EP 114: My Top Thrifting Tips and Favorite Finds

EP 114: Best Thrfting Tips and Finds – LOVING LIFE AT HOME – Christian Marriage, Biblical Parenting, Creative Homemaking, Purposeful Living

In answer to a recent question from one of my subscribers, today I’m sharing my best tips for buying things secondhand — including where and how to look for what you need, and my favorite categories of things to buy used.

Top Thrifting Tips and Favorite Finds

Complete transcript from Episode 114

Hello, friend. Welcome to Episode 114 of Loving Life at Home. Today’s topic is best thrifting tips and finds. That’s because today is August 17th, which is significant for many reasons.

One is it comes right on the heels of a milestone weekend for our family. My husband and I celebrated our 39th wedding anniversary on the 15th. And my 10th-born child’s 21st birthday was yesterday. Although the actual celebrations were flip-flopped, because my son had to work yesterday. So we had a birthday dinner for him on Saturday and then postponed the anniversary celebration until yesterday.

And then also today is the first day of our homeschool co-op for the fall semester. So gone are the carefree lazy days of summer with the freedom to read whatever books we wanted and work on whatever projects we wanted and do whatever crafts suited our fancy. Now it’s time to hit the books.

So we are getting back into a routine, not just for our schoolwork, but also for this podcast. I’ve taken a break for the summer, but my plan, Lord willing, is to start publishing episodes on the weekly again.

During that break, I got lots and lots of letters and questions from readers and subscribers and listeners that I plan to tackle this and the coming weeks and months. And one of those letters was a long, long list of suggested topics that came from a listener in Utah. She writes:

I love all your work, Jennifer, and look forward to your inbox every week. Here are some topics that I'd like for you to cover in your podcast or on your blog or both....

And then she continued with a long list of suggestions, many of which I had already addressed on the blog. So I sent her some links and told her that I would do my best to address the rest of them on future episodes of Loving Life at Home, beginning right now.

Her very last request was that I talk about thrifting tips and my best finds, which I’m going to do today, because August 17th also just happens to be National Thrift Shop Day.

Sadly, we have homeschool co-op all day followed by a volleyball game an hour and a half from home that we’ll have to leave co-op for early. I don’t know if my daughter and I will be able to squeeze any thrift shopping in today, as much as we would like to.

But I do plan to share my tips and my favorite finds with you in this episode.

My first taste of thrifting: Garage Sales

I actually addressed the topic of garage selling, which is an early form of thrift shopping, at least for our family–the original form of thrifting. So I’m going to share some tips from that post.

I don’t go garage selling very much anymore because…

1. The area that I moved to isn’t so great for garage sale bargains. With rare exceptions, most of the sales that I stopped at when I first got to town had priced their goods way too high, like they were trying to get back what they paid for the items when they were new. So that wasn’t very helpful.
2. After 39 years of marriage, there’s not a lot of stuff that I need, especially not stuff that I’m likely to find at a garage sale.
3. I lost my garage sale buddy. There’s a hundred miles between my house and my mom’s house now. So we don’t get to hunt sales together on the weekly like we used to, but Mom does travel with us a lot these days. And I have a couple of girls who love to thrift as well. And so we normally hit up at least two or three thrift shops on every trip, which is a great way to find inexpensive, one of a kind souvenirs from your travel, even in foreign countries.

I’ll talk more about that in just a little bit. But the fact is, I love garage sales. I was raised going to garage sales. I don’t know that my mom did that so much to save money as she just enjoyed rummaging through other people’s things and looking for stuff that she might want to use herself.

It was more a form of entertainment, not necessarily something that she thought about being a way that God would provide for her needs. At least not until I got grown and started approaching it from that mindset.

But we did stop at lots of garage sales when I was growing up. I remember hearing this story — I don’t remember this happening, but I remember hearing this story — that my mom was trying to, when I was first starting to read, she would review with me all the time. And when we were out driving, she would spell out the words on the street signs and teach me that way.

This car breaks for garage sales

And so she was trying to show off my growing ability in this area and was saying in front of Dad (I don’t know if she was telling somebody else or just telling Dad), “Jennifer, what does S-T-O-P spell?”

Well, I sat there scratching my head and not being able to immediately sound that word out. So Mom hinted, “You know, when we’re out driving and we see this sign that says S-T-O-P, we always stop?”

Then I brightened, “Oh, I know! It spells garage sale!”

