Anyone here like to thrift? Between salvation army, value village, trendy vintage and consignment shops, and stupid coupon shows, thrifting has never been hotter. I think a couple generations ago people regarded these stores as charity shops for the poor but has that mentality changed?

The line between thrifting enthusiast and crazy hoarder is razor thin. Which side do you fall on? Care to share your story of finding a $50 stand mixer? An ugly designer coat for a fraction of its price?

My best purchases:

- About half of my comic collection has been thrifted. About 50+ graphic novels ($3-5) and maybe 100 single issues ($1.25).
- About 50 xbox 360 / One games ($5)
- several pairs of designer jeans ($10-20, but I'll usually wait for a sale. Just bought 3 for $8 at 50% off)
- kitchen stuff. Especially anything plastic, <$20 or a unitasker. There are infinite measuring cups, graters, cast iron pans, ramekins, muffin trays, george foremans, which they toss in randomized bags for $2.
- Board games. Maybe 40 or so. All for ~$3-8 and only a couple of them were missing pieces. Many were new in box.
- ties and belts. Especially if you need a weird colour or style for a wedding, etc.
- New Sorels for the lady friend ($40), don't tell her i thrifted them plz.
- tub of random lego that turned out to have 5-8 full sets inside. ($20)
- holiday cards. I'm buying a bag of 50 for $3, not paying $2 each, grandma.

My worst purchases

- archie comics. ($.5-1) Probably bought 20 or so for cheap that I thought I'd want to pass on to neices. After reading a couple holy crap they're garbage and my neices don't need the brainwashing.
- A slightly dirty alto saxophone with no mouth piece ($80). Will probably cost me another $100 to refurbish, if I ever get around to it.
- things I owned during childhood. Rebought an exact copy of my favourite stuffed animal as a baby. Bought a giant plush Yoshi. Random Mario figurines. Probably $100 in cute knickknacks that are collecting dust.
- comics I knew I didn't really want to read but had cool covers. I think I may have intended to frame some of them? I dunno. So dumb.
- sweatpants. Thought about them for too long and was too grossed out to put them on.

When I lived in Vegas, the Goodwill chains had some amazing deals, especially in the nicer areas of town near Summerlin, Desert Shores, Southern Highlands, and some of the ones in Centennial Hills. I did retail arbitrage as a hobby for about a year to pad the bankroll for poker.

Things that I found that had the highest resell value were:

-Bowling Balls: For the most part, were largely under priced. On Facebook groups and Apps I was able to make 5-10x returns in most cases on good conditioned equipment that hasn't been discontinued for that long.
-Golf Clubs: See Above
-Cleats: Metal bottomed cleats, especially in kids/youth sizes resell for a very high value.
-Designer Clothing: In the better neighborhoods, there was a ton of used Burberry, Versace, designer women's clothing and accessories. I believe my biggest score was a small authentic Burberry clutch purse in perfect condition that I bought for $30 and resold the same day for $220.
-Office Furniture: Mainly leather office chairs.
-Designer Mens Ties & Suit Jackets: not as high ROI as the women's clothing, but I was able to find some great suit jackets that I still personally have and occasionally a high end designer sport coat here and there.
-Authentic Retro Style "Members Only" jackets: I found a mint condition Newport Cigarettes Nylon pullover jacket that I bought for 7.99 and it resold on ebay for $100+. Elks Lodge/Masons Lodge, private golf/country club jackets and time period specific pieces such as Casino swag from the 70s-80s goes for a ton on the re-seller market.
Old Toys: Culture/Ethnic specific stuff like those stackable Russian Dolls works really well

The quality of these Goodwills/Thrift Stores are going to be very region specific. Retail/Thrift Store arbitrage was a fun hobby for awhile. A lot of times I found myself holding onto unsellable garbage and/or taking <$10 profit on dozens of items before finding the white whale of finds.

I'm not sure if it's still a trend, or allowed, but selling "haunted mystery boxes" was a big thing on ebay. People would stuff $10-20 worth of items from a Goodwill in a box with some phony story in the description about how the contents may be "haunted" or have some type of spirit attached. Depending on the size of the box, they would go for $50-300 on eBay.

Not religiously, but I do stop in periodically when I'm on the road and have down time. I usually look at the bin of golf clubs (99.9996% of which are junk), housewares and clothing. Haven't scored anything notable of late, mostly because I go in with a mindset that I don't need more stuff.

We donate stuff to Habitat for Humanity and Goodwill, if that counts?

I’ve also recently been into one of those huge thrift shops for the first time in my life and wouldn’t rule out buying toys or something like that in a place like that in the future. I like the thought of only paying a couple bucks for something the kid plays with a maximum of 3 times before losing interest. Especially since with all the new stuff that he doesn’t care about, I am hesitant to immediately donate it because of the money spent. I guess we could buy some toys there and next time we go we get some new stuff and donate the old items?

My sister loves to shop for second hand stuff...me not so much, until a couple of weeks ago. I went with her to Goodwill and got the most amazing vintage leather jacket, in my exact size, with the tags still on it. Pretty sure it was the highest priced article of clothing in the store and I got it for $30!

It is so effing cool, I can't stand it. Quality is amazing and seems to be vintage 70's.

I once found a fine arts painting by Ray Strong at Goodwill, but had to sell it to an art dealer as I needed the cash.

