Secondhand Smarts - community works!

I haven't posted a Secondhand Smarts update for a while, but rest assured I get so many bargains from secondhand shops, TradeMe, etc, that I can hardly keep up.

An extra special nod must go to the bargains I got at last year's school fair. OK, I put in a lot of hours at the White Elephant sale where I got the goodies, but it was a great community event and raised much needed funds for the kids' school. And hundreds of people went away happy with their bargain finds!

Community and charity work can seem thankless at times, but as well as the reality of the help you're providing, you are also making connections that can sometimes reap more tangible rewards. Sometimes you need something and someone else already has exactly what you need. Like these...

Stepping out...

The boy needed some shoes. Look what I found!


Tevas. Good as new. In the right size. For a couple of dollars!

Frozen

Yeah, this attachment!

I love making frozen banana ice cream. It is pretty hard work for the S-blade on the food processor though, and we've heard that juicers and mincers do an even better job on the frozen bananas. I don't want another whole gizmo in my kitchen, but I have idly considered buying the mincer attachment for our mixer.


I almost let this amazing coincidence at the White Elephant Sale pass me by. I'd even shelved this box and moved it around a couple of times. But it wasn't until a customer said "there are bits missing from this" that we both realised it was an attachment, not a standalone machine. Just exactly what I needed for the machine we have at home, and luckily the customer didn't! $5, for an attachment retailing new for £38.


I can confirm that the banana ice cream product from the mincer is far superior - it can take the totally frozen banana chunks without strain and produce a really really cold treat instead of one that melts almost as served.

The icing on the cake

And cookies, and vegan cupcakes for the Vegan Society stall, and...

My sister's a decorating ace with all the equipment, but sometimes there's no chance to go borrowing. There were a couple of icing sets in the sale, and I knew I wanted to go home with one.

This one was pretty and compact, so it won the toss, and at $4 was quite the bargain. Especially when later at home, I found this was a collector tin retailing for $70.

Yes, there were even more bargains we got at the fair, but enough already! Secondhand is totally smart shopping.

Hybrids: driving with new energy

So after 14 years, two children and a frugal lifestyle, it was finally time to upgrade the car, which was showing signs of needing expensive repairs and still not being OK anymore.

We have considered the one-car family option, but since I would expect it to be me who had the one car for daily runabouts, I can't push this one hard.

Our upgrade wish list included a fancy to invest in advanced motoring technology that uses less petrol.

New Zealand has not yet integrated public charging stations for fully electric vehicles, but some clever online shopping by the DH resulted in quite a special deal from far away from the big smoke: a tidy 10-year-old Toyota Prius with less than 40,000 ks and a certified service history.


The ups

Of course a newer car is always a pleasure to drive, and the whole family is helping to keep it in its original tidy condition instead of its natural state of the "family car".

And it is really really quiet !  We call it the sneaky car, because you often can't hear when it arrives in the garage. Unless the tires squeak.

While I drive it, I get instant feedback on how much petrol I am using vs how much battery power. It's very motivational - it's like a driving game where I see how long I can run just on battery power before running out, or getting to the next hill so I can recharge. If nobody is following me I will often drive much more slowly than I used to, just to keep it on battery only. It's only a few hundres metres to the next corner anyway, so what's the rush? "I'm using no petrol!"

OK, mine shows kms and litres, but you get the idea...

And it is educational to see how just THIS much more pressure on the pedal spends your petrol THAT much faster. I think every car needs this even if it's not a hybrid.

The downs

While I love the extra storage the hatchback provides compared to our previous sedan, I absolutely hate the reduced visibility in every corner and behind the car.

Squashed window and a spoiler - I can't see! DH has kindly installed a high-tech tennis ball feature in the garage so I know when I am finished parking.

And there is always a risk that the hybrid battery could fail, which could be $thousands to replace, or somewhat more reasonably amounts to repair...

The results

I'm sure that like me, when you read about hybrid or electric technology and see the theoretical efficiency, you still wonder how that really translates to real life, especially when hybrids are more expensive to buy than their regular counterparts.

