Thrifty Finds for Our New Home

Most of this week's thrifty finds were purchased for our new home. We downsized from our Alberta home with 3600 sq foot of living area (two storey with finished walkout basement) to 1700 sq foot bungalow with crawlspace. Yes, we were spoiled with space on our previous residence. I used to have two fridges plus a full size industrial freezer. The previous owner of that house was an appliance dealer so we had great appliances. Our new home has good appliances but the tiniest freezer on the fridge. Too small to put a frozen pizza in without removing some of the shelves (goes down the full right hand side of the fridge but only about seven inches wide). I tried to cope with it, but with no hope of ever fitting a frozen turkey or lasagna in it something had to give.

Enter Kijiji.ca! For $120 we purchased a 3.5 cubic ft mini Danby freezer. We have almost no space to put a freezer so this was the maximum size or I would have had to live with the current fridge-freezer. They are new at Costco and Canadian Tire for $230 including tax but I didn't want to spend that much. This one even had the original tags from Costco still on it, works like a charm and was spotless. The couple who sold it to us even delivered it in their car as our car was not quite big enough (we tried). It has so-so reviews on the internet but for $120 I am willing to take a chance. I have already filled it with family packs of meat in an effort to keep my overall grocery bill down (although I have already blown the July grocery budget - crap). It fits very nicely in my laundry room(off the kitchen) and has wheels so can be moved if it gets in the way.

Husband found this sweet little Czeckoslovakian egg cup sitting on a dumpster at the recycling centre so he brought it home for me. It has a couple of chips so I turned them to the back and he now lives on my stove.

I found one item for resale which is also my first Holt Howard piece - this cute little psychedelic piggie trivet. Who knew Holt Howard made trivets? I didn't.

I have a self-imposed rule that I can only purchase books now if 25 cents or less and it is something I can later resell at a flea market (due to large amount of books sitting in my "to read" pile). These three books were 25 cents each this morning at a garage sale.

Finally, one find I am a bit on the fence about. We need some art for a couple of walls and I bought this at a garage sale this morning for $20 but may resell it as not really sure I love it. Initially I was attracted to the seagulls, and Husband likes it and so we have agreed to temporarily put it up and will replace it with something we like better at a later date. For now it actually goes with the colours of our living room. This large painting was done by Vanguard Studios who mass produced affordable art in California in the 1970s. The prices on their large art pieces like this(5 ft x 3 ft) is all over the map as many artists worked under one name at this studio. A similar piece is selling for $600 on EBAY here
but as we all know, true value is only in what someone is really willing to pay, not the asking price. It was filthy so I gave it a good scrubbing (not fine art so won't hurt it) with a solution of water and dish soap. Fortunately, it does not appear to be from a smoking home as does not smell and came fairly clean.

Would you have bought it?