Sweater dress - $4
I have always been a casual thrift store/yard sale clothes shopper and when I started to follow various blogs where people highlighted their own fabulous frugal finds I always thought my own local thrift stores lacked the class, prices and variety of everyone elses thrift stores.
I am here to tell you that it isn't true.
And to tell those of you who think my thrift store is unique and better than yours - that likely isn't true either!
Men's dress shirt - $4
The day my sister and I bought over $1,200 worth of clothes - many of which were brand new with price tags - for a total of $60 we spent TWO HOURS looking through the racks of clothes.
She was looking for clothes for herself and for me and I was looking for clothes for myself and her - so we had two people looking for two hours each for clothes.
Not only does shopping with a sister or friend enable you to find items you may have over looked, but it also offers (what should be!) an honest second opinion on what clothes flatter and what clothes do not flatter.
Just because you find a fabulous name brand item for a few dollars does not mean you need to buy it! To me, shopping second hand affords you to be extremely picky about the clothes that you wear.
- The garment should be well made - knowing good brand names is a great starting point for this. Quite often I google clothing brands on my phone if I don't recognize them.
- The clothes need to have minimal to no wear showing on them. It is amazing the amount of nice, brand new with store tag items can be found!
- Walmart brand and Ann Taylor shirts all sell for the same price (at least at our local thrift stores!) Knowing this, I have decided that there's no reason to be buying anything but brand name clothes.
- Make sure to buy clothes that truly flatter and fit you well right now. This has been especially hard for me lately as I have been losing weight and it is so hard to not buy clothes that I want to fit into! But the reality is, there will always be fabulous clothes at the thrift store and I really don't want to clutter up my closet with clothes I'm not currently wearing.
Tommy Hilfiger jeans - $5
Posts
5 comments:
I'm not really a thrifter, but I had a friend who was.
She had these rules:
1) Walk along touching the items - - - you can "feel" quality cloth, stop and check it out.
2) Never buy it unless it is an absolute "must have"
3) Don't pay more than $5 for any item.
She dressed like a queen, her closets were bulging, and all her stuff looked brand new.
I started shopping in thrift stores about 9 years ago looking for collectibles to sell on ebay. I quickly realized the great deals on clothes, especially kids jeans on 1/2 off days!
Lately ours have been getting ridiculously high prices on clothes. I'm better off hitting clearance & buying totally new. Also, all of the thrift stores except maybe one small one, charges more for name brands. Even the low end name brands like Old Navy, Limited, Justice, Gymboree, etc. It has gotten disappointing.
I went to a new Salvation Army this past week & even the books were high. I saw kids books for $8.99 for a paperback. The cheapest books were the small romances that used to always be 10 for a $1 for .99. It was crazy how high the prices are getting.
Good luck on your challenge though, I'm subscribing to your feed. Love your blog & glad I came across it!
No kidding on the prices... I have found Goodwills to be the most expensive around here!
Yard sales are my favorite as clothes are generally under $1/piece - but I need to wait a couple more months for those to start up again!
Great tips Keetha, thanks for sharing!
There's 2 thrift/resale shops right in my immediate area and I'm going to check them out! I hope I can find the kind of things you do! Still amazes me!~
Absolutely! I've found some amazing brand-name things that were like-new or even still had their tags on.
When you know treasure like that is out there, it's REALLY hard to pay retail for anything!
Post a Comment