Frugal February #15: Accept Handouts

I'm not talking about the government kind, unless you are in a spot where you really need them.  In that case, there's no shame in doing so.  I've been in that spot a time or two early on in my adult life.  I've been on Medicaid, I've been on WIC, I've been on food stamps, and I did get 'welfare' for a short period when I was a single working mom whose hourly wage just couldn't pay the babysitter and all the bills too.  They were a great help during a time when I was doing my hardest and just wasn't quite on my feet yet.  As soon as I could get by without them, I stopped using them.  It's been many years, and several kids, since then.  That's what those programs are there for: when you are doing the best you can and that best isn't quite paying for the bare necessities.  To tide you over while you get yourself to better financial footing.

But that's not the kind of handouts I want to discuss as a frugal tip.  The kind this post is about, is the kind where you are offered something, for free, by someone you know.

This could be food.  MIL is awesome about offering us food.  It started back before I even met DH, when he moved out of his mother's house, and she would  send him home with meat from the freezer or veggies from the garden whenever he visited her.  It continued after I met him, when we were living in Michigan's Upper Peninsula while DH finished college.  Those boxes of farm raised pork and lamb were sometimes our only meat.  A 5-gallon bucket of freshly dug potatoes kept us eating through the Fall.  I learned to eat rice because MIL gave us a big bag of it one Christmas, and there came a time that was about all that I had in my cupboard.  Even when times got better, after DH got out of school and his engineering career got underway, we have still appreciated the occasional box of food that MIL sends our way.  Especially meat from animals she has raised.  There is nothing better than home-grown meat!  Similarly, I've been able to try some really good game meat by accepting from friends what they had in their freezer that they didn't think they would eat fast enough--bear, pheasant, duck. . .

This handout could be clothes, as in my post about hand me downs and hand me ups (FF#13).

This could be furniture.  The first ten years we were together, every piece of furniture DH and I had was either free or very cheaply bought from a friend/relative.  Some of it was on it's last legs and we wore it out.  Other pieces are still around and in use at this little place here today.

This could be appliances.  We've gotten a stove, a refrigerator, a washing machine and dryer, a crock pot, and a television this way.

It could be plants.  Most of the perennials in my flower beds came to me not from a nursery, but through friends and relatives who were dividing their own perennial beds and were looking for someone willing to take the 'extras' off their hands. 

I have several hundred beautiful purple and white iris that I got free for the digging from someone who just didn't want them anymore. My strawberry bed began with just twelve plants given to me by a neighbor who was cleaning out her overgrown strawberry planter.

It could be tools or other types of power equipment.  MIL knew someone who was moving to a retirement community and was trying to find a home for his push mower.  We didn't have a push mower, so that person gave us the one he needed to get rid of.  Several years ago I was given a rototiller with adjustable tine spacing by a friend who had decided they no longer had a use for it. I can't think how many acres of tilling it has accumulated in my garden since then.

It could be lumber.  We've gotten lots of free lumber in the form of old decks we were offered.  We've also gotten dozens of oak pallets too.  Pallets are very useful things, and being oak, they last for years even outside in the elements.  We have also been lucky to get a couple of large machinery shipping crates.  We had to take them apart to haul them, but once at this little place here, we were able to reassemble or reconfigure the pieces and have made two nice hunting blinds from those crates.

The handout could be something you would never conceive of being able to afford for yourself.  We have a pool table in our basement.  I didn't plan to own a pool table.  Yeah,  when DH and I were younger, we thought it would be kind of nice to have one, and as the kids started to grow toward their teen years we thought again it would be a fun thing to own.  But purchasing one?  Not on the feasible list.  Then a friend of DH's told us about a friend of his who was moving and was desperate to get rid of his pool table.  Score one free pool table for us!

It could be lessons in something, either for yourself or your kids.  If Grandma wants to buy piano lessons for Sissy, and Sissy thinks she wants to play the piano, why not accept Grandma's offer?  In fact, we almost had a free piano once, but it went to a school instead.  Just as well, not sure where we would have put a piano. . .

The only exception, in my opinion, is when you are offered something that is

•  no longer useful (someone else's trash you will end up paying to discard),
• something dangerous (like something you have an allergy to or is in a condition it's not safe to use),
• something you just plain can't use and don't foresee ever needing to use it. 

Then you should definitely decline the handout as politely as possible.  But other than that, keep an open mind and see what comes your way.  Even if it's not something you personally can use, perhaps you know of someone else who would benefit from a handout. Maybe they have been hoping for a pool table, or a piano.  Or just some flowers for their front yard.