tips on thrift store shopping

I'm not a department store shopper. Not even when there are sales or coupons or discounts for opening 22% store credit cards. I'm not crazy about outlets. In many outlets here prices aren't much better than local sale prices which is good if you're okay with paying those prices. I get things at discount stores like WalMart sometimes but usually when I get them home I find I don't really like them.

So for the last ten years I have shopped almost exclusively at thrift stores. I find nice things in the $1 to $3 range at our two best local thrift stores. There is a lot of merchandise at these stores, at least in the area where I live. It's not sorted by size and the stapled on cardboard taps usually just say the price so you have to look inside the garment for the size. It's time consuming and you have to go cover a lot of ground if you want to find something good because the percentage of nice clothes to not so nice is small.

I have developed a thrift store technique. I skip sections that are grouped in colors I'm not shopping for. After that I don't really look at the stuff. I go by fabric which means that I have to touch everything but I'm pretty fast. You can't examine each item visually and go still go through hundreds in a reasonable amount of time. So if the item is the right color and fabric is something I like (usually cotton knit or cotton blend, but also rayon and silk) I make a space in the rack and look at what feels right.

I try to keep basic styles in mind. I like v necks, for example, better than round. Long skirts over short, etc., but I will look at other things. I did better when I wore a small size because people are forever outgrowing things or dieting down to weights they can't maintain (as I was doing then). I check out the tag next. I look for size, and label. I like labels from stores like Old Navy, some designers, and unfamiliar labels are okay too, if I like the item.

Usually I have to go through large amounts of clothes to find a few items I want to buy. I pretty much ignore the colored tag sales but I do shop on discount days when I can get there early. Thrift store shopping isn't necessarily a quick trip for me but I love finding treasures buried among the cast-offs and I honestly never tire of buying a nice piece of clothing for a couple of dollars.

flea markets, indian food & grown up kids

My middle child, who is still a child to me, is here for the weekend. He lives in Boston, having gone there to get his graduate degree in computer science. He is job hunting now instead and I'm hoping he doesn't find a job there so he'll come home instead. I have tried hard to wish him well and make my pride and his achievements offset how much I miss him, but it isn't really working. I want him to be happy but I really do wish he'd be happy here.

We had a really nice Indian dinner on Saturday. I made the rice and chai the rest was from a restaurant in New Jersey nearby my BFs apartment. We played a game afterward and laughed a lot. It's so good to laugh like that and to do it together with people you love. It's different than other laughter. I don't know why. It reminds me of when I was little, sitting at my grandmother's dinner table, the same table we sat at last night, playing games and laughing. And my family is more like that then I realized.

On Sunday, I took the middle boy (James) to an indoor flea market. Two of my friends have a space there (actually more of a shop) and I go to see them from time to time. I picked up some used jewelry: a necklace with an antique clasp, some vintage chains for necklaces, a pair of big garnet colored acrylic baguette earrings, and an another pair of earrings (rhinestones with two garnet colored focal stones). The earring are for me. The clasp is for something special. The chains were probably too much. I saw a lot of other things but had exceeded my $5 spending limit by 50% (a whopping $2.5) so I decided I'll go back next week.

It probably sounds silly to set a $6 limit but I'm not selling much right now and I try to treat whatever I do (ebay, etsy, half, etc) like any other business. I'm very happy making small amounts of money. I look at it as money I wouldn't have otherwise and found money is always fun. So we had a nice dinner Sunday (take out from the Chinese restaurant near my house) and a cake to celebrate my youngest's birthday and my oldest's acceptance into grad school.

Almost forgot, I bought each of the boys presents at the flea market: little resin Buddhas (which actually look quite nice) and a mid century oscillating Westinghouse fan for the middle boy. Worth more than we paid, but not but not enough to be a bribe Even so, I think that when ithat old fan oscillates this summer in a stuffy little room in Boston, it will remind a very independent child of home and a nice day at the flea market.