I had a fabulous frugal weekend. I worked on my screenplay, rode my bike, and hung out with the neighbors at a birthday party. But I also happened upon some great frugal finds. On Saturday when I was heading north to go for a bike ride, I saw some signs for a garage sale, so I went to check it out; I’m a total garage sale junkie. Anyway I found this bike that was old, and red, and just the right height, which is hard to find since I’m rather on the short side. The price: 50 CENTS! Seriously. So naturally I had to buy it. I’m getting some work done on it (more on that soon), but it doesn’t have any major problems. And it was 50 cents. If you’re wondering why I would buy a bike while I had one in the car, the answer is: I have a very, nice shiny expensive road bike, which would not fair well on a college campus. I bought the older bike so that I could ride around town and to campus without worrying about it getting stolen or damaged.

A little backstory. A few weeks ago I was walking my dog, and there were some items on the street; most of the stuff was junk: pieces of carpet, random pieces of wood, etc. but there happened to be a dresser, with all of the drawers. Since it was on the street, I figured it was “trash” and therefore up for grabs. I found one of my neighbors and got a second opinion, because I would hate to take something that someone wanted. Well, she came by, confirmed it was abandoned and we hauled it back to my place in her minivan. If case you’re wondering, I haven’t had a dresser up until this point because I donated mine before I moved. Well while we were picking up the dresser, we noticed that there was a table in the front yard, but it was close to the house, so we weren’t sure what make of it. Anyway, this past Sunday I was walking by the same house and there was someone home. I went by and chatted with the owner. Turns out he had been renting the place out, but the tenants had moved and now he was getting the place cleaned up so he could put it on the market. I asked about the table, and he said he had no use for it and I was welcome to it. So I went back and found my neighbor who was hanging out with one of our other neighbors. We hopped in the pick-up truck (second neighbor) and headed over to the house. By the time we got back the guy was gone, but we had permission to pick up the table. Well the table was actually behind a dumpster that the owner had brought over to collect all the remnants of the house, so we did a little dumpster diving. We picked up (among other things) a fan, a bbq grill (seriously), 1/4 bag potting soil, 1/2 bag peat humus, a plant pot, a snow shovel, and some other garden tools. Everything was in good working condition, though some of it was a bit dusty. And it was all, completely free. One man’s trash, truly is another’s treasure. And oh, my neighbors totally rock.