my not-so-thrifty food budget

Something you might not know about me is that I love food almost as much as I love thrifting. I enjoy baking, cooking, reading about cooking, and shopping for food. For years it was a struggle because I tried to be as thrifty with food as I am with furniture. The problem is, most of the time the cheapest food is void of both flavor and nutrition.

Last fall I read Barbara Kingsolver's book Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A year of Food Life, after which Patrick and I watched Food Inc. together. I highly recommend checking out both, but be prepared for your philosophy on food to do a 180. I won't go into all of the details of what changed our minds, but we both came to the realization that our food budget needed to be near the top of our financial priorities.

We switched to all organic, and as much local food as possible. We started shopping weekly at the farmers' market—something I suggest starting in the summer when the bounty is plentiful. It wasn't long before the freshness and flavor of the food convinced us that buying local and organic was well worth the extra expense and effort. There are other benefits to joining the sustainable food movement, too. Here's an excerpt from Animal, Vegetable, Miracle:

"If every U.S. citizen ate just one meal a week (any meal) composed of locally and organically raised meats and produce, we would reduce our country’s oil consumption by over 1.1 million barrels of oil every week. That’s not gallons, but barrels. Small changes in buying habits can make big differences. Becoming a less energy-dependent nation may just need to start with a good breakfast."

In order to buy better food, we had to increase our grocery budget by about 30%. Like most families, it wasn't an option for us just to increase our spending by that amount, we needed to figure out a way to compensate for the higher food bill. We were committed, though, to figuring out how to make it work. Here are just a few ways that made it possible:

1. Stop wasting food. This was huge for me because I tend to buy something and use a small portion of it, letting the rest go bad in the bottom of my refrigerator's vegetable drawer. It's pretty much the same thing as throwing money directly in the garbage. I still struggle with this, but I'm slowly improving.

2. Determine financial priorities. We don't have cable TV or fancy electronics, and our newest car is ten years old. We don't spend very much on entertainment, but for us going to the thrift store and to the farmers' market are both sources of entertainment. We go to the market as a family every week, and the kids get to go around to all the booths and taste all of the samples. Our favorite market, the University District Farmers' Market, also has a playground attached, so on the dry days the kids get to play while I go back around to make all of my purchases.

3. Eat at home. Our family seldom eats at restaurants, although we have recently added a weekly Sunday lunch out together because Patrick works a fourteen hour day and it's really the only chance we get to spend time together that day. We usually go to chipotle, and the tab for the four of us is $20. The great thing about eating at home is that we save so much money by skipping the restaurants that we get to eat really delicious food, and drink nice wine everyday.

4. Reduce the number of snacks you buy. I've tried to significantly cut back on the pre-made packaged snack foods that I put in my shopping cart. These are obscenely overpriced and wastefully packaged. Instead, we buy things like granola, raisins, popcorn kernels, and nuts from the bulk section at the grocery store. The summer is great because there is more local fruit available for snacking, too.

5. Create a weekly meal plan. By planning meals for the week that share a few ingredients, I can significantly reduce my grocery bill and the amount of food I waste.

Though I'm no expert, there is so much more I could say on this subject, but since this is a thrifting blog, and not a food blog, I'll just leave you with a few links worth checking out:

Local Food Resources:
Edible Communities
Slow Food USA
USDA's Farmers' Market List

Budgeting:
Dave Ramsey

Recipes and Food Blogs:
Epicurious
The Sated Palate
Not Without Salt
Good Things Catered
Jamie Oliver

photo credits: Laura*B, & Tapir Girl via Flickr

grilling with MacGruber

It's mid-June, which in most parts of the country means that sunny days, shorts, and grilling are already routine. In Seattle, it means it might finally be time to put away the raincoat. Just don't tuck it too far back in the closet, because the weather is still spotty at best. This past weekend was the nicest by far that we've had this year, and we were longing to hear the sizzling sound of burgers on the grill. I recently bought some hamburger patties from the Skagit River Ranch—organic, grass fed, and the best tasting beef I think I've ever had. Unfortunately, we are grill-less at the moment, so I had to cook them on the George Foreman—not quite the same.

