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Publix has 8 OClock coffee and olive oil on BOGO regularly.  You can check their ad online.  

I have a cabinet on casters similar to yours in my kitchen too.  My late dh picked it up free when the nursing home put a bunch of stuff on the curb.  I keep my Kitchen Aid mixer on it, hand mixer, vacuum sealer and other odds and end in the bottom and in the drawer recipe booklets.  I leave it parked against the wall except when using it which keeps the counter free of the big mixer.  

At one time I got rid of a good many of my kitchen appliances when they died and then slowly replaced them as the arthritis in my hands became more troublesome.  I can no longer mix bread or heavy cookie dough by hand so purchased the Kitchen Aid.  My hand mixer is ancient but still works so I'm keeping it until it dies and likely will not replace it unless I find one used.  

My blender, waffle iron and most other kitchen items were from household auctions, thrift shops or garage sales.  Most of my pans/skillets are Revere Ware or cast iron and I can only think of a couple items purchased new.  One pan was a wedding gift 66 years ago and a large Wagner Ware roaster was purchased with trading stamps in mid 1960s.  My Revere Ware skillet was found at a thrift shop for a $1.  I was in terrible condition, but the bottom was not warped so I bought it and spend a lot of elbow grease cleaning it up.  I already had a lid that I'd saved from a similar skillet, so my set is complete again.  I use it often because the weight of cast iron is a problem for me these days.

When I grocery shop, I look at something I used to buy regularly and think NO not at that price and find something to substitute.   I'm a cookie junkie and refuse to buy bakery or packaged cookies at the ridiculous prices today.  I have supplies to bake cookies although due to my addiction to them, don't bake them often!

Those prices sound exorbitant to me but then again every time I go to the stores I am seeing prices go up.

My blow dryer died last month so haven't replaced it yet, I was on a no spend month. However I have discovered that I can wrap my hair in a cotton t shirt and let it get almost dry then throw some large pin curls in it and let it dry completely and its bouncy and I don't have to use a curling iron.....so I might not replace the hair dryer.

I was able to clear my drive and parking area by myself the old fashioned way with a shovel, took my time and used the shovel to push the 12 inches of snow into windrows out of the way. They shoveled in 1942 and it worked for me.

Have started eating a lot more hot cereals, leftover steel cut oats are then mixed with an egg and made into oatmeal patties served with homemade maple syrup from my own trees. I had forgotten how much I loved them. Eating by candlelight for the "cozy" feeling.

Being in my own cozy home in candlelight and quiet brings me a lot of peace and calm.

It is snow flurrying again today but if we can just hang in we are supposed to get into the 40 and 50's next week. 

We had one of those canister vacuums until the 70s at least. It was on runners and as a kid I hated using it. It was heavy for me. 

Charles is very clever to modify the drop leaf table to accommodate modern chairs!

Where I am Costco started carrying light olive oil, they call it refined olive oil with 15% extra virgin olive oil, but it is not as light as what you bought.  It is $18.99 for 3 liters (101 ounces).  32 ounces ground Starbucks coffee from Costco is 19.99, that isn’t the coffee we buy but it is most similar to your purchase.  So I think overall you did very well with your choice of stores!  Coffee is definitely a big expense here, I don’t drink it but the guys do.  I do my best to buy the brand we use on sale, which this month will be $6.60 per pound.  That requires a trip to the Costco Business Center.  I’ve been tracking when it goes on sale and how much they use, so I will buy about 20# to last until it goes on sale again in August.  This is one reason I made my grocery budget an annual budget this year, rather than monthly.

Is there anything that you have gotten rid of or stopped using to have a more simple home? 

The last major thing we didn’t replace was our clothes dryer in 2023.  Overall the plan going forward is to not replace things if we can achieve the same result in a different way.  That might be cooking with a pan instead of a small appliance, cleaning and mending torn upholstery, washing dishes by hand, etc.  But I am simplifying in other ways, for example, we switched to the Costco refined olive oil as our only liquid oil.  My husband makes salads with it instead of EVOO.  I cook and bake with it.  We use it for popcorn.  For our solid fat we are using palm oil.  I am looking at many of our pantry foods and recipes and figuring out where I can go more simple in terms of ingredients.  It’s easier to buy in bulk if we are using the same ingredients in many dishes, versus many different ingredients.  An example would be beans, going forward I am only going to buy pinto beans and soy beans (for soymilk) in 25# bags, and then French lentils and navy beans 10# at a time (to fit my containers).  For red lentils, split peas, black beans, and other beans/legumes I am going to buy them in smaller quantities and not worry about keeping them stocked at home — I can buy them easily at Walmart if I am out.  In 2024 the guys found they really love navy beans soups, and they can also be used for baked beans, so now I am exploring navy bean recipes.  I grind popcorn for cornmeal instead of buying it separately or purchasing dent corn to grind.

Have you added anything to have a more functional home? 

We are in a not buying phase of our life, for sure, so other than the big expense of adding solar last year, we aren’t spending money to make our home more functional.  But we are moving things around to use our spaces well, and we did purchase two used oak bookcases ($60 total) to hold our books so I could have more shelf space in the craft/hobby room — I put all of my cotton fabric on shelves so I can see what I have and get to it more easily.

Do you have any projects you are working on?

I am learning how to use my new sewing machine, and am continuing to learn how to repair some older machines, although I also gave away some machines because I didn’t want to spend money to fix them.  This time of year I knit a lot of dish clothes since they are a portable craft and I am often away from home for a few hours at a time.

Have you found any new information about the year 1942 that has been helpful to you?  

I looked into sugar rationing, and learned that people had to declare what sugar they had on hand and would have stamps removed for that.  That makes me wonder how honest people were about it.  The annual ration was 26# per person to start, but they couldn’t get that all at once, of course.  I was thinking that sounds like a lot of sugar, but it was half the usual consumption back then.  Because I bake, I know we can go through sugar pretty quickly if we are making and baking our own desserts instead of buying sweetened prepared products.  I think I read before that sweetened condensed milk wasn’t part of rationing so people used it in recipes, but my son can’t eat dairy so that isn’t an option for us.  I bet people who had a sugar bush started tapping their maple trees if they weren’t doing so already!  Or maybe some enterprising people set up beehives.

I am still aiming for a “timeless” life rather than following the study, but I have been thinking about how I carry 1942 with me because of the generations that came before.  Some family members passed along simplicity and frugality because of their experience during WW2 (and also the Great Depression).  Some passed along buying a lot of stuff and keeping up with the Joneses because of their experiences during WW2.  Everyone coped in different ways.  Interestingly, my family members who were older during WW2 were the more frugal ones and the ones who had more domestic skills like sewing and gardening, the ones who were young adults are the ones who embraced the postwar economic boom.

I am asking myself how I can align my life with 1942 — how can my modern life reflect those times?  I am intentionally becoming more connected with community, especially my church community as we are doing a year of community and hosting more casual gatherings.  I am walking places when they are at a distance no one would have driven a car for.  I am sending physical cards for people’s birthdays.  I am practicing radical underconsumption.  My food purchasing eschews all sorts of brands and ultra processed foods.  I’m looking at ways to do my hair without heat appliances, and I am washing it far less often too.  In many ways I am examining all of the cultural ideas I grew up with and deciding which I will keep and which I need to get rid of, and then I am looking to the past to create my own foundation for living

Thank you again for these wonderful posts. They really remind us of what is important.   And happy to see that Rhonda is back!! Between you two sages we are in good hands!!