Thrift Shopping

I don’t know if it’s because I’m older now and I hear more about clothes shopping from co-workers than I did as a kid, but it seems like thrift shopping is a cool thing to do these days.  When I was younger it was considered gross or dirty to buy your clothes second-hand.  Now with stores like Plato’s Closet and Children’s Orchard, it doesn’t seem so weird or disgusting to shop second-hand bargains.

                  I’ll admit that I have never purchased any clothes for myself or for my family from a second-hand store, but I am seriously considering it.  Children’s Orchard is the first shop I bought a second-hand baby bouncer from for my niece.  It was a bargain because it was super clean and worked perfectly.  My niece used it, my nephew used it and Little Man used it.  With Little Man it finally stopped working, but for sixteen bucks it was a great deal and it got plenty of “mileage.”  When Baby Girl was born we went back and purchased another bouncy chair for fourteen dollars.  The only difference is, unlike Little Man, Baby Girl hates being in it.  When we were in the store I found myself looking at the clothes and thinking, “Why not?”  They’re all clean, they look practically new, babies only wear these clothes for a few months, and so it seems like a genius idea. 

                  Little Man accumulated lots of clothes.  Some clothes were second-hand from his older cousin, some were gifts, most we bought, and I ended up keeping them in boxes in the garage in case we had another baby boy.  Well, we had a girl, so we needed to start all over again.  Two is our limit on kids, so I needed to find a place for all those boy clothes.  Luckily, we had a baby nephew born just one month before Baby Girl so nephew inherited those clothes.  Baby Girl is quickly outgrowing her clothing and I found myself wondering if I should sell to Children’s Orchard, sell on Craigslist.com or have a garage sale.  Browsing the web for how to get the most money for your clothes, I found a great site called jbfsale.com.  They have a consignment style sale twice a year in different locations.  Unfortunately for us, there isn’t one in the Valley.  (Someone needs to buy a franchise...)  I am seriously considering going up to Boerne in April to sell some of Baby Girl’s clothes and purchase her some new ones.  With a guaranteed savings of at least 30%, why not?

                  How many parents out there buy second-hand clothing for their families?

*How many of you now have the Macklemore song in your head?  What, what, what....