m not pinching pennies so that egg suppliers can enjoy record profits or so our current administration can squeeze all they can from the American public.

So yes, frugality is more necessary than ever, but please don’t confuse it with it being “trendy.”

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. My husband and youngest had a soccer game last night and unlike last week’s rainfest, the weather was perfect at a balmy 65°. I walked the track a couple times and picked up five returnable bottles and cans, which’ll net me a schweet fifty cents! I also picked up garbage to dispose of, but that was for free.

   Please enjoy the continued use of my free-box sunglasses and my $2.99 Goodwill hoodie.

2. I was sorely tempted to hit a restaurant afterwards and even had a plan, which would’ve kept the price under control. (Buster’s Barbecue — split their half chicken plate with the husband, ordering two baked potatoes as our sides.) Unfortunately, (or fortunately) my husband was tired, so we drove home and enjoyed cheesy grits with sautéed peppers, spinach and eggs. Very yummy.

3. Someone from my Buy Nothing group was giving away extra tomato starts and I’ll be picking up a couple for myself this afternoon! Good thing I have all that free potting soil!

4. My husband and I finished watching the third season of White Lotus though my parents’ HBO account. Hoo-boy, was that a doozy!

5. No part of my life includes going up to space in a phallus shaped rocket ship.

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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