So I'm very happy to report that I am regularly, easily, getting twice the distance from a tank of petrol in the Prius as I did for the old Nissan Sunny. Really: 400km when running the Sunny to the fumes at the bottom of the tank, and 800+ no problem on the Prius.

Modify that gain slightly because the Prius runs on slightly more expensive petrol. But even so, we are doing about 1 fill per month instead of 2 - say about $80/month or $960 per year - this should eventually provide our ROI plus the satisfaction that we are using that much less petrol to get around.

• Hybrid car technology - overview with illustrations
• Pros and cons (Stuff.co.nz)
• Hybrid cars (Energy Efficiency and Conservation Authority, NZ)

The Moneyless Man - Review

You may already have heard of vegan Mark Boyle, the former businessman who vowed publicly to live totally without money for an entire year.

With my interests, this was a book I had to grab from the Librarian Recommended shelf. You can read about his experience in multiple interviews online, but the book really gets into the details.

The motivation

It sounds crazy to voluntarily give up all the comforts that his money can bring and live apart. Just imagine:

• No grocery stops
• No cafe trips
• No car
• No toilet paper
• None

Why? Mark had become disillusioned with our money system. The first simple role of money is as tokens in a bartering system. But we've left that far behind, and money games now include international currency trading, derivatives, stockholder profits, and more. The more complicated it gets, the fewer people can possibly understand the game and get a living share. 

Mark cites the impact of money on community, security, competion/cooperation and the climate as vital motivations for his drastic change.

The preparation

Going from a money-based society to surviving totally moneyless takes preparation to work well. Others have managed with less, but probably not by choice. Mark set up rules for his challenge:

1. No receiving or spending money
2. "Normality" (eg yes, Mark can eat a meal at a friend's house; no, he can't eat there for 2 weeks straight)
3. "Pay-it-forward" - help others without worrying about the reward
4. Respect - for other people (eg use the toilet when visiting others, not a hole in the backyard)
5. No pre-payment of bills (eg, paying an electricity bill for a year to get through the year)

Mark first discovered the vast difference between living frugally and living moneyless. He had to scrutinise every item he might consume, and he gave himself a small budget to set up his moneyless year.

On the night before his challenge would start, he got a puncture in his bicycle tyre, stranding him far from home and help - I was quite impressed that he solved this in the same DIY way he'd committed to begin the following day.

Shelter  - On Freecycle, Mark was given a decent caravan that was a burden to its owner.

In our world of overconsumption, there is an oversupply of still-useful products that are not in use. Networks like Freecycle help solve this problem.

And he bartered his labour to a farm to get a space to park the caravan.

Sanitation - DIY Composting toilet, solar shower. Drinking water from the farm.

Power - cooking: DIY rocket stove; light: windup torch; heat: DIY woodburner; electricity for laptop and mobile:solar panel (the biggest cash outlay)

Food - foraging, urban foraging (from commercial waste food), growing, and bartering. (Being vegan makes the food requirement that much easier!)

Transport - bicycle and trailer

Communications - mobile phone (incoming calls only) and internet (WiFi on the farm)

Buy Nothing Feast

On top of all of that, Mark successfully organised a free, moneyless feast for about 150 people for his first challenge day, Buy Nothing Day, 2008. (Remember, when things went wrong, he could not just spend his way out of the problem.) The success of the publicity overall meant that Mark spent a lot of his time early that year giving interviews!

Settling into moneyless life

Mark's typical moneyless day has exercise, wild foraging, personal grooming (with no purchased products), meal preparation, and online and farm work. After the day's work and dinner, he might cycle to a meeting and back (36 miles).

The book explains how he handled problems like the oncoming winter, keeping his bike in action, keeping in touch with friends, Christmas, international travel and doing everything the slow way. It also reveals a few facts worth knowing about the wastefulness of the "regular" way of doing things (eg: water usage from a plumbed vs composting toilet).

More challenges

Like any alternative lifestyle, one of the biggest barriers is interacting with the rest of the world. The media interest was fading, and he did his best to keep up with friends, but Mark's romantic relationship did not surive the strain of his challenge.

While Mark's general health was even better than anyone expected, he did have to find a natural remedy for his hay fever. He also had a tiny mouse visitor who became a big problem.

