HAUL: Village Thrift
Having recently moved to a new house (and the first one that we own), I've been making almost weekly trips to the home improvement stores. I noticed a thrift store, Village Thrift, in the same plaza as my local Lowe's and have been wondering what the store is like. (Unfortunately, while their cash registers are quite up-to-date, they appear to have no web site and apparently have only the one location.)
I had heard their best deals are on Mondays, so Juliana and I headed over on Monday to check it out. Overall, I was impressed with the store: it's large, well-organized, and offers just about everything, without offering a lot of items that feel like trash. However, I had some major problems with the prices. Many items I saw still had their original tags, or tags from other thrift/yard sales, but often the Village Thrift price was equal to or more than the other tags. For example, I found one shirt with its original tags, which showed many prices, ending with a final clearance price of $7.20; Village Thrift was offering the shirt for $8.90. One of the shirts I bought had another tag on it for $3.00, but Village Thrift was charging $4.90. I also noticed that many items, particularly popular brands, had prices that were close to what they would sell for new, like an H&M knit dress for $19.90.
So, while I'll certainly be going back because it's so close and large, I'll have to be very vigilant regarding brands and prices to ensure I'm actually getting good deals. I also plan to only ever shop there on Mondays, when certain colored tags are 50% off, and Sundays, when certain colored tags are other percentages off — the regular prices were not good enough for me, especially since I'm usually buying items that simply hit my fancy, and not items that I actually need.
Anyway, enough with the review, and on to the haul!
The Goods
Gray knit dress
Sparkly tunic shirt
Empire-waist shirt
Flowered shirt
Straight jeans
Word Spot coffee table game
I brought home 6 items for $23; not bad!
Read through for specific details on prices and brands.
Coordinated Kitchen
I have a little dog who loves to spend the day watching the street from the windows, tracking everyone's comings and goings (especially those of the neighborhood cat). Unfortunately, the windows in our new house are a bit too high for him to reach them without some assistance. So, I set out to find some sort of bench or window seat solution for our kitchen bay window, so Toby could sit in the window as much as he wants.
At IKEA, I found a TV unit that's low enough for Toby to jump onto but high enough that he can then see out the window. Since it's built to support a TV, it's more than capable of handling his weight, and the shelves underneath are perfect for storing my cookbooks. It was an added bonus that the TV unit is the exact same color as our kitchen table and chairs, also from IKEA. At only $39.99, the MOSJO TV unit is a lot more affordable than most benches and window seat solutions.
Next, I needed to find some sort of cushion to put on top of the unit, so Toby wouldn't slide right off the bench when he jumps up. Plus, a cushion would make the bench a more comfortable extra seat for people, too. At Marshalls, I found a great indoor/outdoor bench cushion for $29.99 that's the perfect size for the top of the TV unit. The blue and green pattern coordinates well with the rest of the accessories in our kitchen.
I secured the cushion to the TV unit with some heavy duty black Velcro (6 strips for a total of roughly $5.00), and we put the TV unit atop a carpet remnant to prevent it from scratching our tile floor. Total cost for the window seat: $75.00
A week or two after I found the cushion for the unit, I spotted a matching tablecloth at TJMaxx for $3.00. What a steal! So now we have a fully coordinated kitchen table and window seat:
Juliana’s Favorite Stores
Since I'm not as big a shopper as Andréa, I tend to favor different stores than she does. She asked me to share my shopping tendencies.
Like Andréa, I like secondhand stores such as Salvation Army, Goodwill (although their prices aren't as good as Salvation Army), and Savers (I think they're only in New England) for super low prices, especially when shopping for something really basic like jeans. I get shopping fatigue really fast, however, so that kind of store can also be pretty overwhelming for me.
Unlike Andréa, I don't really like to shop at stores like TJMaxx and Marshalls, because they have that same overwhelming nature (crowded racks with all sorts of things on them), but their prices aren't as good as a thrift store.
Probably the stores that I enjoy shopping at the most are Old Navy, Target, and—slightly less—Kohl's, because those stores have decent prices and fairly basic stuff, but they also have organized racks so I don't have to look through every single item. Kohl's can get a bit crowded and messy, though.
I think I'm always trying to find a balance between easy shopping and finding a good bargain, because truly frugal shopping takes a lot of energy.
