I shop the local prison ministry/mission stores. Their price for men’s shirts is still decent at $2.25. Therefore, I have a decent collection of flannel shirts for the winter. I have even gotten some with the launderer’s tag still attached. Also, I like Revereware copper bottom pots and pans and have built up a large collection of them (some from yard sales).
I rarely go into Goodwill stores anymore. Their prices are insane.
I sometimes enjoy shopping at thrift stores and also donate. However, I would not pay new prices for used items. Prices are all over the map in Canada, and have increased quite a bit recently, leaving some great bargains and some extremely optimistic pricing attempts.
Around here Goodwill has tag color day. Some colors are $1-$2-$3.
I think it’s Tues.
The animal shelter thrift store has all my old junk so I don’t shot there often… You can go next door and pet kittens so we stop anyway.
They are cheap tho’. Books 25¢ to a $1.
A bundle of magazines, which I love. $1.
I have to be careful I don’t bring my donated crap back home. Yeah I’ve done it. 
She donates to one local-to-her chain so she gets coupons for x% off. Had some that were about to expire so we went over to see what they had. What an utter collection of crap!!!
If it’s the Holy Grail thing that you were missing & could use, perfect but for 99% of the population it was garbage. Small kitchen appliances where someone obviously broke the glass, so the base to a coffee maker but no pot or the base to a blender but no container to mix stuff in & instead of just tossing it they donated it to the thrift store, who then decided to put it out; I guess they have a no toss policy. If you happen to have one of the same manufacturer & size it might work to replace your burned out base but a blender or coffee maker that doesn’t turn on it pretty useless & I’d toss it & just hope to get a full new one.
In the home electronics section they had a couple of sets of bagged cordless (home) phones but there wasn’t any charger. Being bagged it made it harder to tell the make & model so unless you knew you had the same ones at home & knew you had a charger for them they were quite useless, & you had to make that determination in the store because those electronics were not returnable.
I did buy a few things but they were purchased to (potentially) be used as props for a photo shoot; sadly, that shoot didn’t happen & night not get the opportunity to redo it.
There are people who are looking for that one part to something to make a loved kitchen appliance work again.
My Daddy looked for years for an oven knob for his old but in perfect working order range.
Small appliance motors burn out all the time. Some of those things are expensive to replace.
Glass bowls for your KitchenAid mixer might be difficult to find, they usually go first.
I saw a Le Cruset dutch oven lid once. I should have bought it. They knew what it was and it was over priced.
I’m looking for the guts to a French press coffee carafe. They disappeared one day and haven’t been found since.
I guess I’m lucky in that my local Goodwill stores have decent prices. I don’t bother with Value Village as their prices are high and they’re not nonprofit. The local Deseret Industry thrift shops are also overpriced for mostly junk.
I shop at thrift stores for kitchen stuff and drinking glasses and such every chance I get. Then there are the past-date magazines and cheap books. I just love those cheap books and old mags. I especially like finding big, profusely illustrated coffee table tomes for a couple of dollars, “chop books” I call them, because I buy them to chop up and make collages with.
Sometimes I buy clothing there too, but not as much since I’m fussy about what I will and won’t wear and it’s not always easy to find suitable clothes at a thrift store. That being said, I do find the occasional hat or scarf or shoulder bag at Community Thrift or OTC that really grabs me, so that I’ve just got to get it, even if it’s a buck or two past my budget.
That’s the case in my county. I wander thru the stores on occasion, just because. I’ve scored some jeans for myself and some items that I used for my grands when I was babysitting them regularly. I could get kid’s clothes for $1 each, and as soon as they outgrew them, I’d donate them back. It’s also a great place to look for gag gifts, considering some of the oddities I’ve seen on the shelves.
I also donate my miscellany, as long as it’s something I would consider buying myself. I don’t use their donation bins as trash bins.
There are different types of thrift stores - some are meant to provide clothing to the poor, some are meant to raise money for a charity, some are for-profit and similar to an antique store , where a person might find that same style of jeans they wore in 1985 and some are a combination of one of the other types and also a jobs program.
I will shop for some things at a thrift store but generally not clothes. They can be a good place to pick up things like glasses that match my mother’s 1960ish glasses with golden leaves or a knob for an old appliance - but I’m not necessarily shopping for the price in those cases.
Does Poshmark qualify? I do buy clothes from them. But this is because clothing labels are always discontinuing some favorite garment of mine. I’ve had good luck tracking down duplicates of much-loved shirts and shoes on Poshmark. Also new-with-tags sheets and pillowcases of a great brand that has been discontinued since Bed Bath N Beyond bit the dust.