The moneyless community

Mark learned about other people around the world who also lived with little or no money, including Daniel Suelo and Heidemarie Schwermer. Heidemarie started an exchange group (Tauschring) to help people live without money, and Mark started the Freeconomy site.


Summer fun and food

Summer brought more ease to the moneyless life, and Mark describes how much food and fun there is available for free. Developing communities like Freecycle, Couchsurfing, etc, make it all even easier.

Autumn, almost there!

Mark found that the closer he got to the year's end, the less he was worried about ending it. He and some friends had a great wild-food foraging adventure, and Mark himself chose to spend a week in silence - probably a good preparation for the finish line and the renewed media attention.

Finished...?

He celebrated with an even bigger free "feastival" for hundreds of people, and handled media that brought a range of applause, curiosity, and criticism. And he made his decision that he was not going "back" to his regular life.

The book finishes with the lessons Mark wants to pass on from his moneyless year.

Mark chose to live this way for a year, as a statement and personal achievement. Hundreds of thousands of people in the US alone are forced into indefinite homelessness and poverty or zero-income.

Even if you have no urge to live moneyless, this book will open your eyes to the casual overconsumption our society is based upon, alternative choices you could use, and the people and organisations who seek a better way.

Mark's experience would have been quite different without the overabundance of products going to waste each day. However, without all that waste, everyone's lives could be richer.

Live simply so others may simply live. (Source debatable, intention admirable.)

Happy Vegan Hunting - 9 Frugal Secondhand Investments

I'm an avid secondhand shopper. Here are some winning vegan goodies that you can always find in the secondhand shops. For similar reasons, these are also items you might score from Freecycle - if you haven't signed up yet, what are you waiting for?!?!??

See how the jam looks like a cat?

1. Yoghurt makers

Yes, you can make your own soy yoghurt even more easily than dairy yoghurt. Soy yoghurt is so expensive to buy and so easy to make.  Since making your own is faddish for many, there are usually several varied yoghurt makers on the shelf.

I have had consistent success in my secondhand EasiYo by adding about 3 Tbsp of soy starter to 1 box of room-temperature original VitaSoy. Methods, tips, and tricks abound on the internet - search on making soy yoghurt.

2. Quality cookware

People used to cook more, and they needed great quality cookware.

Often, the younger generation doesn't know and doesn't care about those nested stacks of Corningware and cast iron, and off they go to the secondhand shop for you to find.

3. Quality storage

Lots of us frugal vegans buy and cook in bulk, and you need to keep your supplies safe.

I reuse some of the plastic containers I get from food (eg, Anathoth jam containers are BPA-free), but a quick look at the secondhand store will show you loads of great old-fashioned Tupperware at prices your Tupperware lady can't match. (Apologies to my Tupperware lady friends, mwah!)

Click-clack containers also roam wild on the secondhand shelves, as well as older-style glass or terracotta containers.

4. Popsicle moulds

Summer will arrive soon! If you didn't inherit your family's popsicle moulds like I did, it won't take long for you to find a set on the secondhand shelves.

Super cheap popsicle recipes:

• flavoured nondairy milk (flavour your own with cocoa, vanilla, fruit, or jam)
• fruit juice or puree (hint: tinned fruit comes in fruit juice or syrup)
• a banana (dipped in nuts or chocolate)
• ...or search the internet for cheap vegan popsicles

5. Chocolate moulds

We thrifty are just as gifty as the next person. But vegan gift chocolate has a hefty price tag. People love getting hand crafted chocolate and it's fun for the kids to help make! If the specialty chocolate moulds at the homewares stores are too pricey, look for secondhand flexible novelty ice-cube trays among the piles.

I just scored this cute orange-slice shaped tray - now I can make my own vegan chocolate oranges.   

6. Juicers

Want to try juicing, but don't know where to start? Don't splash out; these babies cycle through the shelves on a regular basis.

7. Pressure cookers

The best way to cook dry beans, pots of potatoes and free soup quickly. Watch your grocery totals shrink as you serve these super budget savers.

8. Sushi mats

This vegan takeaway standby is expensive to buy because it's fiddly to make compared to curry and chips, but you'll be rolling your own in style before long.

