Thrift My Sass

       As the first month of my no-buy year comes to a close, I wanted to summarize my successes and shortcomings. There were a few wins, like finding gift cards hidden in my wallet, but there were also some losses, like 2 pairs of my shoes falling apart this month.      If I had really wanted to minimize my spend during a no-buy year, I would have pre-purchased extra running shoes and socks, at the very least. I did not do that, so I have already needed to replace 1 pair of trail running sneakers, socks, and a pair of winter boots. My old boots were 14 years old, so I certainly got my money's worth ($120 in 2011). My new trail sneakers were on sale, but the new winter boots were over $200. Perhaps it was an error on my part not to buy a cheaper pair, but I did not want to have to shop for new boots in a year or two.      As you can see, my mortgage is by far my largest expense, followed by groceries and utilities. I'm very pleased to ha...

 I had read about the recommendation to eat at least 30 plants per week  sometime last year, but I had never gotten around to actually enumerating whether I meet this standard. At the time, I was pretty confident that I would exceed the minimum threshold easily, but it's time to put my calculator where my mouth is. While this is not part of a new year's resolution, nor is it part of my low spend year, I think now is a good time to examine my diet because I will start meeting with a dietitian later this month. Monday Breakfast was a yogurt parfait with a peanut butter chia protein bar layered with nonfat Greek yogurt and topped with a tablespoon of sugar free raspberry preserves. I also had 2 cups of black coffee. Raspberry (1) + Peanuts (1) + coffee (1) + chia seeds (0.25) = 2.25 points for breakfast Lunch was a salad from the salad bar at work.  Arugula (1) + red and orange cherry peppers (2) + carrot(1) + cucumber (1) + daikon radish (1) + scallion (1) +ginger (0.2...

 Decluttering my house and taking stock of my possessions has revealed a few ways I can save money during my low-spend year. Return bottles and cans. This is something I had stopped doing for a number of years, primarily due to my own laziness. I hated bringing the bag of empty recyclables to the store with me and potentially waiting for a recycling machine to free up. Now the deposit charge in my state is 10 cents per container, so I started returning them during the last few months of 2024. I'll continue the habit in the new year. Try using my SodaStream I bought my SodaStream machine in 2023 at a thrift store when it was on sale for $12. It seemed like a steal because it came with multiple sealed flavors of syrup and a carbonation cylinder. I do drink a lot of seltzer water, so I thought this could help save on a recurring expense. However, I have never taken it out of the box. In 2025, I will give it a try and give the machine away if I don't find it useful. My SodaStream i...