My mom and I love to go thrifting together. Rarely do we have an agenda. You simply cannot try to shop for a particular item when your shops are the local thrift/treasure shops.
Some guidelines to keep in mind when thrifting
- buy with your heart–you don’t have to know exactly where something will fit in your house
- ask for a discount {after awhile you’ll learn which shops will bargain with you}
- be open to find something you weren’t looking for
- walk through the store slowly, making the rounds more than one time {you’ll see something new each time}
- take cash, stick to your budget
- if you are looking for a specific item {like a coffee table} take your time, give yourself a few weeks
even though the chair just came in, I still got 10% off just for asking
I know buying with your heart kind of goes against all we’ve been taught. But thrifting is different than retail~you can’t come back next week and expect that item to still be there. I’m assuming you are using cash and that your thrift shops are inexpensive like mine. If you see something for $5 and you really love it but don’t know where you’ll put it, please, you have my permission to purchase it {if you have the cash of course}. Too many of my friends agonize over a measly $5 {or much less} purchase when it’s something I can tell they are emotionally drawn to.
The best part of thrifting is coming home and figuring out what to do with your treasures.
Am I crazy to admit I thrift with my heart? How do you thrift?
Did you see yesterday’s giveaway winners?
Oh I am all about thrifting! My parents have a couple booths in a local antique/flea market. I love to add items to their booth and shop the store while I am there. I found a $16 end table a couple weeks ago for my first “antique painting” furniture project. You can’t beat that! I agree with the $5…if nothing else…add it to the decor pile for a “shop your home” experience down the road. :) Thrifting is good for the soul!
My fave thrifting is at yard sales. Those are the BEST for furniture or home decor. Our local thrift shops are “okay” for furniture/home decor goodies, but our local yard sales are the BEST. Plus you can always talk someone down – at least almost always! LOVE that part!
Know what else I love about the yard sale bit? You can see the actual person that owned the furniture before. LIke not to sound discriminatory (is that even a word!?), but I love to buy from older folks – they take SUCH good care of stuff like it’s brand new still! LOVE that! :) ‘Cause 5 minutes in my house with my kiddos and it will NOT look so fabulous anymore. ha!
Not crazy. I have denied my heart and felt the pain later.
The loved item will not be there even 15minutes later.
There’s usually a less loved item the new thing can replace.
Or a the new item fits just wonderfully in a place I never would have thought of while in the thrift store.
I love thrifting!!! Right now I’m on the hunt for milk glass and copper items! I can’t wait to go to yardsales this summer. Do you know what I love about thrifting? I love that when I get tired of the item I can sell it at a yardsale for the same price that I paid.
I may have already said this before but I’ll say it again. I read your blog regularly and just love it. Everytime I read your blog I am so inspired to decorate my home with what I have. I think it’s a great way to think! It’s good for both the environment and our pocket books (regardless of whether or not you can afford to spend more).
I hope this is appropriate…I want to direct you to my spaces on RMS.
http://www.roomzaar.com/rate-my-space/Living-Rooms/Update-of-FamilyLiving-rooms/detail.esi?oid=13555338
I don’t have a blog but I love to get feedback on my decorating.
Amy
I loved your post and this story is about me following my heart to stop at a thrift store today. I had some time to kill, so I visited one I hadn’t been to in awhile. I came upon the electronics section and found a mac wireless keyboard (ours was ruined Thurs. by a dog and a glass of milk!) for $5! Wasn’t sure that it would work, but thought it was worth a try (this store has No Refunds/Exchanges) and well, I’m typing on my beautiful keyboard right this moment. I’m still in shock and think God had a hand in it.
Flea markets are my big weakness right now, but I have been finding such great deals lately, that I am not going to fight it! The best find for me was an antique Singer sewing machine that I loved but didn’t want to spend the money on, since Christmas was approaching. My daughter-in-law asked me several times if I had gone back to get it. Imagine my surprise when on Christmas day I opened my gift from my youngest son and found the very sewing machine from the flea! Dear DIL had coached him to go get it and I was thrilled! Good things do come to those who wait!
It is my official job when thrifting with my mom and sisters to be the discount asker!!!
My husband and I discoverd a love for thrifting Saturday mornings at yard sales late last summer. We load up the kids and usually end up spending more on donuts than our finds!
The thrift stores in my area of VA aren’t always so thrifty, but I have found bargains at Salvation Army on their “Let’s Make a Deal Saturdays.” They are very generous then, b/c they are typically stuffed with furniture and need the space.