If you buy clothing items that can be washed and dried on high heat you can just take them from bag (bring 'em home in a plastic bag) to washer immediately and run everything on hot water and high heat. That will kill bedbugs and their eggs.
No worries from me. This person I speak of and their attitude towards thrift stores is just one indicator of their attitude towards people who don’t have as much as they do. If you don’t donate or shop at thrift stores, I think the people on here aren’t going to be not shopping there out of snotty, holier-than-thouness.
I’ve started donating bed linens and towels to vet clinics and animal shelters. The animals don’t care if there are stains or the occasional rip. When I downsized from my old place I filled the back of my pickup with old linens and towels and took them to the vet I used for my birds. They were thrilled with the donation.
So I’m guessing thrift stores are what we in the UK would call ‘charity shops’ - ie shops selling second hand goods with the money going to charity. Would that be right?
We have loads in the UK but they are generally run directly by charities, eg national charities such as Cancer Research or the British Heart Foundation or a local one such as a hospice.
I don’t shop in them as, being probably the opposite of a hoarder, I don’t like rummaging around to buy stuff I didn’t know I wanted. I do donate when I have a clear out.
Around here we have Deseret Industries, run by and for the LDS church, which is usually full of crap like old scratched and peeling TFal pans.
Then StFrancis De Asiziz(spelling?) which is also a charitable one I think, used to buy a lot of books there. Salvation Army has a store somewhere but they closed down a lot of them, maybe all. Idaho Youth Ranch, an intervention organisation for troubled youths has several stores and Savers where I do most of my thrift shopping, usually has good stuff. Goodwill is around but a crapshoot for quality and quality also heavily depends on where you shop. If I go to the next county over, the thrift stores all have junk that should just be tossed
Since moving the local thrift situation was bad. The only nearby place was a Goodwill which has higher prices than I am used to. Plus the senior “discount” is a joke.
Before the move I cruised thrift stores a lot. But I didn’t buy anything the vast majority of the time. I was looking for specific stuff that wasn’t regularly in stores.
Then another chain just opened a store nearby a couple months ago. I am in heaven. Got several items on most of my first visits. The senior discount is pretty good and a larger selection.
E.g., a few weeks ago I picked up an external HD for a song. I figured it was a 4Tb one. It was. It was just missing the weird WD HD-USB3 cord which I have several of. I ran thorough tests including S.M.A.R.T status and it’s just fine. Now I have a nice backup-backup.
I also got some Anchor-Hocking glasses that I love but had been running low on due to breakage. Plus other useful things.
Note that you can’t get those particular glasses at Walmart. And eBay prices plus shipping for glasses are far higher.
(The HD, btw, was owned by a guy who took pictures of rich people doing rich people stuff. My distaste for all that is now even greater.)
Some of them are – probably most of them. Others are privately run businesses with the profits going to the store owners.
They vary a lot, in quality of goods, price of goods, and type of goods.
My friend and I have started “going thrifting” every so often on Saturdays. I’m looking for toys for my collection, she’s looking for stuff to put plants in. We’re both looking for something that we didn’t know we needed.
Usually when I go I see if anyone around me needs anything. I got a couple pans for my mom and a very nice single kitchen chair for my cousin.
I feel they are much better than Wal Mart or even Amazon for specific pieces of clothing. Like when I needed a large men’s black button-down shirt for a part time job, or just the right color polo. Stuff that’s just not in stock at Wal Mart all the time, or that I need to try on or feel before buying.
Pretty easily, really.
First of all, clothes. I just don’t buy that much in the way of clothes. I need a couple new pairs of jeans a year, and socks and underwear. I’m not going to buy socks and underwear used (I’m not sure thrift stores sell them anyway) and one online order of jeans every couple of years takes care of the jeans.
And second, other random stuff. We’ve got plenty of that already, thanks. We’re more at the stage of trying to get rid of stuff than get more new or used stuff.
OTOH, I go to Dollar Tree for various odds and ends. Book lights. Solar yard lights. Snack foods. Boxes of tissues. But Dollar Tree and thrift stores are two different things, and I can’t get the stuff I buy at Dollar Tree at a thrift store.
Thrift stores are too inconsistent and randomly organized for the kind of shopping I do. I hate any kind of shopping that involves browsing. I have a very clear idea of what I want when I walk into a store and thrift stores are usually a futile time suck.