If I had the time I could slowly accumulate building materials just like some of my neighbours have. “Free-cycled” items such as kitchen cabinets offered up through word of mouth, or an old sliding door found through putting an ad in the local paper. Some bought inexpensive tin roofing when they tore down the old Coop supermarket. Another got chunks of concrete aggregate that he turned into terracing. And still another used lumber salvaged from a house in town that burned down to rebuild his house out here, which had also burned down.
Someone had lost a raft of barrels in a lake down south and people are scavenging them to use as water barrels. A guy leaving the islands bartered with someone staying for the massive water tank that he was leaving behind. A head-high pile of rough-cut lumber sold for a flat $500. I meanwhile, have been buying most stuff at retail.