I just bought a Lululemon hoodie for $25 at Value Village. It looks brand new. I also got one that looks slightly worn (not scruffy, just washed many times) a couple months ago there for $35. They retail for $125.
Years ago I found a pair of old-school white rollerskates at Value Village for $7.99 and they fit me perfectly.
What are the thrift store buys that you’re most proud of?
A 1lb bag of lavender flowers for $4.00. That’s a lot of lavender!
I have at least three pairs of New Balance tennis shoes that came from a thrift store with very little wear on them. I don’t think I paid more than $7.00 for any of them.
I bought a pair of earring from ValVil for a dollar that my friend is positive are real gold (she’s a jewelry buff). I’ve bought jean for 5$ that had 20$ in the pocket. I’m sure I’ll think of more - I do a ton of thrift shopping.
LL Bean wrinkle resistant shirt looked like new for 50 cents during one thrift shops grand clearance time.
A $5 cashmere sweater.
A brand new (or at least had no signs of wear) down winter coat from Brooklyn Industries for $20. Retails for over $200 and it fits perfectly.
I can’t believe the employees that put the clothes out don’t check the pockets. I know I would.
I dropped off an unworn, but without tags, Burberry dress shirt at Goodwill last year. Someone got a $250 shirt for cheap. I wonder if they priced it appropriately or just put whatever price dress shirts go for on it.
Matching Gore-Tex pants and jacket for $5.
World of Disney full set with box 50 cents.
runner pat: I’ve scored a ton of running gear at thrift stores. A long-sleeved hooded Under Armour shirt, my favourite Adidas capri tights, and some tech shirts from the Oasis Zoo Run that I did (there is no date on the shirts so I’m fine with wearing them.) One of my best finds was a long-sleeved Sugoi tech shirt that has Ed Hardy-like art down the sleeves.
I once got a 3rd edition Return of the King (US edition) for $2.
A lot of decent quality clothes to start to build my professional wardrobe: Calvin Klein-level pants, tops, jackets, blazers and pencil skirts for $1-$5 in great shape. Bless the thrift stores in my grandparents’ small town: there are some stylish size 8 people there who take care of their things and then I get em!
I picked up a few like that also. The suit I found wasn’t actually for running, it was more like what a construction worker/lineman might wear. Just perfect for my job at the time.
I really like Sag Harbor from JCPen-a. I swear there’s a woman who’s losing weight faster than I am who keeps donating items to one of the thrift stores we hit, and I keep buying them.
You know something funny, it’s not the only time I’ve found cash in a thrift store purchase. I once bought a book that had a dollar bill in it - the cool thing was that this was years after Canadian one dollar bills were taken out of circulation.
I am currently wearing a nice warm Columbia fleece jacket, picked up for $4.00 at a thrift store.
TheKid has a thing for collegiate hooded sweatshirts, the heavy ones that usually retail over $50.00 - she never pays more than $7.00 for them.
Then there’s the Le Creuset dutch oven that I bought for $6.00 at Value Village…
A 9" Lodge cast-iron skillet for $3. It was rusty and disgusting, but I took it home, stripped it, reseasoned it, and it looked like new. It’s still one of my most-used pans, 12 years later.
Technically, this wasn’t me, but it’s still a great find. My mother found an enamel pin similar (but not identical) to a lot of them here at a St. Vincent’s. She knows I like penguins and it was 25 cents, so she bought it for me.
I pinned it on one of my winter coats, and I swear to God, I get compliments on it at least once a month, sometimes more. It’s this silly little penguin pin that cost next to nothing, but for some reason it catches people’s eyes and they like it. Definitely a good find.
I paid $10 for a standard-issue US Army winter coat with liner at Unique NE in Minneapolis. (That’s a great place to look for old military clothes and boots, BTW.) I wore that coat for at least 5 winters and it still looks as good as the day it was issued. I wore a similarly durable US Navy pea coat for most of the 1970s that I got at the Free Store on the West Bank in Minneapolis.