What is a monkeybox?

When I was a little girl, we had a pet monkey named Amanda. My Dad worked in the produce business, so each night he brought home that days culls in a big box - spotty cucumbers, pithy apples, limp celery, moldy oranges and the like. We called it a monkeybox. It was really just trash, but my Mom would take each piece of fruit and trim it, pare it and cut it up to make a beautiful fruit platter for Amanda. Even though it was deemed trash by one, it still had life left in it and was good for the purpose we needed it. That's how I live my life - thrifting, yard saling, looking for another's trash to be my treasure.

Tuesday, June 27, 2006

I was looking around my yard today and I realized how cheaply I had gotten everything out there! I have four of those great old metal lawn chairs from the 1950's - the old indestructible kind. I paid $2.00 each for them at a yard sale and paid a guy $5.00 to deliver them. I have an old metal table that I scrounged out of the neighbors trash heap. I painted it and it looks fine. I have a nice teak garden bench that used to be outside Wal-Mart as the smoking section for the employees. They got picnic tables and threw the bench out. The manager was on the way to the cram-a-lot and DH joked he'd like to have it - so he gave it to him. We recently bought four new patio dining chairs on sale at Lowe's for $22.50 each. I had a $10.00 off coupon and a $50.00 gift card, so I only paid $38.00 out of pocket for four nice chairs. I have an array of old crap - er, I mean, treasures, adorning and decoarting the fence too. Old enamel washtubs, rusty well pulls, an old window frame, etc. that have all come from garage sales, trash heaps, etc. Even our nice wooden storage building was at his parents house and a cousin helped tow it over here for free.

Of course, the inside of the house is just as bad. Sometimes during a boring sitcom I will look at all my furniture or things on the wall and try to figure up what it all cost. I do that with my clothes too - "Gee, I am wearing $1.75 worth of clothes". I hope I don't LOOK like it!
I even do this at mealtime - tonight I have a turkey ham in the oven, fired potatoes and graden tomatoes, peppers and cucumbers. The turkey ham was $2.25 and we will eat about half of it. Ten pounds of potatoes were $1.66 and we are eating about 2 pounds of those. The veggies were from a coworkers garden. So, dinner is going to cost about $1.50 for all three of us. Oh yes, I made a 68¢ box of brownies today too.

I think I have a sickness......
Does anyone else do this??????

4 comments:

  1. Anonymous1:47 PM

    Yes, sad to say some mornings I look in the mirror and realize everything I have on (except underwear ) is from 'sales'...GAP Jeans, Aeropostale sweatshirt, Old-Navy T-shirt, sandals, earrings, necklace, ring, perfume... oh it is a sad, sad thing - then I like to figure out what it would all have cost at retail 8-)
    S- (svelteSTUFF)

    ReplyDelete
  2. I absolutely cannot stand to pay full retail for my stuff. 99% of what I own is from gsales/thrifts. I was looking at my "decor" last night and I cannot name one thing that isn't a used good or from Hobby Lobby clearance.

    I do buy some of my clothes from Kohl's and the mall, but I only shop the clearance racks.

    I was at my fave junk store last Sat. and a mother and daughter came in, dressed to the hilt. My guess is they had been or were going to a wedding. The daughter was mortified that her mother was "shlepping" around such a scroungy place when she could very well afford to shop the "high-end" stores. I just had to laugh!!!!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Glad to hear I'm not the only one! Of course, I KNEW I wasn't! I only shop the clearance sections in stores and on-line too!

    ReplyDelete
  4. Anonymous6:31 PM

    Yes it is a sickness and I think it's terminal. By purchasing clothing, furniture etc at yard sales or thrift stores I can justify other splurges - dinner out $50.00,wearing Ann Taylor & Talbots - cost $8.00. It's a way of life and I love it.

    ReplyDelete

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