BDSM On A Budget

lg and I have been reading D/s blogs for close to five months now and I have seen a trend in most of the writing. Most of these people have money! Maybe not all of them have Warren Buffett type money, but most do seem to be on the high end of the pay scale. lg and I are not in this category. While we are moving toward the top of our field, our field’s pay scale seems to be on the lower end. So, we are continuously struggling financially. I also made some poor choices as a teen and young adult that has put us behind financially. Our son was also selected for a trip to Australia this summer, so we are trying to come up with the money for that, too. With all that said, I have always been one to be thankful for the things I do have and put little importance on “becoming rich”.

Another thing that we are discovering is that this Lifestyle can be expensive! Browsing the BDSM equipment sites has been an eye-opener, for sure. lg and I have learned over the past two decades together to find ways of using things longer and making things last in order to save money. It is the same with our current obsession, as well.

Here are a few things I have done so far to get/improvise toys and equipment for our new Lifestyle:

Flogger: Leather is EXPENSIVE! While nothing can replace the look, smell and feel of heavy gauge leather, there are some things a non-rich person like myself can do to make do. The leather in my home-made flogger was acquired from a backseat car organizer, the kind that is supposed to attach to the back of the front seat. You can usually find these pretty cheap at dollar stores. I got mine for $9.95, and, while it was not the thickest, it was made of real leather. I then cut out the back and cut it into thin strips. I tied one end of the strips together with a small piece of twine. Cutting out the bottom piece of a coat hanger (about ten inches), I threaded it through the strips behind the twine and folded it in half. I then squeezed the two ends of the wire together and inserted it into one of those cheap, foam bicycle handlebar grips ($3.95). When the wire is released inside the grip, it expands and lodges tight. So, for about $15 and a piece of twine, we now have a flogger and I am happy to say that lg says that it is her very favorite.

Cane: Now I know that finding a reasonably priced cane shouldn’t be that hard, but I swear, I can’t find even a simple, unadorned one for less than $70. So, since no D/s closet/chest should be without one, once again I improvised. The solution came to me on my lunch break at work one day. I sped over to K-Mart and found that I was right. You can find a fishing rod very cheaply. I found one on sale for $6.99. When I got home that night, I clipped it about half way down and bent the loops back and forth until they came off. I then had to bend the metal points that were left from the hoops back into the rod to keep them from having a cutting affect when used (we are WAY too new for ‘barbed’ items). I also saved the thin end that I clipped off to use as a switch at some point later on (again, too new still to use yet). While the thickness is slightly less than an average cane, it works very well and lg has begun to dread (get wet over) her severest punishments.

Vibrators: Again, expensive, expensive, expensive! We have bought several vibrators; a few small typical ones and one that lg wanted badly; one of those ugly things that twists as well as vibrates. You know the one, the one with BEADS! “You can’t beat the BEADS!” says lg. lol But I have discovered a way to get ‘good vibrations’ in a cheap and versatile way. Car seat massagers. I have tried many of these contraptions and found that the cheap ones are barely worth buying for there intended purpose. This doesn’t make them useless, though. If you take these things apart, being careful not to break any connections in the wires, you can use the vibrating ‘nodes’ anywhere you want. I found one (they had six of them) at a Salvation Army store for $10. I carefully took it apart and found it had eight nodes, all controlled by one remote. The nodes can be placed anywhere we want and held in place by surgical tape. (On a side note, we {that is, lg} learned the hard way about electrical tape…ouch!)

Dildos: Nothing can replace the soft, pliable dildos that are on the market today (save the real thing). But there are other ways of improvising this as well. I have recently started carving and am in the process of making dildos, as well as other toys, in various shapes and sizes. If all goes well, I would like to be able to have a decent enough sized inventory to get a booth and sell them for Biketoberfest in Daytona in October. I may, at some point, sell them over the web. We will see. Anyway, if you don’t mind the hardness of them, this is much less expensive than buying dildos at retail prices (assuming you carve them yourself…mine won’t be cheap either…lol).

Spreaders: I have a special liking for these devices. Seeing lg with absolutely no ability to close her legs/knees/ankles is an extreme turn on for both of us. Once again though, they are expensive. While I would dearly like to have a set of fine quality spreaders, this is what I did in the meantime. I went to Home Depot and bought a 15’ length of one inch PCV pipe for $8. I then measured lg for what lengths would be comfortable for her. Then I drilled two holes on each end and one in the middle, and ran a rope through the pipe, leaving a small loop of it through the hole in the middle, out one of the holes at the end and back in the other hole. I then ran the rope back through the pipe and did the same thing with the holes on that end and tied the rope. A small bit of rope is tied to the loop in the middle to keep it from being pulled back into the pipe. The loop can then be used to tighten or loosen the bigger loops at the end when in use. The ends of the pipe should also be sanded to keep down on the chaffing. Simple, and not very pretty, but very affective.

You can always come up with ways of getting what you need, if you want it bad enough.