If I’m looking for something like a desk, I’ll go every week for a month or two until I find just what I can be happy with. I don’t want to put a bunch of elbow grease into a large piece that I don’t love. I was rewarded last Spring with that strategy. :)
I do love Yard Sales!!! I always promise my girls a donut hole at the end of a yard sale morning. I can make it to 5 or 6 sales before they flip out. ;)
we are hobby thrifters. we just enjoy walking through the stores and finding something that we really like. sometimes we buy, sometimes we don’t. that’s how we found our $65 PB couch – just a lazy saturday when we wanted to look around. what a steal!
http://ateacherandatech.blogspot.com/2010/01/january-junkin.html
With two under two, I love clothes shopping at my local thrift store. $1 sweater doesn’t fit? (You cannot try on clothing with a toddler on your back and a baby on your front, people!) Ok! Donate it back… no sweat. :)
As well as all the finds! I have a $3 heart budget. Love my thrifted treasures!
Always with the heart. There isn’t any other way.
Loved this post!
Hugs!
Cindy
You know that you have bonded with the thrift store employees when you greet her and she says…”I have carried something I bought for your son in my purse for 2 weeks waiting for you to come back in here!”
She bought my 3 year old, shopping buddy a pretend cell phone, because on our previous visit he had spotted a cell phone case in the glass case and insisted it was something he wanted. I did my best to explain that it was just a case….have you ever tried to reason with a 3 year old?…..One word….FUTILE!!! She remembered and got that for him! I was touched by her thoughtfulness. It is a VERY noisy cellphone….every time his brothers start complaining about how “annoying” it is….I smile and say…”I have a thoughtful friend at Goodwill:-)”
I wasn’t looking for a coffee table, but was very lucky to come across a beautiful metal framed w/ a tempered glass top. I had been seeing them in magazines and didn’t think I’d actually see one in the thrift store! I got it for $15!!!! It was a very exciting day! I got a wing back chair for $5. – beautiful condition. Deals like these just keep me going back for more!
In our new little mountain town, we may not have a Walmart or more than one grocery store, but we do have a few (giddiness-inducing) thrift stores. I’m envisioning mornings of dropping the littles off for a grandma-morning while I peruse and treasure hunt.
I love, love, love your chair!! Such good advice. Worse case scenario- if you really can’t find a spot for something you were really drawn to, you can always resell it. That’s happened to me a few times and I wound up making a profit! Chances are if it’s something you were drawn to, someone else will be too.
Love the post. (Love your site!) Just have to say, I have two of these exact chairs that I DID NOT buy at a Thrift Store (darn!). Just to let you know the bargain you got… I paid $85 for each of them at Overstock and I thought I was getting a deal. Ah, I am learning… :)
Great advice! I admit there have been times when I didn’t buy something I loved because I didn’t know what to do with it or have a place for it. But now I shall thrift with my heart – and cash envelopes of course!
Mary Ellen
I love thrifting! It’s much more exciting than going to a regular store. You never know what you will find and buying items and fixing them or repurposing them is rewarding. Plus part of the fun is seeing what you can get the item for. We are trying to raise money for my daughter to go on a mission trip this summer. One way we are raising money is by making all kinds of crafts and we are going to have a craft show and invite our friends and family. The Ultimate Tassel guide has helped us with this! We have also purchased all kinds of items from thrift stores and we are in the process of fixing them and/or repurposing them and all those items will go in our craft show as well.
I think thrifting is my favorite hobby. I shop with my heart AND my imagination. I always have some specific things I’m on the lookout for, but I’ve found that by thinking creatively I often bring home a completely different item to use in the place of what I thought I wanted. I also have learned that if you just love it, grab it! If you love it enough you’ll find a great way to use it. I just did that yesterday, and I can’t wait to put my treasure to good use!
Nester — I love your blog! I have an off-topic comment/request…
I’d like to see how people hide or display their TV’s without having them look like a big ugly box. My husband literally just had a flat screen delivered to my front door and we don’t have the luxury of a separate TV/family room. What am I supposed to do with this thing? I’m not loving the idea of putting it over my fireplace… then I will never be able to decorate my mantel again! =( I think the new TV is too big for your typical armoire.
This is real life — any ideas??
Thanks for considering this as a future post.
Amy
This is a post after my own heart! Most of the items in our home were used by someone else before us (except for a couple of quality ‘big ticket’ items). I love the eclectic, fun look that is accomplished by finding quirky things at thrift stores (or by the side of the road). Plus it’s fun!!!
I love thrifting. You can find a few of my recent finds on my blog. I’m pretty picky about what I bring home, some days I come home with very little and some days with a LOT!
I do both. I shop with a list for specific housewares or articles of clothing. Furniture and home decor I buy if I love it and can afford it and have some kind of space to keep it. I’m still kicking myself for not snapping up a vintage oval mirror for $5 last month. It was sooo cute! Of course, it was gone a few days later. However, the $15 Coldwater Creek red sequined shoes(adorable) in my size are still there, weeks later. $15. Seriously, people. What are they thinking with the pricing? I will hardly buy new shoes for $15, let alone obviously used ones.