And my dad laughed and said, “Yes, Jennifer, your mom thinks that those two words are synonymous.” Anytime she sees a garage sale, she wants to stop, which is how I was raised and how I still am.

And some of my kids have caught that bug as well, and they enjoy thrifting, too. So we do that. Garage sales, yard sales, tag sales, estate sales, thrift shops, secondhand stores, call them what you may. The chance to rummage through another person’s junk in search of treasure has always been a thrill for me.

As a young wife and mother living on school loans while my husband completed his medical training, it was a matter of necessity. Just as God provided manna in the wilderness for the children of Israel, he used such secondhand sales techniques to sustain our growing family throughout those lean years.

I was able to clothe myself and our children, furnish the house, build a home library, buy quality toys for our children like Lincoln Logs and American Girl dolls and Duplo blocks and Legos, and do most of our Christmas shopping — all for cents on the dollar.

Yet many families who would greatly benefit from some savvy secondhand shopping miss out completely because they’ve never learned the tricks of the trade. Perhaps they stopped at a sale or two, but left empty-handed and quickly abandoned hope of ever doing any better. If that describes you, then try following the guidelines I’m sharing today to see if it will improve your haul and thereby help you discover firsthand the joys of culling through cast-offs for something worth keeping.

10 Tips for Successful Thrifting: A tried and true method

So my first tip would always be to…

1. Pray before you go

The first secret to success in any endeavor entails entreating God’s blessing upon it. And yard sales or thrift store shopping is no exception. Successful thrift shopping begins with prayer.

Pray for his direction before you ever set out, that God will lead you to the right sales, that he will help you find the items that you need, and that he will use those sales to help provide for your family.

2. Keep a running list

Have you ever noticed that when you use a list to shop for groceries, you do much better in terms of remembering to get the things you need and resisting the urge to buy stuff you don’t? The same principle holds true for thrift shopping as well.

You will likely get much more out of the experience if you’ll keep at least a mental list of the items that you’re hoping to find. I actually keep a running written wish list in my notebook back then and now in my phone, a digital list, for such items and I read it aloud to any family members who are shopping with me so that they can keep their eyes peeled too.

The more detailed the list, the better. I don’t just put down “new dress-up clothes for Joseph,” but “a size 10 Spider-Man costume, including mask for less than $2.” I mean, I get specific. And God answers in specific ways.

I’ve been amazed at how often God has provided exactly what I’ve been looking for, when I’ve been looking for it, at a fraction of what it would have cost us new. Many times, specific answers to prayer are things that we’ve never seen before or since at garage sales.

By way of example, I remember one year the weather was starting to turn crisp and my little ones had lots of summer clothes. We live in Texas and we don’t really have a great need for winter clothes for a long period of time. Our weather patterns are such that our winters last maybe two or three weeks, four at the max. But when it does turn cold, you really do need warm outerwear, at least, and some heavier jersey knits would be good also.

So this particular year on my list were winter clothes for the kids, including a coat for my oldest because he didn’t have any sort of coat that still fit. And one Saturday morning as we were hunting these things, my mom and I passed a garage sale sign that said SALE OF THE CENTURY.

Now, we had learned by this time that usually, the bigger the claims on the sign, the less impressive the sale was. So we started to just drive on past because we thought SALE OF THE CENTURY was probably was overhyped.

But there weren’t a lot of other sales out that day because, again, it was starting to turn cold. So we went ahead and followed that sign to the SALE OF THE CENTURY, which truly was one that I still remember today, because when we pulled up, they had a whole garage and driveway full of clothes that were exactly my children’s size.

I just had two or maybe three. I don’t remember if David had been born by then or not, but they were my kids’ size, very nice, name brand, high-quality matching sets, exactly the sizes that my children needed, the size clothes they were going into that season.

And everything was only 50 cents.

Moreover, the mom who was hosting the sale was my size, and she had some really nice clothes in my size and style that also were 50 cents.

And there was a little London Fog heavy coat that fit my son perfectly. And it was 50 cents. And I think everything that she had was 50 cents. I remember buying a pair of earrings there. All the clothes, of course, have been outgrown long, long ago. But I still have the pair of earrings that I bought at that sale, and I will probably always keep them, as a reminder of the way God used that garage sale to provide for our growing family and give us exactly what we needed when we needed it. Those warm clothes and that coat for my children.

