Our big collections of CDs, records, videotapes, and books have been accumulated over a number of decades. Most of the new (?) CDs I get come from foraging in "Second Time Around," a used CD and DVD store a few blocks away. $5.95 to $8.95, with a seven day return policy in case the CD is defective. I've run across Richard Dyer-Bennet, Odetta, Paul Clayton, Pete Seeger, and Mary Black there, and classic guitar records by John Williams, Julian Bream, Christopher Parkening, and Narciso Yepes, and brought most of them home. Got the full length Lucia di Lammermoor with Luciano Pavarotti, complete with English/Italian libretto (2 CDs, $14.95). Barbara belongs to a club: no minimum purchases, buy one CD at regular price and chose a bonus CD or two.

We hit the used book stores. Any new books we buy usually come from QPB, or Amazon (bought through Mudcat—click on the Mudcat emerging from the banjo at the top of the page—so Max gets a cut), and we sometimes go to the annual Friends of the Library book sale. Once in a while I pay full price at Bailey-Coy, a small local book store. I think of the extra cost as a contribution to keeping them going.

In the big grocery stores and chain drug stores, buy the house brand. It's essentially the same as the big name brand (sometimes even made by the same company), and you save about 25% or 30%.

It ain't rocket science. It only takes about half a brain cell.

Don Firth