Man, I am so prolific today! I'm sure I'll hit a nice long dry spell soon and not post for 2 months or something. Patty O's comment about the $900 skirt in O Magazine reminded me of my very successful trip to a certain thrift store in the Great White North. I always stop in when we travel up there because it's a gold mine. dh's family lives in a sort of snooty town ("most PhDs per capita" is one of their claims... REALLY? I would have thought Cambridge...) and there are many good deals to be found. This time it was Adidas running pants for Flash ($2), a couple of books, and a Talbots skirt for me ($2) and one from the Gap as well ($2). I actually am not a brand-conscious person--I mean, one skirt in heavy rotation right now I sewed myself from curtains. I know, very Maria von Trapp of me. So I'm not really interested in the brand itself, it's the fantastic bargain and the knowledge that these skirts will hold up better than brand new ones from Old Navy or Target. The hilarious part is that I stood there and spent 15 minutes thinking hard about buying a $2 green wool sweater. "Will I wear it? Will it smell weird forever? Will it be too itchy?" I chalk it up to the Thrift Store Theory of Relativity, wherein an item that cost $40 new seems prohibitively expensive if it's more than $2.50. Of course I would buy that sweater if I was in Banana Republic and it was marked down to even $10. But at that moment I really had to think about it. (I decided against it: itchy).
2 comments:
I am exactly the same way when it comes to thrift stores and garage sales. I find myself debating whether to dish out 3 whole dollars for something that normally retails for 5 times that amount. I love when I find good bargains.
I always try to remember that the sweater is there because someone else didn't like it. If I can figure out what that element is, I can decide better.
I just put an itchy thrift sweater I got from Value Village in the Goodwill box. Look at all the money that one sweater is generating.
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