careful or mean

[jackiew]

I've spent part of the weekend laying down some carpet which was aquired from a skip ( brand new large offcuts of very expensive carpet from a serviced apartment development ). In my opinion the new carpet is infinitely preferable to the revolting old carpet tiles it replaces and I wouldn't be able to justify buying a new carpet for the room which is scheduled for demolition at some point.

Not everyone sees my thrift as a positive characteristic. It appears that some people wouldn't dream of removing anything from a skip to use in their garage, much less their house.

I happily bulk buy tuna and cereal when they are on special, wait for k-mart's 15% sale to come round to make purchases ( having carefully checked that their price for the item is competitive in the first place ) and relish aquiring a bargain - a bargain being something you actually were going to buy anyway - not something you buy because it happens to be cheap. Which means I've then got more money for those things which aren't negotiable on price.

I'm bemused by friends who feel obliged to provide their kids with brand new clothes, brand new toys etc and wouldn't dream of visiting an op shop even though they can't pay off their credit card bills.

Equally bemusing to me are the charitable organisations who knock back furniture offered to them on the grounds that their clientele ( who are supposedly on their uppers ) wouldn't want anything that old fashioned. I'm quite happy to have second hand stuff as an interim measure.

So folks ... what do you think is the difference between someone being "careful" with money and someone being mean ... and do you have any second hand furniture in your house ( and we're ruling out "antiques" here ... which is second hand that has aquired respectability through age ).

[HappyHammer]

I have a second hand dryer in the garage, bought for $50 about four years ago, it's just about to give up the ghost but have been offered another one just in the nick of time.

Don't have any second hand furniture in the house but have loads of re-cycled timber and stuff in my garage like old filing cabinets I use for my power tools and bits of carpet I use as knee pads. Re-cycled my old pantry as stroage in the garage also. Don't have any trouble asking for timber from house demolitions etc. or picking up free firewood when offered.

One thing I am a bit funny about is people rummaging through stuff put out for council cleanups. This is for two reasons, One I'm not sure I'm comfortable with someone rifling through my rubbish while it's still on the lawn and secondly because the buggers knock things over and generally spread the rubbish all over the place.

I also do a big grocery shop (Tins, toliet roll, washing powder etc.) every 6 months at a local bulk wholesalers which saves us money and aids cashflow during the year making weekly shopping cheaper. Sometimes a challenge to find places to store it although managed to justify a large old fridge / freezer in the garage with SWMBO.

HH.

[bitingmidge]

Where was this thread three years ago! We are almost through a one-year "just do it" phase of our lives which has resulted in a whole heap of new or at least unscrounged stuff which will be our last purchase of that type(!)...but you can't take the scrounger out of the boy I'm afraid...

Almost all of our "found" stuff has gone to furnish our three kids homes, and the best bit is they think it is all their heritage!

After 32 years we have finally bought a new dining room table to replace a ply art deco one that came from a footpath and would still be ours if it wasn't still "in the family", our coffee table was a cardboard carton originally wrapped in tinfoil (but that was the 70's and it had a ply top which was also a chopping board), that was replaced by the inverted two halves of a tea chest with the tin bits removed. (All this before "Shabby Chic was invented to excuse it.)

My drafting table (adjustable) is still the one I rescued from a tip, and painted satin black.

The new workshop is fitted entirely with freebies (or will be when finished)....white melamine cupboards and drawer units from an office renovation tip-load, bench tops from a similar source (this time a shop renovation), Workbench will be oregon (I've finally made up my mind) from a couple of pergolas, wall storage and brackets from pine cladding rescued during our renovation, router bench scrounged studs and laminate....racking from plumbing pipe and ply packing cases.

I have also been known to rescue pine tile pallets, for a variety of purposes.

We open envelopes carefully and reuse them to archive daily paperwork in our shop as well....

I don't think it's tight, for us this behaviour is no longer of necessity, but it I doubt that anyone who has experienced truly hard times could ever adjust to complete wasteful plenty!

I just can't stand seeing the waste, and have been contemplating attempting to build a small shack entirely out of scrounged materials (I know I could do it) just to prove a point...but so far haven't been able to scrounge the land!

Yet,


P

[HappyHammer]

SWMBO was threatening to put an ad in the paper stating "Husband free to good home, crap included", she thinks I'm a hoarder as I find it very difficult to throw things away "Just in case". I told her she'd have more luck if she left the "...crap included" part off of the ad.

BTW, Crap translates to all of my tools, my tinnie, timber, magazine collection, clothes, glass jar collection, various plant pots, various strong bags (For heavy rubbish, but always seem too good for that so don't get used) and much much more....all useful stuff I'm sure you'll agree?

HH.

[jackiew]

BTW, Crap translates to all of my tools, my tinnie, timber, magazine collection, clothes, glass jar collection, various plant pots, various strong bags (For heavy rubbish, but always seem too good for that so don't get used) and much much more....all useful stuff I'm sure you'll agree?