Making sushi

9. Gardening gear

Goodbye Garden World and Kings, because secondhand shops are blooming with planting pots of all sizes.

You can also find good garden tools if you keep hunting.

You could be overflowing with vegan goodness in your very own ground or container garden before you know it.

And more!

Of course you don't want to spend money and fill up your life with a lot of extra stuff you don't use. But making or growing your own is a backbone of frugality.

I want to hear about your best secondhand vegan finds...

Giving your way to freedom

Worth selling?

In my decluttering journey, I've sold many nice things.  Recently.....

Chasing value

Around each thing that owns me, I still see a double golden halo:

1. the money I spent on it
2. the money I could get for it

1. Illusion

The money I spent on it is gone. The time to save that money was when I decided to buy the thing - a good lesson for next time.

The thing is no longer my money; it is a thing of some functional worth to me.

Or it is not.

2. Gamble

The money I could get for it seems irresistible. Some of that GONE money could come back!

I'm gambling that the effort of selling will return enough money to be worthwhile.  Of course, from any cash I get, I must subtract all the time it takes to run an amateur secondhand shop. Time to:

• photograph
• advertise
• contact a buyer
• maybe wrap a package, address it, and take it to the post office.

An optimistic figure? 1 hour. How low must I value my time to leave any lovely money in my hand?

And some things didn't sell, so after all the effort, I simply gave them away. Or worse, left them in my house in the hope I could sell them later.

Winning the gamble

Some things can be worth selling. But remember the main benefit is a clearer space, a clearer mind, and a clearer life. So...

1. Be realistic about the money you'll get back
2. Value your time fairly

You'll gradually get a feel for your true profit margin, and when to just let go.

Most of what I showed you earlier in my sold portfolio?  Should have just let 'em go.

Giving away is not throwing away.

Yes, another person might gain from your stuff.  Value that more than the stuff and find freedom.

Decluttering - big time

Some of my recent decluttering has been on the small side, but plenty of big stuff is still going down.

On the shelf

Building on past success, I've again decluttered so well that I had DH remove an entire shelf that he so kindly installed for me in a previous life.

"More storage will solve my problem!" "Yes dear."

 "Maybe I just need less STUFF"

 "What about even less?"  Now you see it...

 ...and now you don't.

Our walls need some care after their abuse, but I still love it.

A bedtime story with a happy ending

We had a double bed (from my student days) leaning against a wall.

Then we used that bed as co-sleeping space alongside our kingsized bed.  Acres of sleep space - almost wall to wall!  Kids loved it. By night a bed - by day a super trampoline.

 Then we moved that bed into the au pair's room, and bought a simple single bed to be co-sleeping space.

Now, co-sleeping still happens, but only the cats use that single bed. I like the cats, but they already own the entire house, so...

Now I have a retreat. 
And we can get in and out of bed without gymnastics.
And we already sold the single bed for more than we paid for it.

Aaaaaahhhh....

 

 

 

 

Moral

My successes are just me rescuing myself from problems I'd created in the first place. 

Wallet minimalism and handbag sexism

My wallet and backpack featured last year on The Everyday Minimalist's Minimalist Wallet series.

That exercise showed me that I could downsize several items. But in the unstuffed wallet, the important cards get lonely and slip out of their pocket when not carefully handled.

More recently, my husband minimised his wallet from a traditional trifold to a simple bifold card wallet.  He's given that bifold to me now... so now I get to put my money where my minimalism is.

Handbag sexism

While we're on the topic of what we carry around, ponder this. Handbags are a hot feminist issue (along with women's pockets)  Women are burdened by bags full of makeup and stuff for everything that could happen to us or anyone around us.
Men have always carried wallets, heedless of their clothing profiles.  Few take even a comb along with them because their morning's grooming is good enough.

These bags bind us as much as high heels - you can't run very fast with either.

And just like any space, you start with what you actually want, and the unplanned items sneak in until you're forced into maintenance. Bigger is not better.

I don't need to carry nappies and clothes changes everywhere I go anymore.  When I do need to carry water bottles and a snack, I've downsized from the daypack featured earlier to this child-sized backpack (of course, one of my many Secondhand Smarts buys). 


