Waste not want not. Who comes up with these sayings? And in what language? I interpret that to mean 'don't waste what you don't want.' I say, please DO waste what you don't want! If you do, then people like me get to go and BUY it! I will happily re-purpose your cast-offs. I'm not talking garage sales here. I'm talking about air conditioned, carpeted retail space. Shop at your local Good Will Store or Salvation Army Store. No kidding.
Put your pride away and get your keys! I'm not suggesting that you root through piles of used underwear; stay with me. This is good stuff. Just like any other store, 98% of the items for sale are of no interest you. It's the 2% that you're after. You just don't know what you're shopping for until you see it. Go with an open mind, tiny budget and accomplish great things. Like any other shopping trip you embark on to find treasures for your home, you may leave empty-handed. You have to leave, go back, leave and go back again.
You may not have a Good Will or Salvation Army store in your area, but I'll bet you have a thrift store of some sort. Some of the more 'colorful' mom and pop thrift stores present more of a shopping challenge and tend to smell a bit like your Grandma's basement, but press on.
Would you walk away from a brand-new pair of Nine West leather cowboy boots for $17.00 on clearance at Saks or Macy's? I think not. I ran (quarterback-style) straight to the cash register at the Salvation Army Store and bought those puppies. Actually, I was willing to pay $34.00 for them, but it so happened that I was a thrift Rookie and didn't know that Wednesdays are 1/2 off of clothing and shoes at that particular location! Keep the change.
How about a large piece of furniture for your foyer? Say, in black, with a storage bench-seat, hooks for coats and stands 5 feet tall? Sounds pretty, huh? Have your visual? Good. Ballard Design or Pottery Barn calls that 'The Beadboard Entry Cabinet' and would kindly ask that you pay around $800.00 plus S & H; please, and thank you. If the piece had a French name or something that sounded like an $800.00 treasure, that'd be one thing. Back on Planet Earth, our Salvation Army Entry Cabinet was $99.00.
If I haven't quite been able to create a convincing visual to drive the point home, I'll leave you with this: Play along and choose the item in this picture that cost $6.00.
If you chose the lamp, you win.
The linen-like barrel shade was found at Ross for $12.00 (Target Home Brand, by the way) making the grand total $18.00 for the lamp. The shopping high? Priceless.
Good Will and Salvation Army made michelles LIST. Have yourself a nice little Saturday and make time to go Good Will hunting.
Teaser: Do these brownies make my butt look big?
I hang my head in shame. The girl that buys nothing without price-shopping first, broke her own rules and BIG.
Rarely do I lay awake at night pondering the price of drugs the way I spend sleepless hours reviewing the treasures I left behind at Ross, TJ Maxx, HomeGoods or Marshalls. It would then make sense that I might walk into a pharmacy month after month and just plunk my money down. I don't do it happily, but someone has to stimulate the economy.
Even healthy people take medications for life. That's just how it goes. Never did I dream that you could feel robbed at gunpoint just by taking your meds. Well...it went like this: there became a world-wide shortage of Armour Thyroid. The last few doses on Planet Plano were at Target, so I transferred my prescription. While at Target's pharmacy for the first time, I found their customer service to be that of something you'd see in a clip featuring June Cleaver stopping in at the local butcher shop. I felt like a real, live customer! No time was wasted in transferring all of my prescriptions at once! Of course, Target happily did the work with one magic phone call. By the way, the actual Pharmacist, herself, was doing it all. Unheard of.
In doing so, it was revealed that Target's price for one of my other medications would be $38.00 a month as compared to a whopping $150.00 a month from from my Tom Thumb (our local big box grocery chain) pharmacy. I nearly required resuscitation from the buff pharmacy helper-dude that greets and assists while being oh, so cute. I digress.
Mind you, these prices are real, left-my-wallet-cash prices. We're among the growing population of people without prescription drug coverage. Having taken the medication from Tom Thumb at 150.00 a month, for 6 months or more, our bank account is now missing 700.00 for no good reason. It was all me. It only takes a phone call to price-shop for Rx medications. I sure can find my way to the phone to see if ten different Target locations have the clearance shoes I want. Should have called 10 different pharmacies...$700.00 will buy a LOT of clearance shoes!
Be well, say no to drugs and feel like June Cleaver at your local Target pharmacy.
Target Pharmacy hit a home-run and landed on michelles LIST. Tom Thumb Pharmacy earned a spot on my kick-it-to-the-curb LIST.
Teaser: Good Will Hunting
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