It’s funny, the older and wiser I get, the less stuff I feel like replacing. I mean, if they get the job done I say keep on using them baby! Why get rid of old stuff just because it’s a little out of style?

No one LIKES to go out and buy new stuff when they’re forced too – say, when your refrigerator breaks down or the dryer gives out – but upgrading for the hell of it has always seemed a bit wasteful to me.

Plus, I also like to think it helps with my newly-found minimalistic ideology (which is a lot harder than I originally thought, btw). By making use of all the stuff we’ve already got, we’re not forced to go out and bring in NEW things just to keep up. I’m still in the baby steps of labeling what IS and what ISN’T important in our house, but I did come across a handful of items that my frugal side can be proud of :)

Here are 5 things I still hold onto even though they’re super old and super out of style:

1. My hand-me-down mattress. From my parents. Who probably slept on it before I was even born…which means they…uhhh…change the topic! CHANGE THE TOPIC!
2. My $15 hell of a sale Craigslist table & chairs. Because I mean, they were $15 dollars! For an entire dining room table – WITH chairs! Which I am sitting on right now (just one of them, not all 4) along w/ the table (now “blogger desk”) which I am happily typing away on at this very moment. Sure it’s halfway sanded off and colored in two hues, but you know what? It still works just as good as it did 5 years ago! And you know what else? It was only FIFTEEN dollars.
3. A halfway framed Skyline of NYC. I say halfway framed because it was full of broken glass when I rescued it on the street corner years ago (which I cleaned up), but I kept the framing part around it in place. It’s since been featured on 5+ walls over the course of 5+ moves so far!
4. A rusted pizza pan – This is probably the silliest of all the things we continue to use because it’s the easiest to replace! But again, it still works like a charm when cooking our pizzas and covering our skillets (we use it as a lid and also a hot plate for almost everything we cook! haha….). It’s pretty much our go-to pan.
5. My 3-piece vintage suit. I bought this bad boy or $18 bucks at a Salvation Army and have worn it to pretty much every Wedding and other fancy pants events (literally) since I’ve owned it. You know that guy from The Mentalist? I like to think I look like him when strutting around in it ;)

And honorable mentions goes to my awesome, yet horribly ugly, green velvet chair, my 15 year-old trunk, and my favorite ragged shirt w/ 10+ holes which are now a part of my nightly pajamas.

The point of all this, of course, is that there’s nothing wrong with holding onto stuff that’s as old as our grandmothers. If you can maximize their usage – great! Keep that replacement money in your pockets and let it save up until you *really* need a newer thingamabob. The longer you can resist, the bigger your chances of growing that nest egg!