Buying green is occasionally dirt cheap

Inspired by the recent arrival of my diamond in the rough bentwood rocker I thought I would throw in a good word for green spending. I know the whole resuse, recycle, "for heaven's sake keep it out of the landfill" is pretty trendy right now, but more than being a fad, it makes really good sense. Or cents. Depending on how you look at it. Freecycle means free stuff (clever what?). That means the bentwood rocker costs me exactly gas+time. Yeah, so it needs a little work. It's still way cheaper than buying new (or even at a thrift store). Speaking of which, I adore Salvation Army Thrift stores. I currently have 4 pieces of thrift store furniture in my apartment plus another dozen or so decorative items. It's great. The furniture is all mostly higher quality than the stuff you get in the stores nowadays (yes my dad once took be aside and explained dovetail joints to me), and a lot of it (being older) isn't as bulky as the furniture they try selling you today. Plus, Salvation Army is the awesomest Christian charity ever. Forget giving money to Red Cross. If you want to give distaster relief/help somebody out money. Give it to the Salvation Army. If you do the research and listen to the stories they really do get in there and stay in there and help out the people in a way that Red Cross just doesn't. That's one reason why I tend to donate a lot of my clutter there. But you could also put it on Freecycle if that's your thing. Either way, free/cheap + helping people out (and getting stuff you really want) rocks.

Oh yeah, that's not my rocker above. It's similar except that mine it very badly upholstered in some sort of dark green stuff that decided if it couldn't be tassled it would darn well well have tonal pictures of tassles scattered all over it. Hideous. I'm pretty sure I can fix it with some fabric in my stash though.