So pray for what you need and carry a list with you.

3. Have a game plan

My third tip would be to pre-plan your route. Back then, you would advertise garage sales in the newspaper, which honestly, I usually did not check the sale ads. I would just make the same loop every Saturday morning.

My mom and I would have a game plan that we followed consistently. Some weeks would yield better results than others, but the key was always to stick with that routine. So when I lived in Mesquite, there were always so many sales to pick from. I never bothered looking in the paper for garage sale ads. I’d just pick up my mom at 8 AM every Saturday morning, and we’d make a short circuit along the major roads from Motley to I-30 over to Galloway down to I-20 and back to Motley.

Just one big loop, and we’d stop at whatever sales we saw along the way until we were back home. That seldom took us more than two hours, maybe three at the max.

4. Shop early in the day

Then next, I would shop early, at least for garage sales. And maybe if you’re doing thrift shops and they have like a sidewalk sale. Ours does that sometimes where you can fill a bag for $20. We always try to get there early for that because they have certain sale racks and you shop off those racks and everything you can fit in a bag is one price.

So I think the last time we went, we got 18 items in our bag for $20. So just barely over a dollar and five cents an item. And a couple of my favorite dresses that I wear all the time came from there. So just a little bit more than a dollar, and I have something that I really like to wear and fits and has been great.

So shop early, whether you’re doing thrift stores or garage sales.

A lot of times, they’re putting things out first thing in the morning, and you’re going to have a better selection that way. That’s really just preference for me. The longer you wait, the more picked-over sales become.

Also, by shopping from 8 to 10 in the morning, back when we were garage saling every week, I could be finished by the time my youngest ones woke up and got dressed and had breakfast, provided my husband was available to stay at home with them.

If he weren’t, then we would either take the kids with us or my dad, their grandfather, would keep them, especially the youngest ones. He’d keep the youngest ones and let them play. And the older ones who’d already been bitten by the garage sale bug would come with us, which was fine.

Another reason I would say shop early is because, if you’re doing outdoor sales like garage sales and yard sales, and you live in Texas like I do, the heat in the summer gets so hot. It’s so much more pleasant to shop in the cool of the morning.

But again, that’s my preference. I have friends who shop garage sales every week and they prefer to go late in the day because they claim they get better bargains by going right before they close. And I know when I’ve hosted garage sales, I am ready to get rid of it.

Whenever we’d hold a garage sale ourselves, we would just keep it open from eight till noon. And the closer we got to the noon, the lower our prices dropped. By the time we were ready to pack it all up, if somebody came and offered us $20 for a whole truckload (which did sometimes happen), we’d often say, “Sure, take it.”

That would save us a trip to Goodwill for donating whatever didn’t sell.

5. Be willing to negotiate

Then another tip is to not be afraid to ask for a better price. Haggling is half the fun. If you find something that you like that costs more than you want to spend, don’t be afraid to do a little friendly haggling. Many sellers anticipate having to negotiate and buffer their prices accordingly.

There’s no need to insult their goods or their prices. Just say with a sincere smile, “This is a lovely piece, but would you be willing to take any less?” If you’re shopping a multifamily garage sale, you’ll have to bargain piece-by-piece. But if all this stuff belongs to one person or one family, you might try mentally totaling the prices of the items you want and then making a reasonable offer on the whole lot. Like: “This comes to $28.50. Would you take $25 for all of it?”

This strategy works especially well when you have the exact change already in hand. Of course, again, I just tried this at garage sales, but my daughter, my youngest daughter, has done that at thrift stores as well with success. She’ll sometimes go and point out, you know, a seam that needs repair or a stain that she’s not sure she can get out and ask, “Would you be willing to come down on this price?”

Or maybe it’s in good condition but she just thinks it’s overpriced. She’ll still sometimes ask and oftentimes they will. They’ll bargain with her.

But having exact change for garage sales and estate sales is really helpful. And that brings me to another tip, which is to…

6. Always carry cash

Cash is essential, especially if you’re doing garage sale shopping. You can save yourself a lot of time and hassle by carrying cash in small denominations and change. We have that rule even at…. like, our homeschool group has a used book sale every spring, and it’s a cash only sale.

So if you want to get used curriculum at a bargain price, you bring small denominations and you get ready to put it in everybody’s envelope in the front of the books that they’re selling and shop that way.

