So, last year I managed the strange feat of financial juggling. I mean that once unemployment ended round about October there was no money coming in at all but bills still had to be paid. Some folks my age when they find themselves in these circumstances just give up and file for SSI early, I don’t want to file before I can get my full benefit and even wouldn’t mind holding off a little beyond if possible but that’s still a few years away.
I went deeper in the hole last year… considerably deeper as I tapped into credit to survive. It wasn’t something I wanted to do but I did it and between living very frugally and not spending. Even though I’m working now, I still avail myself of the local food pantry… saving every last dime is important to me these days because I know my job will end and I need to still save as much as I can.
I live among clutter… I freely admit that I do but at the same time there are treasures among the clutter and things I know that I can sell. I had had the custom rims I bought for my old car sitting around thinking to sell them. I didn’t just want to throw them away considering how much I paid for them but also because the rims are still good. I had had them taken off the car when I was going to get rid of it but now, that’s over a decade ago!
Seriously, I can’t reiterate how much time speeds up on you the older you get.
I had looked into trying to find a place that buys old rims and ultimately it seemed like the best route to go would be to just go to the local junkyard that buys scrap metal. I tried calling them once, that went nowhere because they didn’t answer the phone. They have two locations, one in Cortlandt and another in Elmsford so, one day a week or two ago I was in Elmsford and thought to go by the junkyard.
Junkyards are really fascinating places… and they are always full of activity. I found the office and went in and had a very short conversation with the guy there who was super nice and directed me to the building where they take scrap metal.
This past week, I went down to the county MRC (material recovery facility) because I needed to get rid of the old battery I took out of my laptop. Since I was going down there I thought to throw the rim in the back of the car and see if I could get that done as well.
I dropped off the battery then went down and lined up at the scrap metal building, backed in when it was my turn. The guy came, took the rims (which are aluminum) and threw them into something like a vinyl basket truck (a wheeled bin). He bought them over to a scale and another guy who was running around with a clipboard and some kind of computer pad came by looked at the scale and came over to me asking my name. Since it was my first time, he directed me to another office after giving me a receipt. I went across the street to the other office, gave them my id, after which I went to what looked like an atm, scanned my receipt and got cash!!!
I was so satisfied with myself. Not just because I had reduced clutter but also because I now had a bunch of cash in my pocket to show for it!
Along those lines, you know continuing with the whole frugal thing… I get these non perishable items from the food pantry and you would look at them and think what good are they but me, I keep looking for recipes for things to elevate what I get. I don’t view them as anything other than components to be used to make something.
They hand out a lot of black beans… so you can use that to make black bean soup or to make refried beans. You just don’t use the black beans out of the can.
When I was looking at one of the recipes for black bean soup, the woman who had written up the recipe talking about making her own tortilla chips with her kids. A light bulb went off over my head here! One of the things that has happened with inflation over the last four years is that any bag of chips that used to be under or about $2 now has skyrocketed to OVER $4 IN PRICE!!!!
I can’t believe it! As far as potato chips go, I had ordered a carton directly from Wise at wholesale price which was the same as the old price but they’ve gotten wise to that (Wise getting wise) and the price is now the same pretty much.
Normally, I’d buy these which had been the cheapest tortilla chips at $2 a bad big they’ve gone up and up. By they way… although the picture shows the bag jammed pack with chips? Anyone who has been in a supermarket will tell you, when you buy chips about half the bag is air (not air but gas to keep the chips fresh). This picture is a bit deceptive.
Anyway, what I did was to go out and buy this:
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