Ah. That would make sense.
Will most thrift stores even accept clothes with large stains on them?
The one I used to work in officially did not, but human error does happen.
I wouldn’t worry about it. The parking lot at our thrift has plenty of Mercedes.
Yeah, they’re heavier than you’d expect. You can’t just throw one like you would a baseball, and from what I’ve seen on TV or in combat footage, it’s sort of an overhand hook shot sort of lob that you do, and that has to be practiced to do it right. I imagine one of our resident vets will be along at some point to describe it in more detail/set me straight.
I assume you also need to read the instructions (Armaments 2:9-21).
Well, if the grenade wasn’t & the user didn’t throw it properly then they might have been 
This is why, if I score some distinctive-looking item of clothing at the annual donation/discard giveaway after Commencement, I wait three years before wearing it on campus. 
I’m not at all ashamed of scavenging good garments for free that nobody else wants, especially since I’m good at mending and alterations so they don’t look like hand-me-downs. But I don’t want to potentially freak out some prior-owner student who still thinks of secondhand clothing as exclusively for “poor people”.
Not me, though. I am very comfortable with my vow from a few years back to acquire only clothing that is either secondhand or made by myself (with a few, and shrinking, exceptions for stuff like underwear and technical gear). Never had a bedbug or moth problem with thrifted garments either, although tbf I am pretty scrupulous about checking and pre-cleaning.
That’s my take too, and why I do it. (Recent brag post about the advantages of overseas thrift stores to avoid the personal and environmental burdens of luggage during long-term travel.)
However, I hear what some folks are saying about not liking the inefficiency of hit-and-miss thrift shopping, or having more specialized requirements that thrift stores aren’t useful for. In those circumstances, thrift shopping is more trouble than it’s worth.
I’m lucky in hitting about the middle of the bell curve in most size and style categories (especially foot-wise: about half the women’s footwear in a thrift shop seems to be in my size), and also in having the abovementioned mending and alteration skills so I don’t have to depend on the serendipity of finding a perfect fit in perfect condition.
Damn, girl. 
If it happens to be a size 12 or 14 and you ever decide you don’t want it anymore… 
I’m pretty sure I’ve mentioned my thrift store shopping habits in another thread somewhere around here, but her it is. I haven’t bought a new shirt in about 20 years because I can buy really nice ones at thrifts stores in my area. I typically pay between $5 and $12 for a RL Polo, American Eagle, Tommy Hilfiger or Tommy Bahama shirts. People commit on my good taste in cloths and wonder how I can have so many nice shirts. In fact I recently lost wieght and donated back all of my large shirts and bought mediums. That felt good and cost a 1/10 of what it would have sold for in stores.
I don’t buy pants, partially due to having short legs but also becasue the idea of putting on something that was on another mans behind kind of turns me off. Farts you know (or in this case, farts you don’t know!).
My GF buys carloads of name brand stuff and takes it with her to Mexico a couple of times a year. She gets 5 for $5 clothing on Fridays and she only picks out clean and like new items. It pays for her trip.
Does she do that to give to friends and family? My friend does the same thing but to Chile.
She can sell her $1 purchase for up to $10 in Mexico because the choices of name brand cloths is limited in the area she is from. But she does give a lot away to relatives.
How does she ship them to Chile cheaply? Or does she take them in her luggage?
They either send it to friends or bring it along when they visit.
My friend and his wife and baby were involved in the student protests in the early 70s. A bunch of their friends were murdered. They got the hell out and made it to the US completely broke and subsequently did incredibly well and are now very wealthy. They are patrons to the area where they came from and are quite well known in the region.
I’m pretty sure the secret to thrift shopping is to do it in a bigger or wealthier city.
True, I live in Oakland County Michigan north of Detroit and the shops up there are much nicer than the ones in Wayne County Dertroit. There is in fact a botique Salvation Army shop in Royal Oak that also has 5 for $5 clothing on Fridays. There is just too much good clothing being donated up there that they have to do this to move stock.
I’ve found brand new clothing with the tags still on them many times. Never know what someone going through a divorce is going to give away.
I suspect the opposite. The bigger city’s thrift stores will be completely picked over as soon as the new stuff is put out. Savvy shoppers know when that is. You can find gems on the backroads
Yes for furniture and antiques; no for designer clothing.
Makes sense
I’d never heard that Goodwill was considered pricey. The time I equipped my daughter’s apartment, I had a cartful of stuff and maybe spent 50 bucks total, for a LOT of things (full set of dishes, miscellaneous kitchenware, drinking glasses, utensil holders etc.). The one thing they don’t have a lot of, at least when I’ve looked, is pots and pans - I guess those get snatched up quickly or something.
To be fair, the day I shopped, they had “50% off anything with a yellow tag” or something - they put different color tags on things depending on when they come in, and this is their way of moving older merchandise quickly. Plus I think I had registered as a “frequent shopper” at some point in the past… so I got it all for 75% off.
Their furniiture tends to be junky, though occasionally I’ve seen something I wouldn’t mind owning.
Our fridge came from a Habitat ReStore. Ours died right before Christmas one year, and a friend did some legwork and found one in a ReStore about 25 miles away. A very slight dent in the bottom front, which I suspect is why it was there (though the friend swears it was not there when she first saw it). I don’t really care - and 700 bucks versus 2200 new, I’ll live with the dent!
I looked at the ReStore when our dishwasher died last year, but they just had older models. I might have gone for one if I were trying to equip a rental apartment or something, but I wanted something nicer for our home.
Seconded, E_JF! I hate shopping anyway and it’s pretty futile wandering through all those discards, plus the characterstic smell of old clothes is depressing. Like @Spiderman 's experience, the 2 local Goodwills are poorly laid out and cluttered with cheap crap. If I am in the neighborhood on other errands, I will stop in and look for flannel sheets to use as quilt batting – “real” quilt batting is insanely expensive, and if I’m lucky I can get a king or queen sized sheet for $3.99. Of course it goes direct from the car to the washer, with bleach.