Shopping Thriftily & Taking Care Of What You Already Have

Hello all! In this posting, I will first discuss my belief in wise shopping habits and secondly, taking care of what you already have. So to begin, I have always been a firm believer in shopping thriftily. I do not believe in paying full price for anything, with a few exceptions. That does not mean everything I own has to be second hand either, though there is not anything wrong with that. Many times, shopping with this mentality has helped my bank account during very slim times. Nowadays, I can thankfully say I am not normally living in slim times but, the mentally of thrift is still being utilized.

I more than likely inherited this from my parents. Now I would like to make a distinction between shopping thriftily/ wisely vs being a "cheapskate" or "cheap" individual. My parents inherited their wise spending habits from their parents. Nobody grew up in a rich home. But they always had healthy food on the table, roof over their head, & clothes on their back.

Having had four kids, it greatly behooved my parents to shop wisely. We, like my parents, never went without a meal, always had clothes & shoes, always had a roof over our heads.

I think there is a lot to be said for instilling the values of need vs want in kids and we got it. We all have benefitted from this mentality down to the youngest and that's my sister who's only 20 years old.

You may be wondering what my header photo has to do with what I am talking about, and that's nothing really. I chose it as I took it today whilst stopped at a redlight across from a field. It does kind of resonate with what I am saying a little though. "Farming for healthy futures" - only works if you put in the effort today. Therefore, my parents put in the early seeds for my siblings and I to be more successful by valuing having our needs met and being thankful for anything beyond that, like when our dad got us the Sega Genesis console used. We were so happy!

Anyway, today I did just that, I shopped thrifty and saved a bundle. I do consignment shopping and selling from time to time. Today I went to Plato's closet with some clothes to sell that I no longer was wearing for whatever reason. It always bugs me to have stuff lingering around I am not wearing or using. I'll either try to sell on eBay -

• believe it or not ebay is a great place to sell old electronics for parts
  -or-
  If it is a clothing item I go to Platos closet - which isn't an actual consignment shop but you do get paid immediately for whatever they choose to buy. Usually whatever they don't want, I donate. I generally make sure what I'm selling couldn't be used by someone I actually know like my sister or Mom or sister in laws.

I have recently started back into trail running. I will say that if it comes down to it, I will pay full price for a running shoe without hesitation. Why? Because I know my feet and body will pay the price for skimping on the right shoes. There are some things that you gotta suck it up and pay full price for sometimes. Running shoes are one. I needed some new running shoes actually and was looking to get some shoes that were trail friendly with tougher soles to handle jagged rocks and for traction. Today I found some brand new Columbia trail runners that are light weight enough for road running too. If they'd ever been used for more than a floor model somewhere I sure can't tell. I made $4 off a few items Platos accepted, these shoes were $24 so, I got them for $20!!

I did a little rudimentary research on them before getting them because as all runners know, just because a shoe feels good doesn't mean it will run well. These ones are for high arched people like myself so yay! These shoes probably retailed around $100 being Columbia's.

I needed also some general use shoes for work and outings. I really hit the jackpot today. They happened to have these memory foam sketchers that I can't tell have ever been worn, and also, these Toms that are in extremely good shape. Both for ten each. These shoes each would have been in the $40-60 range brand new.

I was in the car wash when I took my shoe pictures. Haha!

Another thing I will bring up is that today so many people are just exessively materialistic. Why do you think I found such great shoes? They were purchased by someone who thought they were "cute" then didn't want them after a few, if any wears. I have gotten stuff in the past with tags and everything. I was chatting with a woman while I was there who was expressing similar sentiments. Her daughter apparently has "four pairs of Ugg boots" and only wore "two of them."

That's just it in today's society at large, "out with the old, in with the new", wash, rinse, repeat! And so many wonder why they cannot get ahead of their credit cards. I'm 29 and I actually still have two pair of shorts from when I was 18. They are raggedy but they make comfy sleeping and lounge about the house shorts!

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Part 2:
Taking care of what you already have....Today I also steam cleaned my carpets. This is a great example of taking care of what you already have. It saves you money in the long run. If you carpet shampoo regularly it prolongs the life of your carpets & rids your home of disgusting allergens. I try to vacuum twice a week and carpet shampoo once a month. Very important for anyone who has carpets, even more important if you have indoor cats (or other animals.) I wouldn't carpet shampoo more than twice a month though because it can weaken the tensile strength of your carpet if overdone.

Today following vacuuming, I steam cleaned. Hold your barf bags people, but here's the "stew" I got off the carpets!

Pretty disgusting. Everytime it's like this. I'm currently only doing it once a month, for me and having cats I think I am going to bump that to twice a month. It not only makes the environment better for me and my husband but the cats benefit too. Here are some after photos of the carpet cleaning, that look almost new (and trust me that aren't even remotely new)....

Gotta be careful with darker colored carpets, as they hide the dirt better!

My cats seem happy about it too though they didn't appreciate the noise. =^_^=

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So that'll about wrap things up. To conclude, by shopping wisely and non - materialistcally, you can save a lot of money, and subsequently even feel better about your shopping. You don't have to be a coupon hoarder to do that either! It is only as difficult as you make it. Secondly, take care of the stuff you already have. You can prolong the life of so many high dollar things (such as carpeting and flooring) just by doing routine maintenance and cleaning.

Feel free to chime in on this discussion. I would love to hear from you!

all photos mine taken with my Samsung Galaxy S8