Several summers ago—after we purchased our first house and were flat broke—we thought we scored a great Char-Broil gas grill for free on Craigslist. We set it out on our back patio and grabbed some bratwurst to inaugurate our first summer in the new house. Patrick fired it up, I threw on the meat, and we stood back admiring the spiffy new grill, which was pretty nice for being free. The illusion was shattered, though, the moment we noticed that flames were coming out of the bottom of the grill and traveling down the propane line toward the tank. We were momentarily frozen. Should we reach down to try to shut off the tank or just run before the whole thing exploded?! Thankfully, Patrick was able to close the valve before the tank could blow us into the neighbor's yard. Thanks, generous Craigslister, for the free deathtrap.

After doing some tinkering, we discovered that only one side of the grill had malfunctioned, and we could still use the right side without having to fear for our lives. Like I mentioned, we were totally broke, so a free, half-broken grill was really all we could afford. We used that grill for four years, until some friends kindly loaned their charcoal grill to us for a few seasons. We have since thrown the Char-Broil bbq into the dump—something that I hate doing, but we were not about to let someone else blow up their backyard. We have also returned our friends' grill to them and I think after six years, we are finally ready to buy a new one.


Although I like the look of this grill, which is only about $1500 over our budget, I think we'll probably end up with a classic Weber charcoal grill.



Let me just remind people of something that is a little pet peeve of mine. If you plan on selling something on Craigslist, listing it for free, or donating it to the thrift store, please use full disclosure. I think this is especially important when it comes to things that hook up to a twenty pound tank of flammable gas.

friday finds - saturday edition

I wasn't able to post this find yesterday because we were headed out of town to visit family on beautiful Whidbey Island, and to visit the farm in Skagit Valley where we get our milk. If you've never been up to this area of Western Washington, it's well worth the trip.

Back to my find... I picked up this Thonet stool last friday at Goodwill for $9. It's really solid, and has only minor scuffing on the wood legs. It's also white and wood, so I suppose no one should be surprised that I brought it home. It is marked with the Thonet name on the bottom of the seat, and also has the name of an optometry clinic written on the bottom.


I'm not sure if I've found a permanent spot for it in our home yet. So far we've tried it in the entry and in our bedroom as a little side table. It's the perfect size for the awkward little space between the bed and the closet—narrow enough that the closet door can still swing nearly all the way open, but big enough to set my ipod, a book, and a cup. But, I've also contemplated using it outside on our deck.


Show off your most treasured thrifted find! Email a description and a jpeg file to modernthrifter@gmail.com.

insight from a 5-year-old

Sometimes my kids catch me off gaurd by saying something surprisingly insightful. Yesterday my 5-year-old, Alden, out of the blue while playing Legos said, "Mom, you and dad are always looking for new furniture. You never stop looking, you just always get something new and then find a place for it, 'cause that's what people do."

Crap. Is that what I do?

I can say in my defense that we really don't own more furniture than most people (with the exception of our chairs), and in many cases, we probably have less. We have just acquired it over a very long period of time instead of in a few massive pottery barn shopping trips. The boy has a point, though. Will I ever stop looking? Am I always in need of something new? There is something thrilling about thrift store shopping. The hunt for the treasure buried in the piles of junk is often times just as exhilarating as the actual find. I think it can be a lot like gambling—it's hard to quit after you've won a few times, because you know there's always the possibility that you'll win again.

The question is, where is the line between thrifting as a hobby, and thrifting as an addiction? Thrift stores, ebay, and craigslist can all become forms of retail therapy, and can be used to self-medicate. It is frighteningly easy to let passions and hobbies overtake our real priorities and become the objects of our worship, giving them too much of our time, heart, and money.

Thankfully, I think I'm still in the "hobby" category, but I know I'll need to regularly check my heart on this issue.

window safety

Our house has tons of windows. One wall in our living/dining room is almost entirely windows, but the weird thing is, there are only four windows in the whole house that open, and one is painted shut. There is one in the kitchen that opens, one in our family room downstairs, one in Alden's room (the non-functioning one), and one in Tula's room.

It hasn't really been a problem yet because our house is very shaded and is cool all the time. We also have several doors that open onto our deck if we need a little more breeze. Our big concern is that the windows that do open, swing out. There are no screens, and no child-safety locks. That's a problem because our house is built on a very steep slope, so although the corner of Tula's room is at ground level, there is about a twelve foot drop outside the portion of the window that opens.

The latch on her window is particularly hard to maneuver, but I'm not relying on that because just when you think something is impossible for a 2-year-old, they figure out a way to surprise you. Since this situation would have much more serious consequences than say, figuring out how to lock oneself in the bathroom, I think it's imperative that we come up with a solution to prevent a dangerous tumble out of the window.