I don't shop at thrift stores but I do enjoy Marshall's, TJ Maxx, and Ross. I also go to Nordstrom Rack occasionally but that place is a step up price-wise. I want $100 pants for $20, not $300 pants for $100.

I also sometimes go to this place in the LA area called The Outlet by ELS. They buy stuff that Costco either doesn't sell to the consumer or has been returned but is still salable. It reminds me of two places back in Massachusetts from my youth: Building 19 and Spags.

Professional resellers and ebayers have been around for atleast 15 years. I know a woman that's been turning over a million dollar's worth annually for at least that long.

Other things she always looked out for:

- tartans and kilts sold as cheap skirts
- anything harley davidson
- silver

I'm more of an estate/yard sale, swap meet, auction kind of guy myself. Some stuff I buy to flip, some to keep. You want to find sales outside of the city. They have less competition and better prices.

My girlfriend found a dress worth $300 for $7 at a thrift store a few weeks ago. They can be a great place to get clothes for the gym, doing housework, etc.

+1 warehouse stores are great too

Thrift shop goods are for people who can't afford new items IMO.

When I shop there, I'm taking the only things they are able to afford. I'm more likely to donate than buy.

Some of the money paid for items sometimes go to the less well off.

Message me if you ever come to the KC area, you can go shopping with my wife. Every time we go to the outlet mall, all the way in end when I am ready to go home, she asks if we can go into TJ Maxx “real quick” which means I will end up for 30+ minutes on that bench next to the exit with some other sad guys who just want to leave.

Pawn shops for last gen video games.

Ross to dress for less.

There's also discount grocers were you can great deals: loaded up on crescents for .50, bread there is $1, cereal is half the price, etc.

I haven't seen any attitude change about shopping at thrift shops. People have always gone to these types of shops to get deals.

Broke Millenials and "hipster" culture had brought back a resurgence of Thrift/Second hand stores. Some say it's trendy, but the average millennial can't afford to shop medium-high retail for clothes.

There's a pretty large thrift store near my house that my gf loves to spends hours in sifting through the clothes. I go whenever I'm looking for new kitchen stuff or need a specific tool I don't already have.

It was a great place for stuffed animals when my dog was alive. I could get them for a quarter or dime instead of $5+ at pet or grocery store. She was soooo spoiled. Any time we walked into the house with a grocery bag she got so excited and started sticking her head into all the bags trying to find the one that had her present in it. I would buy 10 at a time at the thrift store and keep them in the trunk of my car so I could toss one into a grocery bag for her when I went to the store. Damn I miss that dog.

They choose not to be able to afford it.

Friend of mine runs an incubator for fin tech startups. One app has beta users take a picture of every single receipt they get to track everyday spending. That “hundreds of dollars a month for lattes and avocado toast” thing is pretty close to reality, especially if you include things like WholeFoods deli.

Yes, hipsters have invented everything, .

I've gotten the impression this kind of shopping carries two stigmas we should get rid of:

1. That re-using something is somehow unhygienic or for the poors.
2. That the poors "need" these items and we were somehow taking them from them.

The former is obviously lol. Where you buy your quality item doesn't reduce its quality.

The latter is easy to research and prove wrong. Talk to owners. These stores have an unbelievable amount of throughput. Millions of items and that still represents just a tiny fraction of the clothes, toys and housewares that end up in landfills. Ask about the programs they support. Ask if they have a maximum donation amount or if every dollar you spend sends a few pennies their way.

Church affiliated shops like the Salvation Army are very generous with clothing vouchers. You're not taking jackets away from poor people.

I, too, prefer estate sales, yard sales, and auctions. I don’t buy generic stuff. I like to buy bizarre/unique items either to keep or to sell on eBay. And I’ll only buy if I can make a very decent profit. Two recent big ones:

Bought a large brass sprinkler prototype from the 1940s for $50. Appraised for $8,000.

Bought a signed and numbered lithograph from a well-known artist for $100. Appraised for $3,000.

So I guess I’m more of a unique treasure hunter at these types of places than someone who buys bulk.

Ebay fees and my experience with hoarders make me loathe to try to resell seriously these days. My best find a decade ago was a Nippon plate I bought for $20, posted for $100 and sold for $3000 ish.

Pretty much all of my glassware is from thrift stores/antique shops. Many of my books too. There's a big one near me that I check out occasionally but I rarely buy anything that I'm not specifically looking for.

While very true, the majority of Millennials are underemployed in an economy where the inflation rate has risen 16% in 10 years while the average millennial salary is $36.8K, about $680/week. Millennials spend way more than they should on a whole, but they are also making way less money for their level of education than at any point in american history. Millennials make up the largest chunk of the "working poor" while working the most hours as a whole. In order to appear as a normal member of society with their **** together, the cost cutting usually comes in avenues like thrift shopping, cord-cutting cable to stream it, grocery shopping at dollar stores, and spending their remaining money on getting drunk with friends at happy hour or buying a coffee on the way to their underpaying job to escape the reality of their situation.

Sorry for the Economic derail, but the average person has way more "living expenses" than they did years ago. And I'm sorry, but a cell phone w/ internet connection is an absolute necessity, especially if you're working yourself up the ladder career wise.

I read my post about 10 times for the word "invented".... no match.

Call it poetic license on my part. Let me try again with your entire post.
There is no resurgence. There is only millennials and hipsters thinking that they are doing something new and interesting.