Where to start...
I am guilty of many offenses, both by practice and association:

"Sharecroppers"
1) Living with my Mom and going round to neighbor's gardens with her to "help them harvest" - she was divorced, at the time, having not yet met Mr. Chicken, and we lived in the Rust Belt in the late 70s to early 80s. A majority of our vegetables were obtained this way.
2) Pillaging gardens and fields as an early teen for all matter of crops - corn, watermelons, greens, peaches, etc.,
3) My Dad hanging around the hunting shops and buying the meat from tourist hunters who were only after trophies and not interested in the meat. We had a freezer full of boar and deer once the season ended. And do you know how you can stretch meat out for weeks? I do. It's called stir fry.

We weren't poor. We weren't loaded with money, but we had a house, and land, and cars.

F.I.U.Y.
Fark it up yourself:

I had an earlier post about tree cutting disasters, I won't burden you here with it.
There are others, though...
1) The Great Chicken Keeping Extravaganza:
The price of a dozen eggs at the beginning of this - $1.00 US. Weekly consumption of eggs at the Chicken household: about a dozen, we were big bakers and believers in egg breakfasts. Cost of materials for chicken coop: 60 feet of fencing at $1.75 a foot, 8 stakes, $3.00 each. Four laying hens, and one rooster, $60.00 at a discount deal. Medicine for one sick hen, that died 3 months after we bought them, $80.00. 3 new hens, $15.00 each. Inoculations for seven hens plus one rooster - 210 dollars a year. Average daily yield - 3 eggs. Oh and feed! 50 lb. bag of cracked corn, every three weeks, 19.00. Crumbled oyster shells, 20 lbs., 12.00 every six weeks.
Number of hens slaughtered and eaten in the five years I had left to live with them - three. Hours of mindless chicken observation: priceless. Actual savings: I can't be buggered. It's in the high negatives. Cost in injuries inflicted by said chickens: Annoyingly high.

2) The Fire Chief's car (aka the Geekmobile)
My Dad was chief of the local fire brigade. He got it in his head, like you do, that as chief, he needed his own mobile command vehicle. He had been a firefighter for many years at this point, and had seen the benefits of such a vehicle. He put it to the town to maybe lease him a vehicle along with the police cars next time they came around for chief's duties. They turned him down out of hand. Not to be deterred, he scrounged an old fire truck light bar - the flashing lights and siren on the top of a fire truck - that was salvaged from the wreck of an old firetruck from a neighboring jurisdiction. He then bolted this to his own car; a 1972 Plymouth Fury Gran Sedan.
www.fuselage.de/ply72/1.html
that he had up to that point been restoring.
I love my parents; but I died a little inside whenever my Dad would pick us up from school.
With standing permission from the police department, his vehicle was almost always first on the scene, with that 1960s siren screaming on top of this Detroit monstrosity belching sulfur-rich fumes into the country air. He had a CB, police band, multi-channel command radio set and carried extra tools, traffic control devices, truck parts, emergency medical supplies and SCBA bottles in the roomy trunk. As a result of him using his own vehicle for official business, he: never got pulled over when he ran his lights, and; never paid for his own fuel again.
He later ripped the guts out of a US Mail Jeep and put all of his command equipment in there, so "it would be easier to get to", right-hand drive and all.
I wish I still had that Fury.

For my part, I can tell you that it is not cheaper to install your own dishwasher - especially when you have a hose that leaks, and turns your $100.00 installation fee savings into $3000.00 of water damage - that I can't be buggered to do more than clean up and hope to hell I get a windfall to fix it before I try to dump this money pit for a deluxe apartment in the sky. I mean, the damage is cosmetic, but I have to replace all of it before I try to sell.

It is also not a good idea to attempt to restore furniture found on the side of the road. Use it for parts, yes, but chances are it was thrown out for a reason. Trust me on this. I once furnished an apartment in Early Dumpster, and while it was appropriate to the company we kept at the time, I will now only use discarded furniture for parts, as unexpected stains and smells on your latest find generally do not make themselves known until safely indoors again.

So - guilty of all charges, me.
(aeon chicken Like the Millenium Falcon, only slower and noisier, Fri 24 Oct 2008, 19:50, Reply)