In my last post, I mentioned that I’ve only driven my car 10,000 miles in the last three years.  A reader asked whether I’d considered getting rid of the car all together, and I thought that our conversation deserved its own post, in case some people had missed it in the comments section.  This was my response to Henry:

“You bring up a good point, and getting rid of my car is something I’ve considered. However, I can’t see a way that it would make sense, financially or practically. Pretty much the only time I need to use it is when I go to the city about ten miles from here. We’ve tried riding our bikes in there, but the only roads into town are fast, with small shoulders, and we just don’t feel comfortable on them. There is no public transportation between here and there. And there are no places to rent a car in our town. I wouldn’t feel comfortable borrowing a neighbor’s car – we know our neighbors well enough to say hi and chat for a while, but borrowing someone’s car (for me anyway) would require a lot closer relationship than that.
I did the math a while back about how much my car is costing us. I always average at least 32 mpg, city and highway combined. If we were to borrow or rent a car for the 3000 miles I drive each year, we’d still have to pay for that gas (and there’s no public transportation here, so that’s not an option). I pay $250/year for insurance, and $65/year for registration. And in the seven plus years that we’ve owned my car, we’ve spent less than $1500 total in maintenance (including a new windshield, as the original one was cracked when we bought the car). So my car is costing us just over $500/year plus gasoline costs. (We paid $2300 cash for the car in 2003, so there has never been any monthly cost associated with buying the car).
It’s hard to see how we could get rid of the car and come up with an alternative way of getting around when we need to leave our town, that would cost less than $500/year. I’ve read that the average American spends something like $8000/year on a car, and in  that case, I’m sure there are much more financially practical options. But I’d say I’m on the low end of the scale in terms of transportation costs, and there just aren’t that many other alternatives in a town with no car sharing program, no rental places, and no public transportation.”

Henry replied with a perspective about how much his own car used to cost, living in Europe, and how much better his life is now that he no longer has the car (a common theme that I hear quite a bit from other car-free folks):

“I keep forgetting just how cheap cars are to run in the US. I don’t know whether this makes you all very lucky or very unlucky. The maths you gave would be quickly dismissed as hopelessly naïve and the worst kind of wishful thinking in Europe. $500 a year!! I live in Austria – let me share my equivalent calculations for the car I used to have (2005 VW Sharan). The car was €23,000 when I bought it back in 2007. Since then it depreciated to €15,000 when I sold it a few months ago. I averaged 7 litres per 100km (Google says that’s 33.6 mpg in your language) and drove about 15,000 mostly unnecessary kilometres annually. At €1.20/litre (very approx. $6.50/gallon) that’s quite expensive. Because we had a small knock a couple of years back, our insurance was €1,712 (not a typo!) last year. I have averaged about €1,200 in annual servicing costs and for things like new winter tyres and a new air conditioning system. We also have motorway vignettes, annual parking fees in our town, etc.

The thing is, although I’m not exactly rich, I could afford it easily, so never questioned whether it represented value for money. When I started taking my finances by the scruff of the neck earlier this year, I was shocked at how much it cost to run – the best part of €8,000 a year! I knew cars were expensive, but I didn’t realise that it was such a drain on me. To top it all off, most of the driving I was doing was to out of town clients so that I could earn enough money to pay for the car. The money I was making by going out to them almost exactly balanced the cost of the car. I got rid of the car and the clients and am in the same shape financially, even when the cost of the occasional taxi or car hire is included. This means I now have time to play football (soccer) in the park with my kids and I also have one less thing in my life to worry about. I love how liberating it is to get rid of stuff.

Sounds like there might be a business opportunity for a start-up car sharing business in your community. ?”

Henry’s experience with owning a car sounds a lot more like the average costs here in the US than my own experience (except for the gasoline cost – I’ve always thought that if the US were to catch up with the rest of the world in terms of the price of gasoline, there would be a lot less driving here).  The main reason my insurance and registration are so low is because my car is 19 years old.  Registration fees are based on the value of the vehicle, so if I had a $25,000 car, I would be paying a lot more to register it each year.  And because my car is worth so little, I only carry liability insurance.  I have lots of liability insurance, as that’s not something I feel is worth scrimping on – if I ever need it, I want to be sure that there’s plenty of it there.  But there’s no need to pay to insure against damage to my own car, as the cost of the insurance would quickly exceed the value of the car.  One thing that I’ve done to keep my insurance costs as low as possible is to be a very careful driver.  I’ve never had a ticket in my life, which helps quite a bit.  We also have our liability umbrella policy and our homeowners policy with the same company that insures our cars, and that gives us a 15% discount.

