Waste Not, Want Not (Frugal Tip #2!)

Chris thought it would be cool to snap a pic of me from the "Monster Pile's" perspective.
I, however, found it annoying. No woman enjoys having her picture taken in a state like this.

Race Against The Rain! (or "Why are we here on a Tuesday?!?!")

Too tired even for power tools. :(

With CFS, recovery time is incredibly important. It takes me the five weekdays to recover before the weekend of hard labor starts up. When we found out there was rain in the forecast near mid-week we knew we were in trouble. Even though we got a great deal on the waste container if we went over 5 tons they would have to charge us an additional $40 per ton. If the items in the container got wet, especially the carpet, the cost could shoot up. Since we blew through all of our yard sale funds, this was a big issue. We called the waste container company and scheduled the pick-up of the container for early Wednesday morning. Chris had to use one of his precious few remaining vacation days at work so we could go up and try to get as much loaded into the waste container as we could before it was gone. We had no idea when we would have enough money to get another one so we had to make sure to load as much as we could into this one, especially those big, awkward bulky items. With only one day to recover, I was desperately tired and weak but the knowledge that THIS HAD TO BE DONE kept me going for hour after hour. By the time we stopped for lunch my lips were dry and my throat was hoarse, I could barely see and I was shaking. What little strength the sheer physical effort had not sapped out of me, the screaming wind gladly took.  I promised myself I would be extra kind to myself for the rest of the week just let me survive today!

Help Arrives!

Flying Eagle arrived a little after one and was shocked at how we had filled the 40 yard trash container, Chris and I had loaded at least 75% of it just on our own. There was a thin layer of room left but I just could not bear to do much more work. Flying Eagle and Chris decided to get working on the demolition of the kitchen cabinets to try and get them into the container before day's end. I spent about an hour in the van with Jax trying to get him to take a nap. Chris and I would then take turns while the other helped Flying Eagle -which I had nicknamed "Iron Man" because his initials correspond to the periodic table abbreviation for Iron (Fe)- take apart and toss cabinets and shelving. As we uncovered crazy patch jobs, quasi-remodel attempts and about 50 different shades of paint used through-out the decade I was able to muster up enough juice to try to take out shelves. Emphasis on the try, I was so fatigued that I did a lot less than I had wanted to. Flying Eagle and Chris continued to be the MVP's of the effort and we managed to stuff the container full and empty out everything but the kitchen sink.

Frugal Tip #2 - Maximize your waste container space!

That is one crammed container!

I mentioned this a bit in the previous blog but thought it was worth expanding on. If you are on a budget but need to get rid of a lot of trash, it becomes more cost effective and time effective to rent a waste container. Here are some things that I learned:

* Determine your need. First off, you will always have more garbage than you think you have. If you are trying to decide between a 30 yarder or a 40 yarder. Go bigger. It also helps to consider what type of garbage you have. Lots of big pieces, hard to move pieces, etc. definitely call for a container instead of trying to do your own dump run with a truck. (Remember, dump runs cost gas, wear and tear on you and your vehicle and most importantly TIME! When we have precious few hours every week to spend a dump run eats up too much time to do ourselves.)

* Know what you can and can't trash. Many trash container companies will not accept some items like large appliances, chemicals, rocks, dirt, concrete, etc in their containers.

*Always get quotes! Call many places before ordering your container. Get big companies and little companies and price out a couple different sizes. Write down the prices, the name of the person at the company that gave you the prices along with name of the company and phone number and keep these in your records. Call at least four places, compare all the charges (see below) and make an informed decision of who to go with.

*Make sure to talk to local companies! Let them know what your financial situation is and what you are trying to do. They are trying to make a living too but they are more likely to massage prices to give you a break. Knowing how much the big boys charge will help give you an idea as to how much of a deal the local company may or may not be giving you. Tell them what the big company(s) quoted you and they will likely try to beat it.

Chris loads more carpet.

*Understand all the charges. One company may have a cheaper initial price but other factors may mean that they are not the company for you. Other factors can include length of time, in our case we can only work on the weekends (with a weekday thrown in once in a while) and often there is only one or two people loading. There is no way we could have filled the container in the 7 day time limit some companies have. Another factor is how many tons are included in the base price some companies say that as little two tons are included in the base price, some include as much as five and then charge you an additional amount per ton afterwards. A company may initially look cheep but if they charge you after only two tons and the per ton overage charge is high you can end up paying a lot more! Always ask how many tons are included and how much per ton is charged after that.

*Know what you don't have to throw away! It's better for your pocketbook and better for the environment to try to find new homes for a lot of your "stuff" that you want to get rid of. Put recyclables like cardboard to one side and post an add to craigslist offering the cardboard to the first person who can come pick it up. We posted an add and within 30 minutes we had someone taking a massive truckload of cardboard away that we didn't have to haul (and lose time on). The same works for metals, there are folks out there who will come get your dead appliances and other scrap metal to be melted down. This can free up a lot of weight from your trash container and helps keep the landfills a little less...well...filled. You would be amazed at what folks will come and pick up!

So many pretty colors...NOT!

Here are a few lessons of what we learned, if you have any to share please feel free to comment below! (We gladly read comments in the hopes of getting some money-saving hints ourselves.) We added more pictures to WEEK FOUR of the photo gallery tonight as well!

LEARN MORE ABOUT WHAT WE ARE DOING AND SEE MORE PICTURES OF THE PROJECT AT OUR WEBSITE: WWW.GROVETRIBE.COM