For normal garage sales, carrying cash in small bills will also boost your ability to negotiate. Very few sellers will want to come down on their prices if doing so means accepting a check or depleting their stash of ones. So whether you’re going to open-air markets or garage sales or used curriculum sales, cash is the way to go.

7. Know where it goes

Then my next tip would be to know where the item will go before you buy it. It’s not a bargain if you don’t have any use for it. So make sure you know where you’re going to put something before you pay for it.

Following this simple rule will help keep your home home from looking like a garage sale waiting to happen.

If the price is really good or the find is really rare, I will carry it around for a while at the sale while I rack my brain for a good place to keep it. But if I draw a blank, I’ve just learned to leave it behind for the next shopper.

Of course, those of you who like to scour sales for stuff to resell on eBay can happily ignore this advice. That is next level thrifting: Buying to resell.

I don’t have much personal experience with that, but one of my daughters is very knowledgeable about high-end brands, and she would buy quality items secondhand and sell them on Poshmark to supplement her income.

And I also have friends who refinish and flip furniture on Facebook Marketplace. So that’s a possibility too, and a wonderful way God provides for some families. That’s just not something that I personally did, but I certainly see the value in it.

My mom’s father always said that if you watch your nickels and dimes, the dollars will take care of themselves. And that is something that has always made a lot of sense to me, and I’ve tried to be faithful to do that.

Well, one day I stopped at a garage sale on my way to Mom’s. It was just about two blocks away from her. And when I got to her house, I told her that I’d stopped at this sale and told her what I’d gotten. So she asked, “Did you see anything else that you liked?”

And I told her, “Well, yeah, they had a whole box full of stuff for a penny a piece. And there was a little brass stamp dispenser in it that was really pretty, but I didn’t buy it because I don’t really need it.”

And she said, “Jennifer, it was only a penny!”

Well, at that time, I couldn’t imagine ever being able to afford a full roll of stamps at once. And I didn’t think I would use it. And so even though it was a penny, I passed it up.

And she said, “I use rolled stamps all the time. And I have a little plastic dispenser. You should have gotten it. Here, let me give you a penny. And you can go back over there and get it for me.”

And so she did and I did.

And she uses it to this day. It’s one of her favorite finds of all times — this little beautiful brass dispenser for her stamps, for her rolled stamps. But even now that I can afford rolled stamps myself, I am happy that she has it instead of me because it brings her a lot of joy.

And I really like buying a variety of stamps. There are so many pretty designs. If you buy rolled stamps, they all are just the same thing. And I like mixing and matching and fitting the stamp to the occasion, the happy birthday stamps or the thank you stamps or the love stamps, you know.

And so I just have a little notebook that I keep all my different postage stamps in, and I’ll probably do that forever. Although I guess someday, when mom is gone, I will definitely want to keep that little brass dispenser to remember her by. But for now, I’m happy that she has it, and I’m glad it only cost her a penny, and I was happy to go back over to that garage sale and get it for her.

Thankfully, it was still there. Not a lot of people rummage through the boxes under the tables. I have always found lots of great stuff by being willing to do that. But anyway, so I guess that would be another tip:

8. Don’t be afraid to dig

Don’t just kind of look at what’s on the surface, but be willing to go to the bottom of the box and see what’s there. You’ll sometimes be surprised what you find. There’s often a lot of good stuff hidden under the piles.

9. Take the kids along, too

Then another tip is let the kids go too. That is how they learn to be bargain shoppers. I know that garage selling or thrift shopping with children can be a challenge, especially when they’re little, but it can also provide an invaluable training opportunity.

It helps if you can shop with another adult, like I would shop with my mom. That way the two of you can take turns shopping if a baby falls asleep in the car and the other can sit with the baby.

When my little ones used to accompany me and my mother on our weekly garage sale excursions, I’d give each child a fixed amount of money to spend however they liked. No more than a dollar each, but usually just a quarter apiece. And that kept them from begging for something at every sale, as they knew once their money was gone, it was gone.

It’s also important to have clearly defined expectations for your children if you take them garage saling with you. Our rules were always: no whining or complaining or pitching fits of any kind. Or you’ll get left at home with Daddy or Grandpa the next time that we shop.

And then also we would tell them you must get back in the car immediately when we say it’s time to go because we don’t want to stand around at a garage sale we’ve already seen and miss the next one because we’re trying to coax you back into the car. So once my kids were able to hop in their own car seats and strap in and be ready to go at as soon as I said the word, it was a much nicer experience for all of us.

