The
Habitat ReStore is another resource for cheap paint and other building materials. They have furniture on occasion too.
For farmers' markets, I prefer The City Market in the River Market. You know, the big one. :) Besides the great number of local farmers selling produce on the weekends, the re-sale vendors along the edges are open everyday (except maybe Mondays). While they do not sell local produce, they do sell cheap produce. They also sell a lot of nearly spoiled produce, so you have to be careful with what food you pick. While there, you can also visit Al Habashi along the west edge of the market for spices in bulk -- the only way to buy spices, in my opinion! I also like Al Habashi for buying ingredients for hummus. There is no reason to buy premade hummus when it's so cheap and easy to make at home.
If you are not near the River Market area, you can consult
this map from KCMO's Open Data project. It shows many of the farmers' markets and community gardens in the area. (The Open Data project is pretty cool in and of itself.) Another good resource is the
KC Food Circle. They list CSAs as well as markets. And if you want to grow your own,
KC Community Gardens is a great resource, though their website is pretty terrible. Another one (with a much nicer website) is
Cultivate KC. I'm partial to KCCG because they leased a plot at a community garden to me many years ago when I was first learning about growing food. I still use them for buying seeds and starter plants each year.
Speaking of, I'm a bit surprised gardening hasn't been mentioned in the main blog as a Mustachian pursuit. I find it to be an extremely rewarding way to spend some of my free time. Plus I get fresh tomatoes out of it, and really, what could be better?
For thrift stores, I mainly stick to Savers in OP. They don't have much furniture, but most of my wardrobe is from there, and if I didn't bore my coworkers with stories of Savers scores, they would be none the wiser as to the origins of my clothing. Maj-R-Thrift was my main haunt in high school. I may have to give it a second look.
One more: another bike resource is
816 bike collective.
