Life Upside Down

January second-hand finds:        

B&W faux silk couch pillows, $6 each. Brand-new off Gumtree.

   

Bathroom scale, $10. Yeah, it is January after all. Bring on those resolutions, eh? 

  

Hair dryer, $15. The poor couple I bought this from were emptying their entire house and moving all the way back to Turkey. She didn’t seem too excited about it. I wouldn’t be, either. (Nothing against Turkey, just moving.)

And the grand-slam steal of the month…

Peep-toe shoes, $14. These are AMAZING. And electric blue! They retail new for $150. 

MAY I JUST SAY, I hope that when I share these things I’m not exuding a self-righteous vibe, because that’s not my aim at all. I have become quite passionate about living cleaner and greener, and to me that means making very conscious purchases. What I’m trying to do when I share these things is to show how easy and CHEAP this actually is. Yes, it takes a bit more time, but not much. To many people, second-hand means dirty and broken, and in my experience that’s simply not the case.

Starting small is fine, just buying the occasional thrift shop item is perfectly reasonable. For me, it also works well on a household-wide spectrum. Nothing has fallen apart, malfunctioned or caused any more problems than it would if bought new. I’ve also saved thousands of dollars by shopping this way, and that’s really hard to beat.