I have been very fortunate in terms of how few problems my car has had over the years.  It’s a Honda, and I’m convinced that they build very good cars.  But a huge part of it has to do with how little I drive.  If you only drive 3000 – 4000 miles per year, it makes sense that your car will last three times as long as one that is driven 12,000 miles per year.

I did seriously think about selling my car earlier this summer.  We would still have my husband’s car (a 20 year old Audi that has similar maintenance, insurance, and registration costs as my car), but his has far less room in it for things like the dog and groceries.  His car has about 100,000 fewer miles on it than mine though, so it wouldn’t have made sense at all to get rid of his and keep mine (even though my car has been going strong for years, it does have 221,000 miles on it, and I realize it’s not going to last forever).  I checked the Blue Book value on my car, and it was about $1000.  But we decided that the convenience of having the car is worth more to us than the thousand dollars would be.  There’s plenty of space in our garage for my car, and there’s no issue with parking in our town (if we lived in a city where we had to pay for parking, that would sway things more in favor of getting rid of the car).

If and when we get to a point where my car needs extensive and very costly repairs, we’ll reconsider.  But for now, we figure that we might as well keep it as long as it’s running well and costing us so little to insure, register, and maintain.  And of course, I am always focused on how I can reduce my mileage as much as possible, and use the car only when I really need it, as opposed to every time I need to go somewhere.

What do you think?  I know it’s very feasible to live without a car in a big city that has public transportation and car sharing programs, but have any of you done it while living in a small town without any of those resources?  What does your car cost you each year?  How high would that number have to be to convince you that the car’s not worth it?

We did also consider renting a car for long journeys and when we go on vacation.  That way we would only have to pay for the use of a car once or twice a year.  We aren’t sure if this is feasible or not, but it’s a possibility.  Take cheap car hire in France for example:  we could drive from coast to coast, through Paris, up to Nice if we wanted to – all at our own convenience – without owning a car of our own and having to pay car expenses year-round.

Don’t worry… I will still be wearing clothes!  They will just come from my closet rather than the thrift store.

Last week when I went to town, my husband asked me to see if I could find a pair of overalls and a flannel shirt at a thrift store to dress a scarecrow he’s welding.  I had to go to the thrift store anyway to drop off a few boxes of donations, but this was the first time in about two months that I had gone there to shop.

Now that I’ve done so much clutter-busting around here, I love the way our house feels.  I love how easy it is to keep clean.  The bedrooms pretty much clean themselves, since we don’t have so much stuff in them anymore.  And the living area just needs counters wiped and toys picked up at the end of the day.  I am never going back to having a bunch of stuff that we don’t need.  And that mindset made thrift store shopping a very different experience.  Rather than browsing around the store looking at all sorts of stuff, I headed straight for the jeans and flannel shirts.  I found overalls and a great scarecrow shirt for a total of five bucks.  I also happened to notice a very big, sturdy clothes drying rack that was in much better shape than the ones I had.  I have four of them, which get pretty heavy use during the winter when the outdoor clothesline doesn’t work as well (we don’t own a dryer).  I bought the new rack, but as soon as I got home I took two of my smaller, less-sturdy racks and put them in my car to donate next time I’m in town.  Other than that, I didn’t even look around the thrift store.  I bought my stuff and headed out, without browsing through clothes for myself or our son, or anything in the kitchen section (those areas used to be my weakness).

As far as clothes go, I’ve decided to commit to not buying any clothing for myself or our son until at least next year.  I got three great pairs of shoes for our son last month, and they should last him through the rest of the year (they have some room to grow).  He has plenty of clothes too, most of which also have room to grow.  I used to love shopping for clothes, but I’ve decided that I prefer having a closet with plenty of room between the clothes.  When I sorted through my clothes over the last several weeks, I got rid of a ton of stuff, and now the clothes that I love – that I wear all the time – are all that’s left.  And I truly don’t need any more.  It’s a great feeling, and I find that I have no desire at all to browse through clothes at the thrift store.  My car is no longer affected by the gravitational pull that the thrift store use to exert over it  Well, I guess it is, because these days it seems like I always have stuff in my car to drop off as donations every time I go to town.  The donation box isn’t filling up as quickly as it was a few weeks ago, but I still much prefer to have stuff go out of the house than come in.