I hate that thrift stores now often price certain brands of items at higher prices than the other shoes, purses, dishes, framed art, etc. I agree that they need to make money but really… it’s a thrift store. The thrift stores in my area do not do discounts. They have signs posted.
Regardless, I love thrifting!
YES!!! Shop with your heart! Of course, I’m still getting over having my heart ripped out of my chest over 2 french country satee’s that were in FABULOUS condition at $210 for the pair. I’ve been pricing them and that was WAY below anything I had seen… but way above anything I had money for at the time. I walked away and ate a pound of chocolate to feel better. I STILL see those dang couches haunting me in my house! They say, “Booo…. you should have bought me. Boo….. Hooo….. You could have eaten beans and rice for a month…. it would have been worth it…..” Yes, heart thrifting is risky business when your heart attaches to a fabulous chair or a to die for set of historic couches that are begging for an update in fabric. At least I can grieve among my furniture fettish friends:)
Tonight’s post made me think of you – come see what I found for only $7 – it’s beautiful!
That chair is beautiful!! I wish we had furniture like that at our thrift stores. Haha
I definitely thrift shop with my heart. Today I fell in love with two little Silver salt and pepper shakers for $1.00 each. Did I need it, no, did I want it, yes, so I got it and it fit in with everything, perfectly. Your chair is GORGEOUS!!! I wish I could find treasures like that!
You are so true! Why is it when in a thrift store, $5 suddenly seems “expensive’? I love my ’round-the-corner, charitable-cause thrift store because they are always having 50% off sales, including every Friday and Saturday! And they are SO nice. It’s fun to see my donated items in there for sale, too. Love the chair!
I need to be better about asking for discounts… I am usually intimidated. I mean, most suff is already a good deal. But it’s a skill I need to acquire so I can go thrifting more often!
“The best part of thrifting is coming home and figuring out what to do with your treasures.”
So true, so true! And another fun thing is not knowing where said treasures should live and putting them away for awhile and then ‘discovering’ them later when you have a perfect spot!!
Well, guess what? I am one of the dealers in a store. I also buy with my heart. and shop using cash. Nothing enters my booth that would not be great in my home. In fact, they stay in my home until I emotionally let them go, knowing selling the items or pieces of furniture will free me to find more treasures for my followers and me.
You know, I just read that most people in thrift stores don’t know how to price things. I will respectfully take exception to that. This has been my career for over 5 years. It is also my passion. Wherever I travel I spend hours looking for treasures to bring back for my customers. If I get a great deal, I will pass it on; but I pay taxes on my income plus the expenses of travel and painting or fixing things to sell. I spend a good deal on booth rental and if I find a beautiful piece which is pricey, I may still purchase it as I believe one of my customers will love the way I have shown it or repurposed it to show well in my booth. I spend hours studying home design. So please, speak more kindly about the dealers who go out and find treasures for you, ms nester. You’ll be happy to find the next awesome thing she brings in. ok?
I was at Goodwill today and I have to agree that they do not know how to price things. I was looking at outdated art in chipped frames priced at 39.99! Huh? And lamps for 29.99. Yikes! Thrift store gets things donated and then resells. Ellen, you seem to be buying and selling at an antique mall type of place. My sisters do the same thing. I think Nester was referring to thrift stores.
Oh I thrift with my WHOLE HEART!!! Actually I just posted print makeovers today on my blog! Couldn’t pass up these cute prints with not-so-cute frames but they were wood and had potential!
LOVVVVVEEE the chair! that is MY kind of chair! :)
Kristi
Thrifting is a way of life for me…also passed down from my mother:) (Thanks mom!)
I’m in the stage and current space of life that doesn’t allow for as many large projects as I like, but thrifting is always inspirational!! I would say even if you come home empty handed, but I don’t know that I’ve ever come home totally empty handed!!
My latest inspiration was from a vintage floral arranging book…you can peek here at my own little blog for christian life encouragement
http://www.dirtyhands-beautifullife.blogspot.com
Don’t think me tacky!! It CAN’T TOUCH your ingenius site!!!
I love the thrift stores, and resale shops. the Estate sales around here are another great place to shop. they have Everything and a limited time to sell it. The only down side is if you take too long to decide someone else may take it. Don’t forget to check the curb, I just found a Baker Furniture chair on way to work, It will take me a while to get to it but it is safe in garage rafters until then. Even my wife can’t get rid of it there. :)
rick
I agree on ALWAYS asking for a discount!! Don’t be shy, it is your money after all. I once bought a set of all black hobnail goblets that were priced at $29.99 and they gave me half off because they said they had been there forever and were taking up a lot of space. I have 24 pieces of different sized glasses/goblets/etc. Do they match anything else in my cupboard?…Heck-to-the-NO!! But around Halloween time they are ROCKIN!!!