So on to the shrinking wallet...



Old wallet

Trifold wallet with numerous pockets, contains:

• Cash
• NZ driver’s license
• Credit card
• Cashpoint card
• Automobile Association card
• Library card
• Supermarket points card
• Bulk store membership card
• Explorers clubday concession card (card stock)
• Health food store loyalty card (keychain size)
• Airline points card
• 2 store loyalty cards
• Food preferences card designed by my sister for giving to restaurants not familiar with the McDougall Program. Never so far used.
• Medical insurance membership card

New wallet

I kept everything I used on a weekly basis or more and the auto card for emergencies. The airline points card is new to me and still to prove itself.

I released

• 2 store loyalty cards (not local)
• Food preferences card 
• Medical insurance membership card
• Cashpoint card (credit card is dual purpose)

The rest fits pretty nicely.  I could add a little more.

Advantages

Beautiful...

As well as the obvious, it's much easier to carry in that rare creature: the women's clothing pocket!
 
Risks and downsides

There's no place to keep much cash or receipts I want to save.  I've already wasted a trip thinking I had a cheque in my wallet - and I didn't!  Then, I coudn't find the cheque for some hours afterward.

This is truly an experiment - wish me luck!

My ideal wallet would be a bifold that also has a long side pocket for bills - anyone know where I can get one? 

Secondhand Smarts - Merry Christmas!

In my last decluttering post, I reported acquiring from as well as donating to my favourite charity shop.

Here, I brag about my savvy purchases.


This pile includes:

• A brand new Dora Memory Game in original plastic (we have it already; this one goes straight into the present box for some other lucky kid)
• At least 50 Lego pieces, including three anthropomorphised animal figures
• 3 gorgeous butterflies
• A dressup mask (so I can play along with Labyrinth)
• Masses of sidewalk chalk
• Mini bubbles
• Alphabet craft stickers
• Coloured paper, decorative pencils, coloured pencils, modelling clay and crayons
• Bratz and My Little Pony activity books (Princess Bratz is leaving the house quickly, one way or another!)
• 2x goggles and surf socks in my son's size (both on our shopping list)
• Slinky
• Magnifying glass

All for $32!  I paid that much, even secondhand on TradeMe, simply for that amount of Lego.

These have been wrapped festively and frugally - stay tuned for family and eco-friendly wrapping help!

Constant decluttering

These left us a month ago.

When I feel like I never want to see X again, I'm going with that feeling! 

OK, I'm not throwing all the toys away just yet, but there are plenty of other candidates.

Remember that things keep coming in, so things must keep going out.

I probably should have let someone else drop off the donations bag.  Continuing the Christmas spirit, I did not leave the charity shop empty handed.

These left today (note this bag is wider than half the sofa!)

Girl clothes on their way to another family

I've continued my paper decluttering successes and reduced some major stacks with a new resolution:  Keep Some.

I have some company stocks and a long-held bank account, both of which have generated many years of statements (back to the 80s!). 

I've been afraid to get rid of anything just in case I get into trouble without the records but also haven't yet decided what I want to do with them.  So the statements pile up.

My triumph

I've kept one statement from every year, plus anything that looks tax related.  So I have records in case someone should demand them, and I also have much much less paper!

Left: gone!  Right: kept

Challenge

Find 10 things today that you will never use again - bin them or put them in your donations bag.  (Start a donations bag!)

More Vegan Waffling - Sticking to it

Our waffle maker had made its last wholewheat vegan waffle, but I got lucky with Freecycle with another waffle maker in great condition.  Guess who was pleased with herself?

Try...

But then I tried to use it.  This waffle maker was a different shape and a smaller area, so I set the timer a bit shorter.  

Not short enough.

Have you ever cleaned a waffle iron with burned on batter on both sides?  Ugh.

Twenty or so minutes later, I set the waffle iron outside to dry properly.  I have a sneaking (and mostly illogical) fear I might have shorted out our other waffle maker by trying to clean it, and I didn't want any water at all in the electrical areas for the next try.

Try...
 