What’s the longest you’ve gone without buying clothes?  I know that there are some people who hate shopping for clothes, and they probably go long stretches all the time.  But if you really enjoy it (as I used to), it’s a bit tougher to give it up, especially if all your clothes come from a thrift store where the price isn’t much of a concern.  So I’m curious… any former clothes shoppers out there who have gone more than a year without buying any clothing?

Last year when we moved to our new home, we essentially made four trips with a 14 foot truck (actually, I think the first trip was in a 17 foot truck…)  When moving day arrived, the 26 foot U-Haul that we had reserved wasn’t available, so we had to improvise with a tiny little truck, and only got it for half a day rather than the three days we had reserved.  So we crammed stuff into it as fast as we could and made three trips.  Good thing we were only moving an hour away!

I am thrilled with all the de-cluttering that has been going on around here lately, but I sure wish I had done it a year ago.  Maybe then we wouldn’t have had to make so many trips with our tiny little truck, and we could have saved a lot of time that we spent packing random crap into boxes.  Our little family of three people, one cat, and one dog sure did have a lot of boxes.

In our old house, we had a built-in shelving unit in our bedroom, and one dresser.  When we moved, we still had the dresser, but no shelving unit.  So I immediately began looking for a new dresser on Craigs List.  I found a great big one for $100, and we promptly hooked up our wagon and went to pick it up.  I offered $80, we settled on $90, and it’s been in our bedroom ever since.  It’s a nice dresser with a huge mirror on top, but it is a very large piece of furniture.  And now that I’ve been getting rid of so much stuff lately, I’ve realized that we don’t need two dressers in our bedroom at all.  My husband and I can share one dresser for socks and underwear, and all the rest of our clothes fit nicely in the closet.

So we are getting rid of the gigantic dresser.  And apparently I was a golden opportunity for the lady who was selling it last summer, because I’ve dropped the price all the way to $40 (I finally have someone coming over tonight… fingers crossed!) and it’s still here.  Bummer, but a good lesson learned:  Before shopping for things to store our stuff, we should take a long hard look at the stuff and see if it’s worth storing.

I don’t mind selling the dresser at a loss, because I’ve come to terms with the idea that I need to forget about sunk costs if I’m going to get rid of all the extra stuff we have sitting around.  We no longer need the dresser, so hanging onto it is completely counter-productive.  I’d much rather have the empty floor space in our bedroom.  And since the $90 we spent on the dresser is long gone, the $40 I can get from selling it now is a bonus.

So here’s my challenge for you… if you’re thinking about buying anything to store stuff – dresser, shelves, containers, etc – see if you can figure out a way to get rid of the stuff instead so that you don’t need the storage item after all.  I promise it will feel good!

Last month, I decided to see how long I could go without grocery shopping, just by using up the stuff I already had on hand in our cupboards and freezer.  I hadn’t been stockpiling anything and we didn’t have a huge amount of food stored, but it was 15 days between shopping trips, as opposed to my normal 7.  And when I did go back to the grocery store, our bill was only about $40 higher than it usually is, so it was definitely worth some kitchen creativity to use up some of what we had on hand before buying more groceries.

There’s a great Goodwill just around the corner from the grocery store, so I decided to treat myself to a little thrifting that afternoon.  I spend a total of $42 at Goodwill…

We are going to a wedding in June, and I went looking for a new dress to wear.  I found this, plus shoes that are a perfect match and were still tied together with the little string that retailers use to keep pairs together:

I got a great stainless steel bowl that I’m planning to use as a planter, and a black pan that I can use to sun dry tomatoes this summer.  I also got a cute little wooden step stool for our son to use in the bathroom – and it folds into a chair too!  In the pan you can also see some Melissa & Doug wooden stensils:

A friend of mine is expecting a baby girl this spring, and I got this adorable little dress/bloomers set, along with about four yards of super cute fabric that I will use to make something for the baby.  I haven’t decided what I’m making yet, but I’m sure inspiration will strike:

I also got a complete croquet set for out backyard:

And even though I know that I don’t need any more clothes, I did buy two tops for myself.  The brown one is LOLE, and I could tell it was a well made shirt as soon as I saw it.  After I got home, I looked up their website, and all of their basic long sleeved shirts sell for about $45 – $60:

All of that for $42.