Then of course, older kids who have earned their own spending money could afford to buy more. Some of my kids enjoyed garage selling more than others, and so we’d usually only take those who wanted to shop, and we’d leave the others at home with Dad.

If a sale seemed especially promising, we’d all pile out of the car at once and shop together. But if it looked like slim pickings, my mom or I would take turns sitting in the car with the kids while the other made a quick survey of the offerings to see if it was really worth getting everybody out of the car, especially when they’re still in car seats. That’s sometimes a hassle if you’re only going to be there for half a minute to see, oh, their prices are too high or they have nothing that we’d be interested in.

And of course, if you’re thrift shopping with children, keep them with you, like in a shopping cart. I just put mine in the basket and shop with them right in front of me.

Once you’re older and able to try on clothes, like my teen daughter doesn’t ride in a grocery cart with me anymore, she shops alone. But when they’re little and they could get into mischief or be in danger of breaking something or of being snatched by somebody, you definitely want to keep them with you at all times while you’re shopping.

And as they get older, you can relax that a little bit. My daughter’s 6’1″, and so it’s easy to see her over the top of the racks wherever she is in the store and keep an eye on her that way.

10. Be considerate of others

Then my final tip for garage sale and thrift shopping would be to show consideration. It’s really just a reminder to please use common courtesy:

• Don’t block neighbors’ driveways when parking to shop, even if you think you won’t be there very long
• Don’t criticize the quality or selection or the prices offered at a sale. Even if your comments are well-deserved, that’s just rude.
• If you’re going to haggle, do so politely. Don’t be critical of their stuff or what they’ve priced it at.
• Don’t ask a seller to save something for you without leaving a non-refundable deposit. There are few things more aggravating than to have to turn down multiple shoppers with money in hand who are ready and willing to buy because you promised to save a particular item for someone who asked you to hold it early in the day but failed to ever come back and actually pay for it. I’ve gotten burned that way. In the past, and I just don’t like to do that myself. Of course, you know, thrift shopping, sometimes you don’t have a truck to bring home a piece of furniture or something like that. You pay for it and they put a sealed tag on it and you come back and get it later. You don’t just say, “Hold this for me” and don’t show back up.

A Few Favorite Finds

Clothing:

Now, most of those tips that I just mentioned were from an article that I published years ago on our family blog, Flanders Family Home Life. And in that article, I also included a lot of tips for hosting a successful garage sale. I won’t cover that in this podcast because it is getting late and I have to get ready for co-op. But I will link that article in the show notes for anyone who’s interested.

I do, however, want to take a few minutes to discuss some of my favorite finds and the kinds of things that I look for when I do go thrifting, whether I’m shopping Goodwill or garage sales or estate sales or pop-up markets like the CCC sale, which actually is this week.

Here in Tyler, we have something called the Children’s Clothing Consignment Sale, and they do that twice a year in a pop-up market. It’s actually really, really large. About 1000 families contribute goods to this sale.

It’s a wonderful way to make money if you’re cleaning out your closets because the people selling get to keep 70% of their asking price and the people that organize the sale keep 30%. Which is a great deal for everybody.

I normally don’t try to sell a lot there. I always had stair-step kids that I was passing hand-me-downs down from one to the next. But I do shop there every fall and spring, each time it happens. And of course, the primary thing that I would shop for at that particular sale is clothing.

They say buy quality and it will last. Well, the thing about buying clothing secondhand is that it has already lasted. If it still looks good after it’s been donated to the thrift shop, then you know that it’s probably pretty well constructed and it’s going to last even longer.

That’s not always the case when you buy new. Some brands I would buy new or would get gifted new to my children, the first time you washed it, it would be faded or it would like shrink up and be twice as wide as it was long (which I had long, thin babies, not short, wide babies, so that didn’t work very well for us).

But if I bought something secondhand that had kept its shape, I knew that it would continue to keep its shape. It wasn’t going to shrink in a funky way that would no longer fit my children. So buying quality, it will last.

I still have several items in my closet that I’ve had for decades that I still wear and they still look good. One of my favorites is a long black crocheted skirt that has lining stitched in. It really is a beautiful piece. I’ve never seen anything like it. It has a tag and doesn’t look like it was homemade (though it is definitely handmade). It does look like something that was sold in a store at one time, but I’ve had it for at least 30 years and it still looks great. I still wear it. It’s one of my favorite pieces, and it was used when I bought it. It was just a couple of dollars and I’ve definitely gotten my money’s worth out of it and still like it and wear it.

