Thrift stores

I want to talk about thrift stores here. There are many out there. You probably donate to some. But, have you ever gone in and looked around? There are SO many items in like new, and sometimes even brand new condition. Here we have a place called The Waterfront Rescue Mission. It's an awesome place and they do so much good in our community.

So, yesterday was our youngest sons Pre-K graduation. We had some time after so I asked my husband if he would be up for going to the Mission. He's such a good guy, he agreed without hesitation. I am so low on shirts I wear the sames ones over and over and over. I swear, I am ALWAYS doing laundry just to have clean clothes to wear. Anywho, I tried on LOTS of items, and of course women are not one size fits all, so only a handful of items fit the way I wanted them to.

You can see the items I picked out are in awesome condition. One of the shirts I don't 100% love, but I am so low I can't be super picky right now. Also most of these shirts I have plans for once I don't want them anymore, or cannot use them myself. A couple of them I really love the print, and plan on making my daughter skirts out of them with matching headbands.

One thing that really got me thinking, is these capri-pants. I have been needing more for a long time, and have gone into the Mission a few times and not found any that fit. I broke down last month and bought 2 pair new from AE. They cost with tax, SEVENTY dollars. All of the items you see below cost a whopping 22.93 out the door. The capri's alone ended up being 2.50!!

I know some are apprehensive about buying second hand because someone else had at one time worn these, or it's not "cool". But listen, we all wash our clothes before we wear them, don't we? And who ever decided it wasn't cool to buy second hand? Someone who doesn't appreciate saving money for other things, would be my guess. I know when I was little I hated buying second hand, and was always afraid of getting made fun of. But seriously, who will know? I mean, everyone who reads my blog will know that I shop second hand. But I am proud of my frugality and wanting to save my family a little bit of money where I can. So I'll tell anyone who asks where I got my clothing :D

Oh, and one more point I want to drive home on this topic. Not only did I do a small part in reduce/reuse/recycling, the money spent there helps others in our community. Now that is a good feeling! While we were there we also dropped off a few boxes of items for donation. 

To go along with minimalism

We have taken so many car loads to the local mission lately, that we are slowing down a little bit and focusing on some projects we've been needing to get done. Something that's come up lately, is re-purposing things. I feel like this goes hand and hand with minimalism. My biggest issue with buying new things, is there might be something you already have that you can use, and save from just being thrown into a landfill.

For example. We have these outdoor chairs that have just had it. For a bit my husband and I wanted to go get new chairs, but we haven't yet. Next thing we know, he and our oldest son are out in the shed doing "man stuff" and BOOM, a bench for our fire pit! He had some leftover wood, and also found part of an extra shutter out there.

Another example. I really need some kind of shelf to clip my desk lamp to in my work area. The last time my husband was in the attic, he found a broken shelf and brought it down. This was almost a year ago when we first moved in here. He fixed it, and painted it, and now it's ready to be put up!

I think the biggest gain from this though, is our son is on his way to becoming a man. He's about to turn 9 this year, and honestly that just feels so big to me. I mean, he's going to be half way to being an adult! There is a 4.5 year age difference between him and his little brother, and my husband and I just both feel it's a really good time for them (father and son) to start bonding. He's not exactly interested in what our 4 year old is. So to go along with what we're gaining from minimalism, they are building on their relationship. These are memories our son will have for the rest of his life!

Saying goodbye to fast food.

I know this is a very touchy subject. I am sure I may get a little backlash from this blog post, but please keep in mind these are my thoughts and opinions, and this is part of my journey that I am sharing with everyone who chooses to follow along with it.

First of all, I know many will think "Yeah, well I am so busy that sometimes I just have to get it, or we won't have time to eat". I don't have any of my kids in after school activities. Well, my oldest has bible study. I do however, have 3 kids, and two of which have special needs. Often times, we have appointments, and we live way out in the boonies. I have been able to cut out some of these appointments, so we're not constantly on the road, but when we do it's a half-full day even of driving from A, to B, to C! I am the QUEEN of "We have to eat fast food", or, I was.

32 days ago (yes, I have an app on my phone that is counting), I asked my husband to stop at Burger King on his way home from work. He works 45 minutes away, had closed that day, and I just did not feel like preparing anything that night. We used to live just a few minutes from his work, and conveniently just a few minutes from about 4 different fast food places. I'll touch on that more in just a bit. Anyway, 20 bucks or so later, and 15 minutes extra commute for him for having to stop and wait for food, we had our dinner.

It had been at least a week before that since we had any fast food. Before we moved out here, it was a good few times a week we were eating a meal from a fast food place. It just did not taste good at ALL! Then after we ate, I felt like dead weight, and just wanted to go to sleep. I felt awful. I have seen the light. Once we finally started to cut down, and then ate it again, it was like my body was begging me not to eat it. Like I was putting the wrong kind of gas into my car or something. It didn't really even taste that good to me anymore now that it wasn't the typical meal we had been eating.

That night we made the decision to just stop eating it. We had a trip coming up to go visit my parents for Thanksgiving too, so it would be a big change for us. It's a 6-8 hour drive, depending on traffic, and our kiddo's. So, we made sandwiches, some snacks, and even some breakfast egg muffins the night before. On top of saving a ton of money, we also felt better and were less tired for the long drive, AND, we saved some time on the drive because we just ate in the car. We have 2 dogs we travel with too, so I don't like to stop somewhere that they can't get out with us.

So, remember I said we lived minutes from a bunch of fast food places? Someone told me that they figured out how much they spent in eating out in one months time, and it was outrageous. I thought, I'm sure we spend a couple hundred, but probably not much more. We spent over FIVE hundred dollars eating out in one month. That was a month we didn't have any other travel than appointments and errands. It was purely out of convenience that we stopped anywhere for food. 500 bucks is a lot of money for our size family on one income, believe me!

So, as part of our journey to minimalism, we are looking at EVERYTHING we do in our lives, and deciding what we can do to improve our quality of life, by living with less. Fast food is less garbage for our bodies, which will result in better health both short, and long term, AND it is saving us a large amount of money.