Today, I'll be touching a tad on thrifting! Because I love it and it's been awhile since I've
Usually, my go-to place is Goodwill for half-off Saturday. But today we took a little detour through the good ole Deseret Industries. Thank goodness we did, for there were some mighty fine gems we would have otherwise missed!
It was basically (another) miracle that I found a compilation of three Mary Higgens novels that I didn't already own. I have 21 of her books already in my library, so I was mightily pleased to get this "three for the size of one" deal. I exhausted the library in middle school and junior high of her stories, devouring every word, so it's fun to collect them now as an adult.
Thomas Paine is a gift for a certain someone come Christmas.
I splurged a little at $3 apiece for the Sherlock Holmes volumes. It's "annotated" which basically just means there are historical factoids and pictures included.
I've been on the prowl for A Thousand Splendid Suns ever since The Kiterunner destroyed my life. It was on one of the last shelves I perused, thank goodness for persistence!
Huggermugger is one of the few board games that I actually have a decent chance at winning. I don't have the rational thought process or multitasking ability to excel at the strategic type, but conversely, no one ever wants to play boring old granny games when we're all together. So now I can coerce Mark into playing with me whenever I want.
Andy obviously can't use it now but the clock book will come in handy when he's old enough to start learning. The gears are functional and it's a fun little rhyme book as well. Not to mention it's a board book so he can't easily destroy it! #bonus
The ball is just for his little learning hands now that he's wanting to pick everything up and put it directly in his mouth, and the other toy is for his carseat now that he's got so much more awake time and does so well with car rides.
He's all about noise and lights, so the animal wheel and little learning laptop will be perfect! The middle toy is actually a crib accessory and has a soft blue light behind the waterfall, with cricket and water sounds.
The most expensive things were those Holmes books at $3, everything else was $2 and under and very gently used. Woot woot!
My advice has always been, as mentioned previously, persistence. This isn't a guaranteed experience. Sometimes I go and only find two books barely worth getting since they're missing their jacket sleeves, or they're perfect for a gift so that's why I buy them, not necessarily for my own personal library.
And I wouldn't really recommend Goodwill as a hotspot for children's toys. It's a crapton of stuffed animals, heavy on the "crap". I have ONE stuffed toy purchased from Goodwill, and it was basically only because I found it with the tags still attached, so I knew it was probably less germ-infested and still in decent condition.
Consistency is another pro-tip. I try to find time to go every half-off saturday, so essentially twice a month. Keeping up on the rotating inventory helps to not feel like I need to dig into every nook and cranny. That way I'm not overwhelmed. No to mention having a regular location. It can be daunting to walk into a tidal wave of other peoples' junk, hoping to find the one perfect item. For Halloween we tried finding a simple white dress shirt that we could really rip up and soak with fake blood and were unsuccessful.
One of the only reasons today's trip was even came remotely close to being the success that it was, came in the form of my best friend Allie. Literally every toy you see above came from her holding it up saying, "isn't this cute?! What about this?" It helped to have someone familiar with my tastes and needs rifling through the messy piles with me. Plus it's just fun to have a shopping buddy, and her daughter is hilarity incarnate, so that's a plus.
And that is the machinations of an addict. I hope it can be somewhat helpful to you if you're in the business of thrifting.
Stay thrifty, my friends.
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