Thanks Goodwill, for making it possible for us to have nice stuff and still fund our retirement accounts!

Sometime later this year we’d like to start finishing our basement.  For now, it’s just a huge storage area, but we have big plans for it.  Our first financial priority this year is our HSA and our IRAs, but after that, we’re planning to start putting some money into the basement.  We’d like to use as much recycled, reclaimed, and salvaged material as we can for the project.  There are two Habitat for Humanity ReStores in the area, as well as at least two other construction material yards that sell salvaged materials.  In addition, I’ve been watching the free section on Craigs List.

Tonight, I hit the jackpot.

One of our plans for the basement is a workout room.  For now, my husband and I both do our workouts in our bedroom, and our weights are stored under our bed.  It works, but since we have all that space downstairs, a workout room makes sense.  One of the things I wanted for it was big mirrors, as we both feel that mirrors help us maintain our form when we exercise.  But mirrors – especially big ones – are not cheap.  Tonight I found a free listing on Craigs List for two wall mirrors; each one is 3 feet by 8 feet.  I have no idea how much those would cost if we were to buy them new, but I’m sure the price tag would give me shivers.  Happily, all we have to do to get these is drive ten miles into town.  I was the first response the lady had, so they’re ours.

For the last few days, I’ve kept the local Craigs List free page open as a tab on my computer, and I just refresh it every few hours.  As long as you can resist a whole lot of stuff that you might like but don’t really need (since that equals clutter!), it’s a great way to find awesome deals as soon as they get listed.

A reader emailed me a few days ago, asking for my thoughts on buying a car – so I figured I’d share.  I drive a 1991 Honda Civic wagon.  It has 218,000 miles on it, and has never once left me stranded on the side of the road.  Well, the muffler fell halfway off one time, but I was able to tie it back on with a rag that I had in the trunk, and make my way home MacGyver-style.  My husband and I bought the car in 2003 for $2300 cash.  We bought it from a private seller; he had been the only owner, and gave us meticulous records of all of the service work that had been done on the car over the 12 years he had owned it.  In the years since we bought it, the car has needed very little work, and has been very reliable.

I have no plans to get another car until mine just won’t go anymore.  At that point, we’ll look for another car, likely one that is around ten years old.  We’ll buy from a private owner again (Craigs List makes things like that pretty easy these days), and pay cash.

Driving an older car means that insurance and license fees are very low.  We pay $50/year to register our cars (it was $25 in our old city, but we also had to pay $25/car every two years for emissions testing, which we don’t have to do here), and only carry liability insurance on our vehicles.  We both have clean driving records and have our auto insurance, homeowners policy, and liability umbrella policy with the same carrier, so we get a discount on our insurance.

Coolness and looks play no part what so ever in my car shopping decisions.  A car is strictly for getting me and my family from one place to another, and most of the time it’s parked in my garage.  Anyone who cares about whether my car is cool or not isn’t a person whose opinions matter to me.  There are some factors that I do consider worthwhile when it comes to choosing a car: safety and fuel economy.

When it comes time to buy another car (hopefully a long time from now) we will look at safety ratings and fuel economy numbers, and base our final decision largely on those factors, combined with availability and price.  In terms of safety, yes, I know that there have been a lot of advancements in car safety since my car was built 18 years ago.  But my own driving is the biggest factor when it comes to my family’s safety in my car.  In 16 years of driving, I’ve never had a ticket (nor have I ever talked my way out of one).  When I drive, I drive.  Nothing else.  I don’t eat, mess with my phone, or look at a map while I’m driving.  I would never dream of driving after I had been drinking.  I always wear a seat belt and never exceed the speed limit.  My opinion is that those things make me safer – even in my old car – than someone in a brand new Volvo who is eating a burger and talking on the phone while tailgating the person in front of them.

Fuel economy is a major issue for me.  Environmental conservation is a huge priority for me, and driving – in any kind of vehicle – is something I try to minimize specifically because of fuel consumption.  We live in a small town (5000 people) and I don’t drive at all in our town – I bike or walk instead.  The town is only a few miles from one end to the other, so there’s no justification for me to drive anywhere here.  We have baskets on our bikes, and backpacks, and our son’s stroller has a compartment underneath that is perfect for hauling groceries or library books.  I usually make a trip into the nearby town about once per week (ten miles each way).  I combine all of my errands into one trip, and make sure that I don’t drive more than 65 mph on the highway into town (even though the speed limit is 75).  Keeping my speed down and avoiding aggressive driving while I’m in town means that my car averages 30 mpg, even though it’s almost 19 years old and on the larger side as far as Civics go (it’s a full wagon, with tons of room in the back).  Considering the fact that I drive less than 2500 miles per year, and that my car gets 30 mpg as it is, buying a new car in order to boost fuel efficiency doesn’t make sense – from a financial perspective or from an environmental perspective.  The energy required to build my new car would offset the small gain that I would make by driving a more efficient car (and it would take a hybrid to get significantly more fuel efficiency).