HH.

you haven't been and raided my house while i've been at work have you :eek: ? I'm going to count my collection of strong bags and jam jars when I get home.

[HappyHammer]

Had to resort to buying some timber for the fire until I get re-supplied by the outlaws from thier farm and got some great strong bags as a Brucey bonus

HH

[bitingmidge]

Had to resort to buying some timber for the fire until I get re-supplied by the outlaws from thier farm and got some great strong bags as a Brucey bonus

HH

I collected all my old roof battens (2 x 1 hardwood @ 20 years old), denailed them and docked them to 350 lengths before racking them. FOUR CUBIC METRES OF SOLID TIMBER will last us about 200 years AND I saved the tip fee!


Cheers,

P
aka Scrooge McMidge

[journeyman Mick]

Jackie,
I'm with you here, being careful makes sense. What's so great about having the latest and newest and being in hock up to your eyeballs to fund it? Personally I couldn't enjoy a holiday if I knew that when I got back I'd have to pay it off, nor could I lounge around the house enjoying creature comforts when my conscience told me I should be out making money to pay for them. The only thing I owe money on is our house - because it's the only thing I've ever taken a loan out for.
Modern society's drive for more and more consumer goods which are discarded not long after being bought is a major contributing factor to the pressure being placed on our environment. People want larger houses with more appliances, new cars every few years, new clothes every season and they want it all now.
I'm sure that most people on this BB would rather build a piece of furniture that can be passed on down through the generations than buy a melamine and particleboard number which will need to be replaced before their grandchildren are even on the scene. Yes, a tree will need to be cut down to build the heirloom furniture but at least its products will last decades - long enough hopefully for a replacement to be grown.
I was taught to save up for what I wanted and to make do in the meantime, but sadly it seems that most people are now taught that they can have it all now, should have it all now and to hell with the interest costs and the environment.
One can be careful with money and resources and still live a rich life, richer, I believe than the type of life that advertising is trying to convince us to want.
End of rant.

Mick

[soundman]

No sound & lighting or audiovisual company in this country was ever..... ever started with new equipment.

Black paint has wonderfull rejuvinating properties.

I know of one pair of winch up lighting trees that have been thru three sucsessive company take overs and must be at least 25 years old.

[dzcook]

well i am a hoarder of everything always look at something that someone else is throwing away and want to find a use for it , think thats part of the reason now need to move to a bigger house

thou am starting to wonder if its getting a bit much now

i get really upset when i see those reno shows on the box and they walk in to a place and start smashing everything to pieces where i carefully pull everythig to pieces to get the last bit from it and is surprising how much u do reuse in time i always think that there is someone who could reuse those old kitchen cupboards etc


also as i only have a part time job on the minun wage i cant afford to waste anything or rush ouit and buy new , my lounge suite old turned pine setting was old wehen i bought it and has lasted me over 10 yrs and still works and my bed is about the same the mattress is at lest 25 yrs old and still as good as ever ( who says that a mattress onlys 5 yrs )


but i stil;l think when i win the lotto ha ha will get all new stuff but as will never win i think i am stuck with it

bye for now
david

[Robert WA]

Good thread.

I was a student when I married and earned next to nothing working part time. My wife worked but, as was the situation back then, didn't earn much.

Everything we owned was someone else's junk or was bought 2nd hand from the dark, back corners of junk shops.

We got into the habit and, at the same time, we learned how to spot good stuff among the rubbish.

That is where my passion for restoration comes from.

[bsrlee]

I'm at least a 3rd generation hoarder. 'Our' (currently Dad's) lounge room table is an Australain Red Cedar round table of uncertain antiquity - my Grandfather found it under a house he was painting in the 1920's - the top had split with the grain. He rotated the top about 60 degrees & polished it up. Dad eventually inherited it & re-finished it - he re-fastened the top, and one summer day there was an almighty Ka-Boom - the top split in a new spot. One day I'll get round to de-mounting it & fitting a ply underlay to the top.

On Mum's side, a large part of the furniture still in use was made by her father from salvaged machinery cases before and after WW2. He also designed & built all the wood parts (roof, windows & doors) of at least 3 houses, including the one I live in now ( c 1946). I can still remeber his tool grinder with a motor casing made out of a large jam tin.

Needless to say I wasn't allowed to have any of his 'good' tools, although there is a compass plane & a few wood planes in an old tin box. And I am keeping up another tradition - Grandfather on Dad's side was a blacksmith/farrier by trade, who earned his living as a house painter/paperer/french polisher. Mum's father was a confectioner by trade, but his first regular job was in a box factory, and he was a keen carpenter/cabinetmaker for the rest of his life. I'm an ex-cop, who does blacksmithing & woodwork.