So by quality, it will last.

Also, I look for natural fabrics everywhere. And trusted brands. Those two dresses that I bought at the sidewalk sale recently at our local thrift shop for $1.05 each are both a real heavy cotton weave. They are well-constructed. They had been worn, obviously, so I knew that they were going to hold up in the wash. They both hit me like mid-thigh, which is a little bit shorter than I like to wear dresses, so I came home and crocheted a trim on the hem to lengthen them a little. And they look so great. They’re bespoke and nothing like them again, but very fun to wear. And I feel good at them and they’re natural fibers that breathe. And I really like that.

So I already told about that sale of the century. That was just one year. Babies especially grow so fast that their used clothes barely look worn. So again, back in Mesquite, when we lived there, I would get the clothes every year for our kids. You know, we’d go back to school shopping at garage sales, even though we didn’t go back to school because I homeschooled.

But when the weather started turning cool, we would look for warmer clothes. And then when it started warming up in the spring, we’d look for summer clothes. And a lot of those clothes got passed down from child to child to child until those baby clothes looked brand new until my fifth born who combat crawled. He didn’t really do cross pattern. He would just drag his belly on the ground and he forced into retirement a lot of the clothes that had served his brother so well.

But I guess there does come a time when the little boys are very hard on their jeans and they have holes in the knees. I was more picky about that. Of course, people buy clothes brand new now with holes in the knees, but I didn’t do that. And I would look for things that were in good shape and usually found them, by God’s grace. And then once we moved to Tyler and I didn’t shop garage sales much anymore, there was the CCC sale. And so we clothed our kids using the CCC sale until they were old enough to buy their own clothes.

Some of them wanted designer stuff and they’d save their own money and do that. Some of them wanted thrift stuff. And even if they bought them new, they would buy, you know, $2 t-shirts in bulk to save money. And that was fine. Everybody’s different.

One of my daughters is expecting right now. And she was telling me that a local baby shop, I don’t know if it was Once Upon a Child or another one, was having a big sale one weekend that she and her husband were so excited to go to and get things for their baby. It was 40 onsies for $10, I believe. I think they were 25 cents each. Maybe it was just 20 for $10. But again, it was those kind of prices that we got at the SALE OF THE CENTURY. And they were so happy to be able to go and get clothes for their expected little one. And it’s so sweet.

Baby Equipment:

On that topic of babies, that’s another great category to buy used is baby equipment, strollers, baby swings, play mats, travel cribs, baby slings like you wear your baby. I bought all the ones I ever used at garage sales and diaper bags. You can sometimes find great diaper bags at garage sales.

I would be a little bit cautious about buying car seats at garage sales because if it’s been in a car accident, then it’s no longer as safe as it was originally. And also the design changes and the safety features change and, you know, the newer seats can be anchored and they have five-point harnesses and the older ones have three-point harnesses and can’t be anchored. And so I would probably just get the car seat new or make sure it’s very newish and in good condition if you buy it used.

But those other things? Definitely garage sale all the way!

I have a funny story about baby equipment. When Doug and I were expecting our first, we saw an ad in the paper for some free item if you went to this baby store. A retail store, they would give expectant parents a free, and I don’t remember what it was, it was free, but really we should have been suspicious because what they were trying to do is get a big group of people in there for a sales pitch. And that’s what we found.

So it was on a Saturday morning and all these expectant couples were at this store at the Wonder Chair was what it was called, the Wonder Chair. And so they had a little area set up with seats and chairs there. And they launched into this sales pitch for the Wonder Chair, which they made it sound like you could not successfully raise a baby without one of these things.

The thing was a pram and then a stroller and a carriage. And it was almost like a transformer. You would just push buttons and take parts off and it would turn into a high chair or a rocking chair or all these different things that you thought like, how in the world am I going to raise a baby without this wonder chair?

But then they told us the price tag . I think it was $750. It was something so astronomical, there was no way that we were going to be able to afford that. And so we just had to resign ourselves to raising a baby without a wonder chair.

