Thrifting thru Connecticut

Two weeks ago, I took a little vacation with the family and thrifted our way across western and central Connecticut.

Monday 4/21

Savers Brookfield – “Sticker shock” immediately comes to mind. I’ve been thrifting around upstate New York for over a decade now. The prices in CT by comparison are on the high end of things. For example they had some higher end used jeans in the $19.99 and $24.99 range. I’m used to paying $7.99 tops.  After I came to terms with their prices, things went well.  It’s a pretty large location. Well organized and super clean. Got several items and was able to find a few good deals.

Goodwill Brookfield – Similar to Savers in Brookfield, a bit on the pricey side. Much smaller location, but jammed to the gills with merchandise. They had lots of housewares and womens clothing. Not much for mens or childrens clothing. One of the only locations we visited all week that had any musical instruments.

Salvation Army Danbury – My favorite location of the day. They didn’t have as much high end merchandise as Brookfield stores, but what they lacked; they made up for it in volume. Two stories of thrifting gold. First floor packed full of mens, womens and childrens clothing. Variety of newer and vintage items. Upstairs had tons of furniture. I like how they had several living space setups; coffee table, end table, lamps and couch with decorated with other accessories. Similar as if you walked into Raymour and Flanigan. The entire store was very reasonably priced. I will definitely visit again next time I’m in the area.

Goodwill Danbury – I wouldn’t call this location a thrift store, maybe a re-seller of unsold Target merchandise. Very small location, little to no furniture. I got the kids some Target blowouts and that was about it. If I was in the area again, I would probably skip it over.

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Thrifting Tips

After reading several other blogs, I decided to write several tips I didn’t really see out there and review a few of my favorite tips.

1) Coupons – In  my area, The Salvation Army publishes coupons in various places; back of receipts at the local supermarket, weekly junk mail circular, pennysaver. I use these in conjunction with their “family day” half-off day.

My last shopping trip, I spend $22, but I saved $35. All the items were half off plus additional amount off for the coupon. Sometimes I break up my transaction to use multiple coupons, but be courteous of everyone else in line (I’ll talk more about this in bit).

The Rescue Mission in my area honors the Salvation Army coupons. The Goodwill in my area does not. So check with your local thrift shop and see if they honor their competitors coupons.

2) Scour the racks – Maybe this come from “crate digging” ( looking for vinyl records) for so many years and seeking out that hidden gem. Go through every piece on the rack. Leave no hanger unturned. Stores are constantly adding pieces and customers are constantly moving items around.  This holds true for most thrift stores in urban areas, due to the large amount of foot traffic.
People hide items all of the time at thrift stores. Sometimes they don’t have the money but more likely, they are waiting for the item to go on sale. They hide items and come back when they are.
The employees at bigger chain thrift stores (Goodwill, Salvation Army, Rescue Mission) constantly mix-up the gender of clothing and tag them incorrectly. Which is understandable, They are sorting and tagging hundreds of items of clothing every week.
The most popular mix-up is jeans. When I go to any thrift store in my area, there are rarely any mens jeans. I started double checking the womens jeans section and there are tons of mens jeans mixed in, incorrectly tagged.
Another popular error I’ve been finding, is smaller womens t-shirts (like youth mediums and youth larges) mixed in with the childrens clothing.  Which works out great, cause they charge less for childrens tops.

Example: At my local Salvation Army, which I frequent regularly, I was skimming the racks, because I was there the day before. I hadn’t expected too much to change. Something in the back of my mind told me to dig. Glad I did, found 20+ killer vintage men pieces that someone had apparently just donated. I went back everyday for week and they kept bringing more out from the same collection. Had I continued skimming, I probably would have missed that stuff and all the items I got over the next few days.

You never know what you are going to find in the wrong section. So dig deep! It will pay off.