Count me in. We have a Goodwill, a Salvation Army, and a locally-owned church-related thrift store. I hit at least one of them just about every day. Kids’ clothes, furniture, kitchen stuff, ebay goodies, you name it. With four kids, there is ALWAYS someone who needs something clotheswise, and the kids have a rotating stock of inexpensive toys. When I get tired of stuff, I donate it back. All of my clothes are from Goodwill–most of my dresses are lovely velvety numbers that I bought for dirt cheap. The littlest store also gets a load of day-old bagels, bread, and who-knows-what-else from local groceries every day, and you get to take home two bags FREE. One time I was there and they unloaded an entire moving van full of chopped, bagged onions–5 pounds per bag, free for anyone and everyone they could unload them on. It’s awesome.
Thea, Shirley, everyone else–come on over, we’ll go shopping.
I don’t go to the Sally Ann that often, but I don’t go to Walmart either. Mostly I just don’t shop. Though a few weeks ago, in preparation for having guests, I did get four really excellent dining room chairs at the Sally Ann for $28.
I have to buy my clothes new, because my fat guy clothes are hard enough to find in a regular store, but Morelin and I hit the thrift stores for her clothes. We regularly find great name brand jeans in her size for a buck or two. And jeans are better broken in, anyway.
Don’t give away our shopping secrets!
The past couple of years, even Walmart has been too expennsive for the Hillbilly clan. I always get my son’s clothes at thrift stores, except shoes and underwear. I have a problem with any kind of household type thing that comes as a matching set. I love to go to Goodwill and stare at the wall of unmatched dishes. My weakness is coffee mugs.
What’s really great about thrift stores is, instead of paying two bucks to dryclean a shirt, you can donate it to a thrift store, they’ll clean it and put it on a hanger, then you can buy it back from them for seventy-five cents. Oh, and don’t forget to take the tax deduction.
No reason to apologize Shirley U. You are right that all those people will clog the aisles. Look at how they clog the parking lots at Wal-Mart. Have you ever seen a trift store with a parking lot like that? Thea Logica is not only hoping she’ll get published but trying to get you to buy her book. The truth is that we need people buying from fancy stores, mom & pop, chain stores and thrift stores. What keeps the system working is that not everyone goes to the same store (which is one reason we hate WalMart, because they come the closest to getting everyone’s business). 
I work between three Salvation Army/Goodwill’s that are not remotely near me.
I want to open one of these stores in my area. And I had this dream spot that was on the way to hubby’s work.
An abandoned grocery store ( that was put out of business by a Mega Store & lousy selection and service.).
It was perfect. All the suburban yuppie refugees that moved up here but still work down there could drop off their garbage bags of clothes and whatnot on their way into work. I’d even offer free coffee for morning drop offs.
Naturally, I had no money, business experience, capital. Only dreams.
Some Hoity Toity company bought the building and turned it into a Big Ass Swanky Gym for the Yuppie Refugees.
Meh.
I’ve wanted to open one too, if for no reason other than to have first pick at everything that comes in. 
No worries there - Al Hoff writes for the trendy, pop-culture thrifter. My book is very much more along the Martha Stewart line. We’re talking CLASS, baby!
Oh, I love thrift stores, but don’t think of them only for clothing! The monitor on my 'puter now, an almost brand new 17" monitor? $40. $20 for a dishwasher that works great. Books! My God, the books! Some of them are overpriced, but most of them sell hardbacks for 1-2 and paperbacks for .25. One I know of charges .50 hardback and .10 paperback! Got a set of Ping knock off golf clubs for $30, they’d never been used. I could go on and on and on…
I loved the thrift store down the street! Not only did I get a comfy couch for 25 bucks (that I then got the fun of recovering), but I managed to furnish an entire apartment (including plates) for under 300 bucks AND they delivered. And some of it was really nice stuff–like a dresser that was a dark hardwood under the cream paint. And for me, part of the fun was getting the stuff home and doing a bit of crafting and fixing–in the case of the dresser, I stripped what must have been about 30 years worth of paint off and ended up with something beautiful–that I helped make. Can’t beat that. Gosh, I miss going there.
Oh, yeah, the books! I regularly scout out the Salvation Army and Goodwill for books. Goodwill is better on prices, and the Goodwill in the “nicer” neighborhood is more likely to have never-been-read brand new books. Who the hell buys books and gets rid of them without reading them?
I’ve looked at clothes in both places, but there’s not much of a selection. Well, there’s lots there, just not what I like. I’ve gotten a few things here and there, but I guess you have to go a lot to get the good stuff.
I did get great leather backpack for $2 a couple years ago. I use it all the time.
Ooooh I love thrift stores! Last fall I went to the Salvation Army Store in my town and bought 3 hand knit sweaters for $9!!! Whenever I start feeling crappy about my current state of poverty (I’m a student) I go to the thrift shop and see how many cool things I can buy for $10. It cheers me right up to have fun new clothes for less than my friends spend on dinner at a restaurant.
**Life On Wry ** You must let us know when your book comes out! I’ll buy it in a heart beat! I might even pay full price too, because, you are worth it, baby!
I was a confirmed thrift store shopper, but they got wise to me. I went for the books, and now the prices are almost as bad and sometimes worse than buying them new, see? Value Village didn’t start it, but they are the latest to follow this trend. Oh sure, sometimes I want an OOP book badly enough, I’ll pay their blood money, but don’t think I didn’t point out their asking price was more than the original price on the jacket. Sure the book was over twenty years old, but they reduced it. mwahahahaa
Goodwill is doing the same thing, but to compound the offense, have begun wrapping the books in Saran wrap. Sealing in the mold and mildew of some gem rescued from grandpa’s basement. The horrors. Yard sales and garage sales it is.
The clothing is also going up in price, too many people are in on the secret of thrift stores already. Heed Shirley’s words, this can happen to you, too.
I was re-reading my above diatribe long winded indignant post I’m so vain and realized something that didn’t translate well from the teeny tiny command center of my brain to my post:
**I do not buy undies and socks at Thift Stores. **
That is all.
Please allow me to offer to kill this thread by hitting submit.
Please, Dave, go on! I live in your neck of the woods, so spill the beans about your favorite spots. 
I don’t think I’ve been to a thrift shop that had underwear other than bras.
Anyway, throwing my support to this idea for those who have not yet partook in the funness of thrift shopping (with the exclusion of Salvation Army for their weasely exemptions from discrimination laws).
Nearly all of my clothes come from thrift stores. One of the best parts about shopping thrift is that for some reason I can find my size there more easily than at a regular store (I am very small). And get this…I live in a college town! The students come and go, and they leave their stuff behind. Excellent stuff is coming in to the thrift stores all the time!
I live in that same neck of the woods, and I go to the Goodwills in Cockeysville (at Padonia and York, just west of York on Timonium on the NW corner, a bit hard to get to, but if you’re familiar with the area, you should be able to find it - it’s back in with The Clearinghouse, a snooty consignment store and a tire store and the health club) and the one in Perry Hall (at the corner of Bel Air and Silver Spring, same shopping center as Wendy’s - it’s catty-corner from the Mars shopping center). The store is all the way down at the far end.
Most HBs are $1, sometimes they have 2-for-1 specials. I think PBs are .50 cents or maybe less.
The Salvation Army is on Joppa Road in Parkville right by Harold’s Farm Market. Get off the Beltway at Perring Parkway north and then go left at the light on Joppa. It’s about a mile (or so - I’m bad at judging distances) down on the right, just past the farm market. Their prices are higher, more like a used bookstore, $3-$4 a piece for HBs, but I guess it depends on what you’re looking for.