But the funny thing is, I did eventually end up getting one because not too long after that, I ran into one at a garage sale that looked brand new, and it was $10.00. And so, of course, I snatched it up and brought it home. And we used it for a couple of babies, but the thing was so bulky and it would not fold down very easily. And, of course, the chrome and vinyl was hideous for rocking chairs and high chairs.

But I did like the stroller. It had fringe. It was really cute, burgundy with white fringe. And so we kept it over at my parents’ house in their little storage room and would take the kids for walks around the block in their neighborhood.

So we kept it for maybe a year or two, maybe not even that long, before we decided the space was more important. And yes, in fact, it was very easy to to raise a baby without one of those things. And so we sold it in our own garage sale for $15. So I made $5 on that and got the experience. But don’t you know, I was so thankful that I hadn’t spent $750 or given into the high-pressured sales pitch!

Housewares:

Then another category that I shopped for at Garage Sales and Thrift Shops is housewares. When we were first married, we got our everyday dishes, a full set of them at a little thrift shop down the street for $37, something like that, for the whole set, like service for eight or 12.

It was an antique Asiatic Pheasant design. I still have a few pieces. Most of them were broken long ago with 12 kids and a husband who wasn’t always careful with the plates. They did not last forever, but I do still have a few pieces, and I still think it’s such a beautiful pattern.

Also, I have a large collection of Pyrex, which I use all the time. Most of which I picked up at thrift shops or estate sales for a dollar or two a piece. I’d already discovered that you could get replacement lids for Pyrex on Amazon, because some of the Pyrex that was gifted to us at our wedding, the lids eventually turned brittle and needed to be replaced. So I knew you could do that. And that’s what I do with the Pyrex that I get at garage sales now is just get the lids off of Amazon, which gives me glass storage (which is my preference anyway for leftovers and food), and all for a fraction of what it would cost new.

Home Decor:

Then home decor. If you go through our house, just about everything you see on our wall is either thrifted or made by me or a photograph. Garage sales are great places to find baskets and pillows and hand-painted trays and blue and white china, etc. I could just walk through my house and probably make this episode two hours long talking about all the different finds that I’ve gotten at thrift stores or garage sales.

Frames are another a big one. You can pick those up for $0.25 to $1 apiece. Beautiful frames, any style that you favor. When we built our home, Hobby Lobby had a 90% off clearance aisle. Sometimes thrift shopping can be done in retail shopping. Just go to the clearance rack. But I brought home lots of gorgeous framed artwork at 90% off.

Sometimes the artwork was something that I’d want to hang in my house and sometimes it was nothing I’d want in my house, but the mat and the frame and the glass was there and matched my decor. And so I would just take out whatever artwork I didn’t like and put in photos or handcrafted, you know, a needlepoint that I’ve done or picked up at garage sales or prints.

Calendars are a great place to find artwork. I framed two Thomas Kinkade prints from a calendar that I picked up for little to nothing that look very high end but weren’t, because the frame and mat was 90% off and the calendar was last year’s calendar at a discount as well.

Then also the frames can be used for mirrors. When we built our house, I had two enormous frames — like four foot by three foot — that we hung in our master bathroom that I bought mirrors for and the mirrors cost much more than the frames themselves cost, but they really looked beautiful.

I’ve also bought huge frames like that for bulletin boards ,and they just look so much prettier hanging on my wall when there is a beautiful frame on it instead of the cheapy thing that came on it. Also diplomas, we would sometimes swap out the artwork and beautiful framed pieces for diplomas that we wanted to display.

Tools:

Then another category is tools: garden tools, woodworking tools, etc. Often you’re going to find higher quality old tools that can actually be sharpened and will last. Again, they stand the test of time.

My son, who loves woodworking, has found wonderful tools at garage sales that he has refinished and restored to their former luster. And they are built to last. The tools sometimes that I buy at the store brand new today, will not last like the old ones did.

I remember having a pair of hedge trimmers that I really liked. They still work. The handle wasn’t broken, but the foam padding on one side had come off and was lost. And so I went and bought something that looked exactly like what I was planning to replace, and the new ones nicked the very first time I used them. They were so cheaply made.

So many of the things that we buy today are made with planned obsolescence, so you have to keep replacing it. But those old tools were made with pride, and they were meant to last a lifetime. So even though it was the same brand, the ones that were made that were missing the foam handle are the clippers I still use today. I just sharpen them and keep going, and I got rid of the brand new ones that I paid retail for.

So anyway, look for tools at garage sales.

