As for buying things new, I go against most advice and get the best I can afford, and rely on Consumer's Reports for a lot of advice. Some things are far to expensive to buy cheaply!! But you have to know the difference.
I have a few nice things...but what I wear are well fitting jeans and pretty, heavy sweaters that I like. And the necessary heavy lace up cowboy lace up ropers that I must have for long term standing due to a long ago broken ankle. These must be bought new, no source of used ones for them!!
Cut my own hair and dye it...when did I get so much gray in it??
I can't be THAT old!!
Grow a lot of my dear, smart little hillbilly Grandma's "forever" plants in my back yard. Lots of veggies will come back forever
if you cut off the root end and replant it. Onions, leeks, chives, garlic, all the onion family will, and probably most of the other underground ones as well as lots others. I'm going to try carrots and other stuff this year. They can grow in with flowers and might keep lots of insects away at the same time. I train tomatoes and other sprawling plants up against the wood fence, they grow marvelously that way. I use strips of old panty hose to tie them, it won't strangle plants but will stretch as they grow.
I dig up wild lettuce, dandelion, purslane and other extremely valuable food plants like that and replant them in my back yard. My turtle loves them too..have to block him from the purslane especially. He'll even dig up and eat the roots!!