Day 21 of the 100 Day Buy Nothing (New) Challenge

I'm more than a fifth of the way to my goal of 100 days without buying anything new. So far I haven't struggled too much aside from wanting to purchase a few items to facilitate with my little "eco-projects."

I posted before about making some recycled paper and was all set to do it until I realized that it would definitely help to have an old food processor or blender. I don't think it would be too tasty to be drinking smoothies made out of the same blender that I made paper out of!

My first thought was that I could post a wanted ad on Freecycle. I was definitely not pleased when the moderator denied my post. I didn't realize that wanted ads were only allowed on Wednesday. Oops!

Not to be put off by failure, I decided to check some second-hand stores. While we were checking out the new Fresh and Easy (which I love and will probably blog about sometime soon), I remembered that there was a Savers nearby. I have probably only been into a Savers once or twice and I guess I never realized the beauty of the store. I've made a few trips to the Goodwill and Salvation Army stores lately and I'm always put off by the high prices. I know that sounds weird to complain about high prices at second-hand shops, but I remember the good ol' days when you could buy a paperback for a quarter. Now, paperbacks sell for $2! But I digress.

The beauty of Savers is that they have retained the old school prices. They had tons of stuff for under $5 and a pretty good selection too. I started thinking that I may never need to buy anything new again! I could change it into the "1000 Day Buy Nothing (New) Challenge"....but I'm not going to! :) I was excited to see that they had two food processors both under $6. We tried the first one but alas it didn't even turn on. We had more luck with the second one; it turned on BUT the blades didn't turn. Not too helpful for making paper.

My trip to Savers was not a complete waste though. I also had a plan to make reusable shopping bags by fusing many plastic shopping bags together like I saw here. If you read some of my pre-Thailand posts you know how much I hate plastic bags! The instructions say that you can use a piece of paper in place of the parchment paper but they lied. I tried it and the heat couldn't quite make it through the paper to the bags. FAIL. I thought parchment paper might be difficult to find used so I thought I might try to find some cheesecloth like fabric. They had tons of fabric and there was one really pretty bright red fabric with a little gold embroidery that was quite thin and might work. If it didn't, well I could make a nice pillow or a curtain out of it! I decided on buying it even though it was marked as $4.99 (big spender, I know). I go to check out and when the cashier tells me my total is $2.50 I feel a little guilty because I think she made a mistake. I wonder, "should I tell her?" and I do (karma people) and she told me it's on sale. Score!

I still have no blender though. I went to the Goodwill after work today and there was not one blender or food processor in sight. There were oodles of coffee makers everywhere I went. If I could make recycled paper out of a coffee maker I would be set. Why is that? Do people endlessly replace their coffee maker in search of the perfect cup of coffee? Why aren't there an equal amount of blenders?

Anyone have any good ideas where I can find a used blender or a food processor?