SPREADING THE WEALTH!

Lately I’ve been de-cluttering.  Painting the pumpkin room has led to cleaning and getting rid of the clutter.  I had too much stuff in that room and once I calmed the colour I needed to calm the clutter.   I’ve made several trips to the Salvation Army and I said to my husband “we could of had a really profitable garage sale with all the stuff we’ve gotten rid of.”  He said “we’ve been so blessed with what has been given to us” and he reminisced to the time we found out we were pregnant with our first child.  We looked at cribs and baby furniture and marvelled how we would afford it all.  Out of the blue this man that my husband knew from his past, called him up and said we’ve got baby furniture and if you and your wife want it you can have it.  He gave us a perfectly good crib and changing table and wouldn’t take a cent.  My neighbour got a new couch and gave me her old one, my mother-in law gave me quite a few antique pieces and many other people have given us things.    We have saved a lot of money on furniture.   My husband’s right, we need to spread the wealth.  That couch that my neighbour gave me a few years ago really had to go and I’ve thinking about replacing it, when out of the blue a girlfriend of mine tells me she’s getting rid of couch and do I want it?  Today we finished putting the pumpkin room back together and took many boxes, an old coffee table and the old couch to the Salvation Army.  While there  I had to take a browse through the store and it was packed with browsers.  It was 50% off day and people were buying everything.  I found five Ikea dishes that I currently use as my everyday set and I paid $4.00 for all five, I usually pay $3.50 a piece.    A few weeks ago I decided I wanted a new canister set for my counter.  I saw something in a tupperware brochure and the ones I wanted were $54.00 for a set of 5.   I took a browse through Value village and there I found two canisters very similar to the tupperware ones.  $1.00 a piece.  I looked around a little more and found a few more canisters that I mixed and matched with the tupperware wanna be’s!  The whole set cost me $8.00.

     

Of course while I was there I found a few other things too!

   

A scarf, some jewellery, a pair of ski gloves for one of the boys, a couple of frames plus the canister set – all for just under $50.00.  I’m not knocking tupperware, the product is very good but Value Village gave me more bang for my buck.

Around Christmas time my husband got a great deal at Value Village that saved me quite a bit of money.   I have a beautiful nativity scene by Willow Tree and  I wanted the manger to complete the set.  I looked at a Willow Tree manger in the store and it was over $120.00.  I couldn’t justify paying that so I resolved to having a nativity scene without the manger.  My husband and mother-in law went to Value Village one day and came home with a manger for $2.00 – big savings there!

Looks so much more complete with the manger – Willow’s did not have a palm tree!

There is so much good karma in thrifting.  You get rid of something you really don’t want only to be someone else’s treasure and that someone else’s throw-aways become your treasure.  To top it all off if you want to get rid of any of your treasures – back to the thrift store you go only to delight someone else – you can’t feel guilty about that.   So go ahead spread the wealth!