Our vegetarian au pair, Filip, was keen to do the next waffle.  He made lots of waffles back in Germany, and I hoped he could work some magic.

Sadly, he also faced a long cleanup job.  But he reported crucial data - the waffle was already getting too brown on the outside while still drippy in the middle.

Did I get just what I paid for?  Was this a defective waffle maker?  Maybe it could only cook non-vegan waffles?

We'd both had enough experimenting for one day, and the (again painstakingly clean) waffle maker went to hide in the cupboard.  I was tempted to give up and buy a new waffle maker that understood me.

Learn...
Before giving up, I did some research, starting from the brand on this sturdy old waffle maker - Ralta.  From there, I learned a lot about waffles.  
Our other waffle maker was Scandinavian style (heart-shaped with diamond spacers).  













Our new one is Belgian style (square with squares). (pic) 

 




You can also have American waffles (circle with squares).




 

Belgian waffles need a doughier batter with extra rising ingredients, not the drippy one I used before to cover and fill the large heart-shaped area of the Scandinavian style.  There's no time for that water to cook out.

The Belgian recipes looked more involved and I feared I might be choosing between no waffles or complicated nonvegan waffles.  But I found my dream recipe for 100% Wholewheat Vegan Belgian Waffles.  Instead of yeast and eggs, I can use baking powder and vinegar to make the waffle rise in the 3-4 minute cooking time the Belgian waffle needs.
 
For true Belgian waffles, you can't cheat like this because it changes the taste, but luckily I don't care.  I just want vegan waffles from my free waffle maker!

Then, and only then, Try Again
 
Just like magic, in about 3 minutes the thick batter slid gently off the waffle maker onto the serving plate as golden brown waffles.








My next challenge is to learn to make perfect pancakes on my cast-iron skillet so I don't need a waffle iron.

Secondhand smarts - picture perfect!

I have a few historical Secondhand Smarts stories waiting, but this one is just so cool!  

Our waffle maker has made its last wholewheat vegan waffle, and the kids always love me more when I make waffles.  So I entered full secondhand shopping mode.

I checked on TradeMe and down at (you guessed it) my favourite charity shop. I did not find a waffle iron.  Nor did I find an exercise bike, which I've been prescribed as physiotherapy.  But I did find....

Smile!

I have wanted one of these for years, but even a small one is so expensive I hadn't bought one.  Now I have a big one - and that's no Photoshop fake, it was only $20!

(The backroom guy literally just put it on display as I walked by and I didn't let it gather any dust.)

Oh, and I got a small pedal exerciser from TradeMe and a good old-fashioned waffle maker free from Freecycle.

Pardon the expression, but retail and weep!

Secondhand smarts - on display

Due to circumstances beyond our control, we've practically been on a spending spree over the last few months.  TV, food processor, car...

All of it secondhand, of course!

This was another serendipitous peek in the back room at ye olde favourite charity shop in the hope of finding...exactly what I found.

History

In our previous home, we had an broken tile fireplace and brick chimney.  We demolished that ourselves and installed a beautiful built-in rimu wood, mirror, and glass display cabinet.  The new owners loved it too, so we made a quick and cheap purchase to hold our lovely things in our new house.   It has featured in previous posts, but here it is again.

From a distance, it is OK - the top is fine but all the bottom cupboard doors are poor replacements and don't close well.  It doesn't fit in the dining room but everything in it gets used there.  And it crowds that corner.

But for $50, it did the trick.  My decluttering left quite a lot of empty spots.

Looking here, looking there...
We had been halfheartedly seeking a corner cupboard on TradeMe but it was hard work. 

But in the charity shop, I could look at my new prize, and send DH to look at it, and we agreed that it was just perfect! 

Out with the old (sold for $51) and in with the new.

Now these beautiful things are in their natural home, the dining room!

Moving so many lovely things from one cabinet to another got me wondering how many quality wine and other liquor glasses of different shapes we actually need - we rarely drink and only ever drink wine with company.  (It seemed like a grownup thing to do to have wine glasses on the wedding register.)  Stay tuned.

So another after picture is now a before:

 We can now enjoy our whole lounge window.

Light and bright - success!