Cheapskates Corner

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We've furnished our house with second-hand furniture for pennies on the dollar.

Some really nice stuff as well.

There is a lot of money in the Okanagan, and apparently the richie-riches refresh their furnishings as often as they refresh their wardrobe. Good quality furniture that is maybe a year or two old, little-to-no-wear, but as comments above show, is difficult to sell, so the price reflects that. Also, we show up with a truck, so basically they are paying us to move their furniture out of their house.
 
ifiddles said:
You are very brave...I would be worried about bringing bed bugs, roaches and other nasty critters into my house...gives me the shivers...
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All depends on the neighbourhood! Kidding! Generally we avoid fabrics of any kind. Chairs and cabinets and the formentioned lamps and other accessories.
 
We used to pick up solid wood furniture and refinish it. No one wants to be bothered with stripping old varnish and sanding and restaining it etc so some stuff is cheap or free. We picked up a massive harvest table like this for cheap. Stripped the old varnish off, sanded, restained it and made a new leaf (that was missing) to match the colour. Also picked up some old classroom wooden chairs from a school that had shut down to refinish too. A lawyers office was throwing out a solid wood legal bookcase so we took that as well.

Solid wood is great, nice and easy to get looking good again.
 
I furnished a good chunk of our BC house with really nice old stuff I picked up via online auctions for next to nothing. Have some quartersawn oak furniture, teak shelving, and other odds and ends that were dirt cheap. I also developed a sizeable record collection for very little that way, even though that also involved the elbow grease of picking out the Herb Alpert and Burl Ives duds among the nuggets. Added some Harmon Kardon, Sansui and Sony amps, Thorens, Dual and Yamaha TTs, and JBL, Advent and Dynaco speakers, again for next to nothing. Ended up keeping what I liked and selling the rest for a profit, so at least those didn't involve trips to Value Village (who now no longer take records because of jerks like me).

The main problem was I'd be combing through the lots and would see weird stuff that would catch my eye and I'd throw down a stupid low bid just as a laugh. Then occasionally the low bid would stick, and I'd end up with a prop claymore sword, or a large model sailboat, or an oscilloscope, or a globe from the '50s, or some other equivalently useless curio. Without a quanset hut on the back of my property to stash all my junk in, I'd inevitably have to find a way to get rid, which is the opposite of saving money ..
 
Priller said:
I furnished a good chunk of our BC house with really nice old stuff I picked up via online auctions for next to nothing. Have some quartersawn oak furniture, teak shelving, and other odds and ends that were dirt cheap. I also developed a sizeable record collection for very little that way, even though that also involved the elbow grease of picking out the Herb Alpert and Burl Ives duds among the nuggets. Added some Harmon Kardon, Sansui and Sony amps, Thorens, Dual and Yamaha TTs, and JBL, Advent and Dynaco speakers, again for next to nothing. Ended up keeping what I liked and selling the rest for a profit, so at least those didn't involve trips to Value Village (who now no longer take records because of jerks like me).

The main problem was I'd be combing through the lots and would see weird stuff that would catch my eye and I'd throw down a stupid low bid just as a laugh. Then occasionally the low bid would stick, and I'd end up with a prop claymore sword, or a large model sailboat, or an oscilloscope, or a globe from the '50s, or some other equivalently useless curio. Without a quanset hut on the back of my property to stash all my junk in, I'd inevitably have to find a way to get rid, which is the opposite of saving money ..
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Auctionitis!
 
I just finished flipping my tyres to winter ones. Youngest came to help and forgot to tighten the left rear nuts. Caught it in time. Two more cars to go before it snows. Saved 75-90 dollars.
 
We've always bought used Ikea office and home furniture all assembled off Kiji. Saved a ton of money - company van was useful. Got 3 lovely glass L shaped two tier glass desks we used for years for $145 for the three.
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$1700 Steelcase Leap chairs for $4-500 mint. Toronto always had super choice.
Wish I could find here for that price.

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I like to repurpose stuff. As a hobby I make fur hats, ruffs and mitts. I used to buy pelts, now I find gently used, lightly used fur coats to repurpose.

Saves a ton of time and cost.
 
Being stingy:

I asked my dentist how much toothpaste one needs on the brush and he said just a bit, you don't need to make it look like a toothpaste commercial, loading the brush.

Similarly, for those that shave with blade and foam, do you glop on a handful and look like Santa gearing for a makeover?

I went from a marshmallow sized wad to a blob a little bigger than a mothball. In my financial plan the yearly cost difference probably equates to a burger. However, if everyone did the same the 80% drop in volume would mean a massive loss to the manufacturers.

Similar or even better arguments apply to bottled water and other modern necessities. Evian bottled water. Evian is naive spelled backwards.
 
MacDoc said:
We've always bought used Ikea office and home furniture all assembled off Kiji. Saved a ton of money - company van was useful. Got 3 lovely glass L shaped two tier glass desks we used for years for $145 for the three.
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$1700 Steelcase Leap chairs for $4-500 mint. Toronto always had super choice.
Wish I could find here for that price.

View attachment 76619
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I regularly check out Restore

A $100 solid walnut dining room table became a sofa table with lots left over.

$10 for a steno chair.

$45 for a huge Ikea entertainment unit. I added a larger piece of left over MDF to make the TV shelf into desk size. My home office.

$15 each got me file cabinets on wheels that make my drill press and planer mobile and the accessories go in the drawers.

$60 for a table to be used as a work bench. A piece of plywood would have cost more. When I got it home, I found out it was a working lift table and I could power it with a spare 18 volt battery from the tool shelf.

I am forbidden by the Mrs. to buy more pie plates. They go for ~$3 but housewares often get 30-50% discounts. Seniors' day discounts take another 20% off.
 
Another thing I like to cheap out on is energy.

I changed all our lights to leds, and installed smart switches and plugs everywhere. Then I setup Google home to help out.

At midnight all our lights automatically switch off or dim to their minimum. During daylight hours, lights shut off after 15 minutes.

When Google sees our cell phones are all 500m or more from the house, thermostat gets adjusted up or down depending on the season. I figure I save about $1500/year - all the automation hardware cost a few hundred bucks.

My place up north uses resistance electric heating. It's a small house but in the dead of winter can chew up $500/mo in hydro. Changing over to smart thermostats, should have a 2 month payback.
 
Burlington Restore get some choice furniture from Oakville/Burlington. You can tell when there is a change in management with pricing at times. They tag it high and then sits. Get too much stuff, they price to clear. We often make an offer and they accommodate. They see us enough to recognize us.


Get some nice exterior doors and cabinets etc.
 
Helped a friend install 4 windows from Waterloo Restore in his cabin up north.$650 each plus $150 for the triangle window on the side. Great deal.
 

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Similarly, for those that shave with blade and foam, do you glop on a handful and look like Santa gearing for a makeover?
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I use a shave cream - no propellent and lasts a long time and I can rub it into the whiskers. 6 x Mach 3 blades last me a couple years.
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same with deodorant ...long lasting and never iritates.
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We "temporarily" went down to one car during covid. We figured at some point we would have to buy a second vehicle again, in reality once we made the adjustments to a single vehicle we realized we could get by with one. When I drive to work I drop my wife off and pick her up, then we mix in transit, adjust/coordinate schedules, shop local, motorcycle, bicycle.... This saves us easily 7K a year after taxes, WELL above 10K before taxes. Be it payments, depreciation, TVM, repairs, consumables, insurance etc.

We were convinced we needed two, turns out we didn't once we forced the situation and adjusted--I bet this is the case for many.
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