For a small segment of the population, space is an issue – if you have more than five people in your family, you’ll probably need something bigger than a car in order to have seatbelts for everyone.  But I will note that I often see large SUVs and minivans driving around with two or three people in them (or worse, just one person).  Unless you literally can’t fit your family into a car, why pay for more vehicle than you need?  Not to mention the higher fuel, insurance, and licensing costs that go along with larger, more expensive vehicles.

For an even smaller segment of the population, four wheel drive is an issue.  I would say that this is limited to people who live in small, snowy mountain towns where the roads aren’t plowed after every storm, and people who live on dirt roads.  In most urban areas, four wheel drive isn’t necessary.  In my opinion, it’s detrimental; I notice that as soon as the snow flies and the roads get icy, people in SUVs often think that they can still drive the speed limit.  And they end up in the ditch.

Driving an older car that we paid for with cash means we have no car payments, which is the best part of the deal as far as I’m concerned.  We’re saving money now for the day when we will eventually have to replace my car.  I haven’t thought much about a replacement, as we have two vehicles (my husband drives a 1990 Audi) and could use the other one for a while.  But I doubt that we’ll spend more than $5000 when it comes time to get another car.

I’m curious to hear your thoughts on this subject.  Do you have car payments?  Are you trying to get rid of them?  Did you buy your car with cash?  What is the most you’ve ever spent (or would spend) on a car?  Are you (or would you consider being) a one-car family?  Would you ever consider giving up your car all together and switching to bikes and public transportation?

I noticed a couple weeks ago that our son was starting to ourgrow most of his hand-me-down shoes.  His toes have gotten to the end of his size 5s, so I knew it was time for a trip to the thrift store.  I decided to get him two pairs of size 6 shoes, as I figured that would last him until he needs a bigger size. 

It only took me a few minutes to find exactly what I needed.  I found a pair of Stride Rite shoes (super cool, with little surf boards all over them – my husband said he’d like a pair in his size) and a pair of Lands End shoes, both size 6, and both with almost no wear at all (no toe imprints inside, no wear showing on the soles).  I also found a pair of size 6 winter boots – just in time, since we’re supposed to get a foot of snow over the next two days. 

As a bonus, I came across a miniature catcher’s mitt, which my husband thought was my best score of the day.  He got out his own glove and started playing a toddler version of catch with our son as soon as I got home.

All together, I spent $12.  For two pairs of shoes, boots, and a mitt.  I knew that Lands End and Stride Rite are good brands, but just out of curiosity I checked their websites to see what sort of a deal I got.  Most of the shoes on the Stride Rite site were in the $40 – $55 range, and the Lands End shoes were about $30.

In keeping with my mission to declutter our house, I dropped off a carload of donations at the thrift store.  The catcher’s mitt wasn’t on my list, but it was just too awesome to pass up.

If you’re not already shopping in thrift stores, you gotta start!

At our old house, there were two thrift stores within a 15 minute walk; now the closest thrift store is ten miles away.  I’ve mentioned that we very rarely go thrifting anymore, which has been helpful in my mission to purge the house of clutter.  These days, I only go to the thrift stores if there is something we really need.  I went a couple days ago, on a mission to find a small set of shelves to put by our back door.  We take our shoes off when we come in the house, and they end up in a big heap by the door.  I was looking for shelves that would fit into the small corner by the door and give us a neat place to put shoes.

There’s a Goodwill right next to my favorite grocery store, so I combined the two trips.  Within a few minutes in the Goodwill, I found a perfect set of shelves.  They are homemade, solid, and heavy, made of real wood.  Exactly what I was looking for, and for the bargain price of five bucks.  Since I found the shelves so quickly, I decided to browse around a bit.  I soon stumbled upon a great carry-on bag.  It was solid and well-made, with a retractable handle and wheels to roll it along miles of concourse.  It had tons of interior and exterior pockets, and was just a handsome bag overall.  I wanted it.  Up until a short time ago, I’d have bought it, simply because I wanted it.

