A monster saw, a latenight thrift store adventure, and cooking with gas

I updated my budget spreadsheet this morning to be accurate to the last few purchases I’ve made for the project, as well as added the new total of my bank account for October, and calculated the differences from month to month. I’ve discovered that every month I have a net increase average of $981. I picked up the table saw on Wednesday the 12th, that was donated to my project by Craig Culmback. It’s an old guy with a whole lot of character! It appears to be mostly home-made, on an old metal, rolling stand. And, boy, is it HEAVY! My mom and I couldn’t lift it straight up, and it took us like 20 minutes to even figure out how to translate the weight inside the back of my van. Luckily, we escaped with our lives, and only a few minor bruises. I have a feeling this beast of a saw will be sturdy and reliably helpful, as long as we don’t have to move it often.

The next day, I bought dishes for the house, in a spur-of-the-moment trip to the thrift store. It was around 7pm, and I was alone at home after work, and I just wanted to get out and look for some house stuff! ReStore had been closed since 6pm, so I went to Value Village and found some plates, bowls, cups, and some really cute clear mugs. The total of this trip was about $29.

The last thing I bought was yesterday, a three-burner propane stove, which came with a tank of propane, for $40. I think this is a good option for when I need to stove-top cook in the house, while not swearing away that amount of electricity, which may make the eventual move to Solar Power easier and less expensive. I remembered what Andrew Morrison had said about his off-grid system, that they had originally underestimated their electricity pull needs. I have spent $242.33 so far, for a table, pallet wood, tile, cabinets, table saw, 3-burner stove, and dishes.