HAUL: $22 at Salvation Army
Hi, I'm Andréa's younger sister Juliana.
I live 8.5 hours from Andréa during the school year, so I hadn't gotten a chance to go to her favorite Salvation Army store until today. Stores like that tend to overwhelm me, but having Andréa and our older sister, Christy, there to help me look made it easier to find stuff. Unlike Andréa, I was looking for specific items: comfortable jeans, denim shorts, and maybe a fun skirt. We managed to find everything I was looking for.
The Goods
Lace dress
Patterned skirt
Denim shorts
Skinny jeans
Bootcut jeans
My tally: 5 items for $22.
Continue reading for the details on brands and prices.
HAUL: $40 at Salvation Army
Despite promising myself after Saturday's haul that I wouldn't go back to Salvation Army for a few weeks, I wound up taking my sisters today, since they're in town. We all snagged some great deals, so they'll be posting their hauls, too.
The Goods
Flowered dress
Shift dress
Green knit dress
Skinny jeans
Straight jeans
Bootcut jeans
Tank top
Wine rack
Folding garden fence
The total: 9 items for $38.91 before taxes.
Read through for the details on brands and prices.
HAUL: Juliana’s New Wardrobe
Juliana is back from China now, so she was able to "shop" for her new wardrobe from the options I had picked for her. (For more background, you can read the original mission, see all the pieces I bought for her, and view the sample outfits from the options.) In addition to purchasing many items from among her options, Juliana also received some of the pieces as birthday gifts from me and my parents and snagged some hand-me-downs from me and my mom that match her new wardrobe color scheme.
The Goods
Black tank top
White tank top
Black tank top
White tank top
Blue layered tank
Purple tank top
White tank top
Purple tank top
Purple tank top
Teal T-shirt
Purple T-shirt
Black T-shirt
White half-sleeves
Black long-sleeves
Long-sleeve shirt
Flip-flops
Rose sandals
Black & gray dress
Purple dress
Black lace dress
Khaki shorts
Black shorts
White sweater
Black sweater
White sweater
Juliana's going back to school with a total of 25 items for $75.00 out of her pocket.
If you want to read the nitty-gritty on brands and prices, continue reading.
HAUL: $100 at Salvation Army
Yesterday I had some time to kill for about 4 hours while my car underwent some work. I had the auto shop's courtesy shuttle drop me off at my favorite Salvation Army Family Store, where I proceeded to nab some really great deals before the shuttle came back to pick me up.
The Goods
Blue & gray flowered dress
Flowered dress
Black lace dress
Blue & white dress
Fuschia tank top
Black & white tank top
White V-neck tank top
Button-down shirt
Comfy jeans
Dark jeans
Black slacks
Bolero-style sweater
Silver cardigan sweater
Striped pitcher
Disposable plates
6 books
Glazed Murder, Jessica Beck
Simple French Desserts, Jill O'Connor
Murder Melts in Your Mouth, Nancy Martin
The Essential Pasta Cookbook, Whitecap Books
The Complete Illustrated Guide to Dog Care & Behavior, Bruce Fogle
Ultimate Cake, Barbara Maher
Altogether, I bought 21 items for $100.56 after taxes. Now that's a good shopping spree!
Continue reading for all the nitty-gritty details.
Confession: Returns Anxiety
Because I tend to purchase, then try, then return if necessary, I wind up returning items... a lot.
I always make my returns within the given 90 days, at least 95% of the time I have the original receipt, and I almost always keep more from any given transaction than I return. Still, any time I have to return more than just one item, I get uncomfortably anxious.
For years now, I've feared that stores keep track of who returns what — they do make you print and sign your name, at the very least, and sometimes even require an address or phone number. Because of my propensity to act now, decide later, I irrationally fear that I'm on some "heavy hitters" list of returners, just one item away from being banned from making returns.
I'll stand at the register, waiting for the return to go through, and worrying in my head, "What if I can never return anything ever again? I guess I'll have to try everything on in the store... Oh no, then I'd need to bring William [my husband] along to get his opinions on everything before purchasing..."
Luckily, I don't think they maintain any list or ban people from returning things. (And if they did, let me tell you, they'd have banned me.) But everytime I walk up to a register with a bag of items and a receipt in my hand, a part of me worries... just a little bit.
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