I'd like something that doesn't look like a jail, so vertical wood slats are out, but I don't want to block off the whole window. My idea is to frame in some sort of wooden geometric pattern with holes large enough to reach through to the latch to open the window, but small enough that a thirty pound little girl can't wiggle out. I found these modern headboards from West Elm that have the kind of look I'm going for:

And here's one of their headboards that I cropped and shrunk to mock-up the actual window:


Now I just have to figure out how to actually build and install something. Has anyone ever seen this type of thing done?

thrift thief

Thrift store pricing is not perfect. Sometimes it's too high and sometimes too low. Apparently, I'm not the only one who feels that way either. I was perusing the children's clothing one day and I pulled out a dress that was several years out of style, dotted with stains down the front, the pattern faded beyond recognition, and marked with a price of $3.99. That's the same price you can get a new dress from the clearance rack at target. Stapled to the front of the dress was a note printed from a home computer that read something like this, "This price is too high! Take this to the manager and demand a better price. Goodwill has been raising their prices in these tough economic times when people need them the most..." I think it went on further, but that's all I can remember.

I laughed to myself for a moment, imagining a mother with her stack of notes and protesting with her stapler. I agree with her sentiment that if you think something has been wrongly priced you should ask (but don't demand) the manager to discount it further, and in fact, I have done this several times. Usually, they are willing to accommodate, taking an additional 20–40% off. I have also, though, noticed another avenue that seems to be too often taken. The floors of the fitting rooms are littered with hang tags. Even the fronts of the benches have price tags stuck to them that have been peeled off merchandise. I'm fairly certain that these are there because shoppers want to cheat the system. Since thrift store tags are vague—usually just noting the department—they can be swapped without raising any flags at the register.

Let me be very clear, I whole-heartedly disagree with doing this. It's the same thing as stealing. In fact, I overheard a conversation between a Goodwill employee and a customer a few weeks ago about this very issue. The customer was convinced that a stereo should have been much cheaper and had asked the employee to change the price. When the employee refused, the customer stated that he would simply swap the tags with another item with a lower price. The employee then made a point of telling him that the store considers that the same as stealing and would (and does) call the police.

It makes me wonder if people view thrift stores differently than a regular retail shops. Does the fact that the items are donated to the thrift store somehow make people feel entitled to pay whatever price they see fit? I can imagine that the tag-swapping shoppers are far less likely to try to steal from the Gap.

a game of musical chairs

Against all craigslist odds, our recent chair purchase was fast and problem-free. We picked up the chair Friday night in SeaTac from a young woman who has had it since she was twelve. Coincidentally, she was selling the chair because she's relocating for a job to a town in Montana that is only forty miles from where I grew up. The chair is heavily influenced by the Eames Lounge Chair, but has some subtle differences that I find particularly endearing. The back is one solid piece of bent wood instead of two, the legs are bent wood as well, while the Eames legs are all metal, and there is no tufting, which I see as a bonus because it means fewer little places to collect cracker crumbs.


We love the way it looks in our living room, and Alden loves to sit in "daddy's chair," but we have run into a few logistical problems. It's funny how acquiring one new piece can throw a wrench into the whole flow of a room. First, in order to make room for the chair, we needed to remove the two black chairs that were previously in our living room. In case you missed it before, we have a lot of chairs in our house. I'm not really willing to give any of them the boot yet, although one particular chair will probably get its marching orders as soon as we save up enough for a new couch downstairs.

Since we decided to keep the black chairs, I had to figure out a way to work them into another room. They are more like office chairs than armchairs, so it seemed fitting to move them to the office—currently the least organized and most unfinished room in the house. Moving them to the office meant moving the two dining chairs out that were being stored there. The dining chairs haven't been in the dining room because I hadn't ever managed to recover the seats to match the first four that I had done two years ago. I guess I finally got the motivation that I needed to complete that project, and we now have six matching dining chairs around our table!


Now the only problem I'm left with is that our coffee table no longer fits in the space in which it used to reside. The ottoman of the new chair sits just a few inches too close to the corner of the rectangular coffee table, creating an awkward pathway, and with my bruise-prone shins, it's an injury waiting to happen. The solution: a round coffee table has now been added to my thrift store master list.