Even small parts cabinets and storage boxes I have found at garage sales. I have several matching storage boxes in my garage that I got at a garage sale. They’re Rubbermaid blue with heavy duty lids, and they look great. I’ve used them for years.

Then small parts cabinets, I have some that I got at garage sales for storing my nails and screws and nuts and bolts in in the garage. But then I use others for storing craft supplies and school supplies or Band-Aids and razor blades and stuff like that in the bathroom cabinets. And so they’re very handy.

Craft Supplies

Then arts and crafts supplies are another great category of stuff to look for secondhand. One of my favorite finds is some fabric that I got at a garage sale. I was making linens for our guest room and there was a Waverly print, a small blue floral on a white background, that they had at Hancock’s at the time that I really liked, but it was $25 a yard and I needed a bunch of it. So I really didn’t want to spend $25 a yard.

And I kept praying that it would go on sale, because a lot of times they would put their upholstery fabric on sale for half price. And so I was waiting and watching for a sale. And it finally came.

We were in San Antonio at the time because my husband had been deployed with the Army Medical Reserves. And so I was driving home from San Antonio thinking, Yay, Hancock’s has this fabric on sale! When I get back to Tyler, I will go and get what I need to make the dust ruffle and curtains for this guest room that we were building in this new house.

And so on my way home with the kids, I had to pull off the road to get some gas. And it was in a place that I never shopped garage sales before, you know. But I pulled off to get the gas, and as I was pulling out of the gas station, there was a garage sale sign. And I thought, Oh, let’s just go to that garage-sell while we’re here, you know, again. Yeah. Stop and garage sale were synonymous to me. And so I thought, of course, there’s a garage sale. Let’s stop and see what they have.

So I walk up to the sale and, I kid you not, they have a bolt of that fabric, the very fabric that I was going to buy that weekend. That I was going to pay half price, which was still more than I really wanted to pay.

They had 40 yards for $10. So 25 cents a yard of the very fabric that I had been praying would go on sale, I got at a hundredth — a hundredth! — of the price that it was originally. And I remember sharing that one time on my blog and somebody writing to me and criticizing and saying, “How selfish of you to pray for Waverly Fabric!” You know, they just thought that was absurd.

And I wrote him back and I said, “I’m sorry to break it to you, but I’ve prayed for much more selfish things than Waverly Fabric.” Ha!

But I serve a God who delights in giving us the desires of our heart. And I try to be frugal and a good steward of the money that He’s blessed us with. And He has provided not just my needs, but sometimes even my wants. Like that definitely was not a need, but it was something that I desired. And He lavished it upon me, which I was so grateful.

I don’t view God as a genie in the bottle that is there at my beck and call to just grant whatever wish I have. I don’t think that that is a realistic view, nor would it be good for us for God to give us everything that we think we want!

But He is a good God, and every good gift comes from Him. And I totally recognized His fingerprints all over that bolt of fabric when I found it in a garage sale. It was like brand new! And not only was I able to make the dust ruffle and all the curtains, but also pillow shams and all sorts of things for that bedroom. I even had enough leftover for a shower curtain!

It just, it was so wonderful. Much more beyond all that I could hope or think and such a blessing from God, which He has done over and over again for all of the things that we look for at garage sales.

Christmas Decor:

So other categories — and again, I have really got to wrap this up because it is time to leave — is Christmas decorations. I’ve gotten lots of Christmas trees at garage sales that we still use. Some lovely, one-of-a-kind pieces.

Quilts and Bed Linens:

Also, bed linens. My husband was a little bit nervous about using bed linens that we got at garage sales. He thought that you should only buy bed linens new, until I reminded him that all the beds that we slept on in hotel rooms probably did not put new brand new, never-before-used linens on after every guest. And he realized that, yeah, that was probably okay to get bed linens as long you wash them before you put them on your bed. That’s fine.

Just last month, we went to Colorado and my husband, dear soul that he is, took me to a thrift shop while we were there. And they had a beautiful queen size quilt that was beautifully done, hand-quilted and in mint condition, that I got it for $16. It’s gorgeous. Such fine work. What a find!

Books and Curriculum:

Then books, of course, that’s a favorite thing to get used.

I could go on and on. I’ll have to save the rest for another day and another episode. But that hopefully will scratch the itch for the ones asking for now and give you some ideas of ways to go about shopping secondhand that will bless you and your family like it has me.