A frugal life is an easy life!

Wood, boards, lengths of 3 x 2, plyboard, triple plyboards, etc, are a valuable commodity.
All this wood is available for free, if you know where to look for it!

When a builder works on an house extension, he builds around the house, then cuts the walls out between the new build and the existing building.
Whilst the windows and doors are waiting to be fitted, any good builder nips down to a local woodyard and picks up triple plyboards, cuts them to fit the windows and doors and boards them up. This stops the weather and burgulars and secures the property.

When the new windows and doors are fitted, the plyboards are removed and then broken up and thrown into a skip. This involves more cost for the home owner who is having the work done and takes up more time for the builder.

Triple plyboards (triple being the thickness) are very handy things to have around.
Picking them up for free involves just a simple word with the builder/home owner, and storing them.
I lean them against the side of our house, where there is a small patch of waste ground, where we will eventually be putting a drive/garden.
As soon as I get some new boards, the neighbours, friends and even the odd passing person, knocks on asking if they can use some or all of it.

I trade these boards/wood, for other things or just to help someone out.
The wood I collect for free has been used for the following:

• Panelling out a friend's garage - after it was broken into
• Building a shed - no expensive, flimsy DIY store shed for me, mine's much more sturdy and secure
• Garden panelling - around the base of our "lats" fence, so I can have raised soil borders
• Raised growing boxes - alongside the shed, but not touching it, on an otherwise useless patch of grass, currently it's full of potatoes!
• Panelling out the interior of a friend's volkswagon camper van - using some single plyboard sheets of wood I got for free
• Cut into templates for a friend who was building a curved stone wall
• Chopped up for our bonfire night, bonfire!
• A table top/bench, running the full length of the shed (triple ply) - using old 3x2 and hinges for fold up legs

Add to this numerous uses around the house both now and during the extension build.
Not just helpful for others, saving them money, but helpful for me.

The friend with the camper van who pannelled his van out with the spare boards I got for free, took 3 tonnes of my topsoil and weeds for his sloped garden, doing us both a favour, I wanted rid of the mound of earth and he got a good base to put his turf on.

Swings and roundabouts it is, all for free without it costing me a single penny piece. Now that's what I call living frugal!