Get the Most Out of Thrifttown

I feel like I'm getting to be a broken record about Thrifttown. What can I say? I can't help myself--I find TT to be a superior shopping experience. Bargain-basement, environmentally- and socially-conscious retail therapy is my thing.

"Thou shalt not enter Thrifttown without a coupon" is the thrifting commandment I try to live by. Why pay full price when you don't have to?

I signed up as a VIP at the Thrifttown website. A few times a year, they have specials like the one pictured above. $5 off a $15 purchase. You can simply show it on your phone, and it's good once a day for about two weeks. Enjoyable.

Thrifttown also sends out a regular coupon in the Val-Pak mailer. It looks like this:

Last week I popped in during a heat wave and picked up a pile of new-to-me shirts for just 10 bucks thanks to my coupon.

Here's a made in Thailand tshirt. My retail therapy experience at Thrifttown would be complete if somehow everything I purchased was magically made in North America. Not so, of course. The racks are filled with Old Navy, Gap and Target items cast off by their original owners.

Stemming the tide, just a teeny tiny bit at a time.

Do you shop at Thrift Stores for Gifts?

I seldom do. Though I purchase most of our clothes, books, toys, small housewares and many many Christmas decorations (more on that later in the year) at my beloved Thrifttown, I reflexively point the car towards Target or a local toy store when we are invited to a kids' birthday party.

The shelves of Thrifttown are packed with jigsaw puzzles, board games and stuffed animals. I buy these for my own children, but not for others.

"No Gifts, Please" is a common part of kids' birthday invitations nowadays. I haven't quite been able to go that route with my own children, because it just seems too joyless. But as I've previously discussed here, my kids don't play with a lot of toys.

So for both giving and receiving, used toys seem like a great fit. Less costly, less packaging, less stress if the toy breaks or a piece goes missing.

I did venture in to Thrifttown gift giving a few weeks ago, and it felt great. My neighbor gave birth to her second child, a daughter. Their older child is a boy--so they actually can use some new things.

Thrifttown racks are packed with adorable, gently used baby clothes. I have only boys so shopping for girls is a special treat. I went to town and still spent less than $10. But I only felt bold enough to give second-hand clothes because my neighbors are fellow Thrifttown lovers.

Onesies... lots and lots of perfectly good onesies, for about a buck each.

Stretchy, girly, practical pants.

Now do you see why I'd rather de-lice a used stuffed animal than buy new?

Games and puzzles galore. For these, you have to be willing to take a seat at the store and go through the box, to make sure everything is there.

The death toll in the Bangladesh factory collapse is now over 400. Salon has a story up today about how to shop post-Bangladesh. It gives a comprehensive list of ethical clothing providers, but does not touch on the idea of buying used. We already have so much perfectly good stuff out there, ready to be worn again. Buying less, buying smarter, spending more when necessary and buying used are what we need to do post-Bangladesh.

What Not to Buy at Thrift Stores, Pt. 2

Cribs and Mattresses


I will start by saying that I don't recall ever seeing a crib or mattress for sale at Thrifftown. Mattresses are on the verboten list because of the risk of bed bugs. Bed bugs are serious business. They have the ability to make your life and your home a living hell. Thrift store proprietors don't want to have anything to do with mattresses, I'm sure. Plus, they take up a ton of space.

But there are plenty of second-hand mattresses available on Craigslist. I'm sure they sell... otherwise people would stop listing them. It pains me to think of perfectly good mattresses going to the landfill because of the fear of bedbugs (as opposed to actual bedbugs). You know how you can take a car to the mechanic for an inspection before you purchase it, to make sure there's nothing terribly wrong with it? I think you can do that with mattresses now. It might not be worth it for a cheap mattress, but if you're going for a high-end, organic king-size mattress off of Craigslist, it could be worthwhile.

I don't see many cribs for sale in thrift stores, but have in consignment stores. Same difference in terms of the items being second-hand. We bought a crib from a neighbor. It worked great, but after awhile something happened and the side no longer went down. When we were done with it, we gave it away on Craiglist; the recipient was very appreciative. I say, proceed with caution.


Helmets

Surprise, surprise, I tend to agree with this one. Bedbugs are ghastly, but eventually taken care of. Head injuries are forever. I think you're more likely to get lice from a helmet than a stuffed animal, because the soft inside pieces of a helmet are difficult to launder.

Socks and Underwear

No. Folks, I have my limits. And besides, do either hold up well enough to even make it to the thrift store?

