My $.02 on What Not To Buy at a Thrift Store, Part 1

If you google "What Not to Buy at Thrift Stores", you will find a fairly standard list in many places. They look like this one, from an excellent blog called Sammy Davis Vintage.

Oops. I've been a bad girl. I am the proud owner of thrift-store versions of many of the items on the list.

Here's a start:

1. Stuffed animals are usually high on the list of items to avoid at thrift stores. This is because of the risk of lice. Stuffed animal threads mimic human hair, allowing lice to thrive. Lice is a serious nuisance. If you have school-age children and you have not yet been visited by lice, you are very lucky!

But here's the thing. Some simple prevention can eradicate the risk of lice.

My boys are in a stuffed-animal phase. It's pretty cute. They love naming them, reading to them, and throwing them across the room. It's fun to reward them with an occasional trip to Thrifttown for a new friend.

When we get a stuffed animal from Thrifttown, I follow standard anti-lice procedures as a precaution. All of our new buddies go immediately into a hot load of laundry followed by at least 30 minutes in a hot dryer. Sometimes I repeat this just for good measure. You can also put your thrifted stuffed animals in a tightly-sealed, dark plastic bag for a week just in case any buggers remain.

We dealt with lice last year. In entailed about 48 hours of laundering everything in the house, and a whole lot of careful combing and inspecting. It was a nuisance, for sure. But not the end of the world.

The shelves of Thrifttown are positively overflowing with stuffed animals. So, as long as they can fit comfortably in my washing machine, I'm game.

Stuffed animals like this one-- you know, the kind that guys feel the need to win for their girlfriends or children at amusement parks--  will definitely never find a home with us. These pain me.  All I see is future landfill.

2. Carseats. The internet lists all say that you shouldn't buy used carseats for safety reasons. Okay, I kinda get that. It's nice to bring your wee 6-8 pounder home from the hospital in a new carseat. If it's new, you can be sure that it works exactly as it's supposed to.

But these days, kids are in some kind of carseat for a long time. In California you have to be in a booster until you are 8, or 4' 9". When you have school-age kids, carpooling becomes more common. But in order to cart other people's kids around, you're going to need more boosters. I got this perfectly good Graco booster at Thrifttown for $3. Yeah, it's a little stained. But it's fine. But it's fine, and it's nice to have it around for unexpected kiddos in our car. I know others might feel differently, but I do not fear that this booster is less than effective just because it was used by another, unknown family before us.

More of my renegade purchase to come soon.