Lessons Learned From Thrift Shopping
"I just don't have time..." is a response I heard frequently when people would ask me how I could afford to dress a family on an enlisted man's salary with five (and then six, and then seven) children. I do realize that each family's circumstances are different, and some people genuinely do not have time for this. On the other hand, quite freqently what people really meant was "That's not how I want to spend my time..." There are things other people do to live within their means that I don't want to do, either, and shopping at thrift shops doesn't make me superior to those who don't, and it certainly doesn't make me any more righteous.
That said, shopping at thrift shops has helped me develop certain qualities, and one of them is patience, and the ability to wait for what I want. When I felt like we really needed some new furniture in the living room (because some of our weekly guests were having to sit two to a single chair), I could have gone to a furniture store and put something nice on the card immediately. Or I could do what I did, and frequent the local thrift shop once a week on my way to piano lessons, checking to see what furniture they had.
It wasn't immediate so we had to make do for longer, but over time I picked up my famous two dollar chair (pictured here to the left), a fifteen dollar love seat, another chair for five or ten dollars, a couple of rolling hassocks that make the little boys who come to visit very, very happy to leave their seats to the grown ups, yet another chair for perhaps five dollars, an extra rocking chair for nursing mothers to use while visiting us, and, by the time I was done, I had a set of wicker chairs for the sunroom, as well. I don't think I spent as much as a hundred dollars for all my extra furniture, and it would have cost me far more to buy a single couch new off the show room floor.
While I bided my time looking and waiting for furniture, I was developing patience, squelching the 21st century cultural imperative for instant gratification because 'you deserve it.' It not only doesn't hurt to postpone gratification; it's good for us.
Another quality developed through thrift shopping is creativity, the art of making do, substituting, and doing what my husband, former aircraft mechanic, calls jury-rigging. For example, friends of ours used the large drawers from a broken down chest of drawers for under the bed storage. They attached wheels to the drawers to make them easy to pull out and compensated for a very small bedroom by using those under the bed drawers as the dresser. Other friends re-used a dresser that had no drawers- they repainted it, and found rectangular baskets to fit the drawer spaces. Our science table is an old tool bench topped with a hutch that once belonged on top of a chest of drawers. A tall and very narrow bookcase we have to fit in a tall and very narrow space was originally a bookshelf that topped a queensized waterbed. We turned the horizontal shelf vertically, unpainted side to the wall, and nobody knows the difference. Another dresser, battered enough but still intact, sits in our laundry room between washer and dryer. The drawers hold things like tablecloths, cleaning rags, and surplus towels, while cleaning supplies, laundry soap, and clothespins sit on top. Buttons from an otherwise hideous shirt in poor condition can repair an otherwise attractive blouse that is missing a button or two, and a pretty print can be taken from a badly water damaged book and framed (using a thrift shop frame, naturally).
Planning ahead- When you live by the code of always buying new, you can usually find what you want the same day you want it, so impulse shopping, waiting until the spur of the moment works. But when you nearly always buy things used, you need to plan ahead, because what you want isn't always available the moment you want it. I don't wait until winter to buy a nice pair of winter boots or a snowsuit. I keep a rough list of the sizes of my Progeny (my list shrinks as the Progeny grow up and are responsible for their own wardrobes), and if I see a cute pair of sandals in a size 7 or 8 for 2.00 in January, even if the snow is 2 feet deep on the ground, I buy them and stash them for summer. Likewise, I have been known to buy snowboots or a snowsuit in July when the outside temperatures were so warm the asphalt was squishy. I shop for Christmas and birthday presents all year long- every time I go to a thrift shop or yard sale I look around for items that might make good presents, or jeans in good enough condition to fit my son in a year (boys' clothes are really harder to find than girls').
Flexibility: I wanted a plant pot in a certain color and style. Instead, I found an old tea-kettle that would work just as well as a planter. I wanted a foot stool for the living room. Instead, I found one that matched my Common Room Decor better, so I bought it for that room, and brought down a more neutral toned foot stool we'd been using upstairs. Looking for a tablecloth in a particular corner, I've found a bed sheet in the color I wanted and hemmed it for use instead, seeking a dress for a special occasion, I've found a spangled jacket that matches another dress I already own and dresses it up more than enough, looking for a matching brooch, I've found a pair of pierced earrings I used as a brooch instead.
Although in on respect, shopping at thrift shops does take time, in other respects, I have found that I don't really have the time not to peruse thrift shops and second hand stores.
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5 Responses to “Lessons Learned From Thrift Shopping”
January 9th, 2010 at 12:58 am
I LOVE thrift stores!!! I love the hunt for bargains!
January 9th, 2010 at 1:05 am
We love thrift stores so much that my daughter asked for (and received) a gift card to Goodwill as a Christmas gift from her sisters.
Is that cool, or what?
January 9th, 2010 at 11:42 am
great article. I wish we had better thrift stores where I live. We mostly have a Salvation Army store. I have found some treasures there before but with 4 little ones it’s hard to make a trip there by myself now.
My oldest daughter will ask from time to time to go to the thrift store to get some new toys.
January 9th, 2010 at 6:15 pm
With tiny kids, its very hard for me to get to thrift stores these days. Honestly, we have mostly Goodwill here, and I find them to be pretty overpriced. The prices you quoted in your article are far lower than a lot of Goodwill prices. I have much better luck at yard sales in yard sale season, so I’ve stopped going to my local Goodwill. And I can find a couple of hours on a lot of Saturday mornings to get away by myself. So if there’s anyone out there like me who also has bad thrift stores, don’t lose heart…
January 10th, 2010 at 2:39 am
This is an excellent article and it made me think a lot about when I next need to pick up such articles.
I used to embarrassed to go into Thrift stores and I have no idea why (talking as a kid here)… Now I love them!
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