Just So Much Stuff: Denim Edition

America, if you need new jeans, I beg of you... please go to your neighborhood thrift store first. America loves jeans, and America imports our jeans from many places that are not America. They are everywhere.

After I dropped off my mega-load of unused toys this morning, I took a walk through Thrifttown, just for fun. What stuck out for me today were the jeans.

These are "Better Jeans". "Better" means more expensive. Sometimes the "better" clothes still have their tags on them. The folks who do the pricing at Thrifttown are good at what they do. The "better" clothes are usually worth the extra few bucks.

Denim shorts for kids. A whole lot of shorts.

Men's jeans... surprisingly, the smallest collection in the store.

Regular women's jeans, not "better." There are mom jeans in this collection, jeans with elastic waists, jeans that will cause a butt of any size to look gigantic. But mixed in with the mom jeans you will find Ralph Lauren jeans, Lucky jeans, Perfectly Acceptable Old Navy jeans.

I took many more pictures of jeans but really, how many do you need? There are Capri jeans which should really be filed in with the mom jeans.

The Abundant Jean situation is so serious that it might need its own non-profit organization to raise awareness in the jeans-wearing community (which is everyone, right?).

Just Say No To New Jeans, people.

Just So Much Stuff: Home Edition

Hello, America, my name is Amy, and I have too much stuff. America, we can all be in a support group for this affliction together, right?

Our house is pretty small by American standards--1500 square feet. Let me tell you... it's plenty of room. The problem is not the house, the problem is that we have too much stuff in our house.

Today, we focused on organizing and editing our boys' toy collections. Here is our dirty little secret: Our kids don't play with many toys. How could that be? It's been difficult to admit, and hence I've been holding on to a bunch of toys to not face this fact.

A few years ago my mom asked what she should give our 6-year-old for his birthday. For some reason, I steered her to these large cardboard blocks. They're not plastic, I reasoned. He will build forts and castles and other wildly creative creations. Well, not so much. They have been in a corner of his room collecting dust. Today was the day we admitted defeat on these blocks. Sorry, mom.

As you can see, these blocks take up a lot of room. I feel a little bit bad passing them off to Thrifttown... they are as pressed for space as anyone. But they will find a home... that is the beauty of thrift stores.

My kids just aren't big builders, at least in the way toy manufacturers want them to be. We gave up on Legos a while ago, and today we passed a bunch of Knex toys along, too.

Another toy fail.

So after our purge, what are we left with?

We saved the Bey Blades. Not because my boys play with them, but because I feel like we need some sort of typical "boy toys" around for when friends come over.

We saved their stuffed animals because my kids actually play with them! We did come to an agreement that we would not acquire any more without getting rid of some of these first. Yes, some of their stuffed animals are from thrift stores, which is a big no-no for some thrifters. That's a topic that deserves its own post.

Beyond Thrifttown: My Visit to the Good Stuff Thrift Store

I got out of work early yesterday and decided to venture in to a nearby Thrift Store with my rare moment of free time. My stop of choice: the Good Stuff Thrift Store on San Pablo Avenue in El Cerrito.

Here's what was good about Good Stuff: The store is tidy and the clothes are fairly well-organized. The prices felt high to me, but I seldom set foot in the higher-end stores where many of this store's items originally started out. So I might not be the best judge of their prices.

They were running a special that day: 50 percent off all items with an orange tag. I tried on a navy, somewhat flattering LL Bean jacket that had an orange tag, which brought it down from $7 to $3.50. I resisted. I need to always resist LL Bean because I'm a middle-aged white lady with preppy roots. Preppy LL Bean clothes always reinforce my inner fuddy-duddy.

The store had some lovely high-end women's wear. This jacket interested me:

It's made out of wool though, and the truth is that in our mild Northern California climate, it's too warm for wool most of the year.

Anyway, Good Stuff is a perfectly lovely thrift store that raises funds for a worthy cause: Contra Costa ARC, a local non-profit organization that serves disabled children and adults. The challenge for Good Stuff and other small thrift stores is that they simply do not have much inventory. There were a few baby items, but no children's clothes. I purchase about 75 percent of my kids' clothes at thrift stores, so it is hard for me to get excited about a store with no kids' clothes.

I often wonder if Thrifttown, and other Super-Thrift Stores like it, have ruined small, volunteer-run thrift stores. The prices are better and the selection is better at Thrifttown, that is the bottom line. But Good Stuff was certainly not empty at the non-peak hour of 1pm on a Tuesday when I visited.

I do not have any answers, but I remain fascinated by the business of Thrift. I will see what I can find out and share it here.