But my new clutter-purging self decided to pass on the bag, for lots of reasons.  I already have a great backpack that works just fine as a carry-on.  It also works for hikes and day trips, which can’t really be said for the wheel-about carry-on.  I’m trying to eliminate uni-tasking objects from my life as much as possible, and a purpose-made carry-on bag isn’t really good for much else besides air travel.  If I were a frequent flier, I might have made a different decision.  But the last time I flew anywhere was in 2007.  We have a toddler now, and flying doesn’t sound so appealing anymore.  In fact, traveling in any form doesn’t really seem like as much fun as just hanging out at home with my husband and son.  In addition, my understanding of how my actions impact the planet has increased dramatically over the last several years, and these days the idea of flying just conjures up images of greenhouse gasses rather than exotic destinations.

So I put the bag back on the shelf for someone else to find, and left the store with the small set of shelves.  The corner by our back door is now neat and tidy, and I don’t have to find room in the basement for a bag that might come out of storage once every couple years.

All is good.

If you’ve been reading my blog for a while, you know that I’m not fond of toxic chemicals in our house or yard.  We grow all of our veggies using organic methods, clean the house with baking soda and vinegar, and avoid food additives like preservatives and food colorings.  So it should come as no surprise that we don’t want our son wearing pajamas treated with flame retardant chemicals.

I know other parents who feel the same way, and their solution has been to go out and buy new cotton pajamas that say “wear snug f’itting – not flame resistant” on the tag.  I have found a few pairs of these at thrift stores, and our son has been wearing them this summer.  But he’s starting to outgrow them now, and winter is coming.  I know that I could go back to the thrift stores and search through the pajamas to find more that aren’t treated with flame retardants.  But I’m trying to avoid shopping in general – we already have too much stuff, and I don’t want to add anything else.  I’ve been sorting through our stuff and weeding out clutter, and it feels great.  We live ten miles from the thrift stores now, as opposed to where we used to live, which was half a mile from two great thrift stores.  This is great for my efforts to save money, get by with less, and avoid consumerism in all its forms – including buying used stuff that we really don’t need.

So our son is now wearing sweatpants and sweatshirts to bed.  We have several that will fit him all winter.  They were hand me downs and items that I purchased at thrift stores before we moved, and they make perfect pajamas.  I pair them with warm socks, and he’s all set for the night.  Thrift stores are frugal, but making do with what we already have is even more frugal, and it serves a secondary purpose of keeping the clutter in our house to a minimum.

Yesterday I baked a loaf of whole wheat bread in our sun oven.  Then I decided to make eggplant sandwiches.  I had a fresh farmers market eggplant, which I sliced up and drizzled with fresh garlic, olive oil, salt, and pepper.  Then I put the eggplant slices in the sun oven and left them there for about an hour.  Halfway through their cooking, I added a bell pepper from our garden to the sun oven, and roasted it along with the eggplant.

I assembled the sandwiches with tomatoes (from the farmers market – ours aren’t ready yet), lettuce from our garden, mustard, and vegan mayo, along with the eggplant and roasted pepper.  They were amazingly tasty, and I love that all the cooking was done for free.  As a bonus, it was done without heating up my already warm kitchen, and while I was able to get other stuff done in the house.  Here’s a picture (I’m not a food photographer by any stretch, so please ignore the glare):

We also installed a clothesline yesterday, which I’m very excited about.  Actually we just installed the poles – we still have to add the lines, which we’re going to do tomorrow.  My husband found the poles at a scrap metal place he’s been frequenting lately.  They had been cut off at ground level, so they’re a bit shorter than normal.  Once we got them embedded in concrete they’re only about four and a half feet high.  But they will work perfectly… after all, I’ve been using folding clothes racks that are about four feet high for the last two years.  The best part about the poles was that they were scrap metal, sold for 25 cents a pound.  He bought a bunch of other stuff with them; we don’t know exactly how much they cost, but we’re guessing it was probably around ten bucks.  One of the T-bars was broken, so my husband snagged another piece of pole scrap and welded on a new T-bar.

We commented on the fact that our new clothesline area takes up as much space as we had in our entire backyard at our old house.  Here, it’s only taking up a tiny little area of yard to the side of our house.  Reason number 742 that we’re glad we moved!