What's Wrong With This Picture?

As with a lot of like-minded people, I LOVE thrift stores.  Or rather, I should say "loved."  I have been noticing a disturbing trend for a few years now. That being, that they are really getting mighty proud of their wares.  It's a THRIFT STORE, OK? But the prices are getting very, very, retail.

Yesterday, I stopped by my local store while running errands, since I was in the vicinity anyway.  With gas prices being what it is, I don't go anymore just for the pleasure of it.  It now has to be an afterthought if I'm driving around doing other things.  Anyhow, I stopped by, and noticed they had received a large shipment of candles. My guess is that the donation was from a business because they had a TON of these candles.

These candles were FREE, meaning Goodwill did not pay to get them.  The whole idea of a thrift store is for the store to take donated items and make some money for community outreach programs by selling them at steep discounts to consumers who are in need to save some money due to the economy or their current financial situation. But the marked price of the candles? Give me a break!  A tall scented candle in a glass jar was marked $7.99.  A jar half the height was $3.99.  I can buy them cheaper at Walmart or on sale at any store at the mall if I hit the right sales.  This is absolutely borderline insanity here! It's a THRIFT STORE! HELLOooooooooooooo?

OK, perhaps they are trying to make more money with the economy being what it is, and them needing to service more "customers" for their charitable programs.  But I think in reality, they are hurting their cause by jacking up the prices to retail levels like they have been doing.  Obviously, they don't know the first thing about how the economy works. It's like increasing taxes in anticipation of collecting more in tax revenues. In reality, when taxes are raised, revenue decreases. I just read an article the other day about a state here in the US which raised income taxes on the "rich" thinking they would get an additional $100 million in revenue.  But guess what? Tax revenue actually decreased by about $120 million because those "rich" people they were counting on either left the state altogether, or had second homes in other more tax friendly states where they could claim domicile.  Lesson: Don't count your chickens before they hatch.

My point is, we're not stupid.  I have a flinch point when shopping at thrift stores.  If the price is the same as retail, then I'm going to buy retail because the selections are much better.  Honestly, I think the management at these thrift stores need to wake up and smell the roses.  Because you know what? They are going to lose customers really quick if they keep this up. And who really loses? It's those people the charitable thrifts are trying to help.

My Louis Vuitton "Habit"

I had to go to the sporting goods store today to get my husband some new ear plugs for his swim workout.  As long as I was there, I might as well pop into the Goodwill thrift store nearby!  I found a Martha Stewart book for 99 cents and was checking out, when I noticed three mint looking Louis Vuitton bags behind the counter.  I asked to see them, and while I was convinced that they were the genuine article, I passed them by.

Why, you ask? Well, for one thing, my pet peeve recently has been that thrift stores in general are getting awfully proud of thier merchandise.  Yes, I realize it's for charity and a good cause, but recent pricing is bordering on retail levels.  For crying out loud, all the items were FREE!  Hellooooooooooo???

The bags were $39.99, $79.99 and $99.99 respectively.  For a split second, I toyed with the idea of buying one of them and putting it up on eBay, but what if it's a big flop?  The cheapest bag was in the best shape, but I was somewhat amazed at how cheaply made they all seemed to me. I just did not want to take the chance that I would have wasted the money. So I left the bags at the store.

You might say, if they looked cheap, surely it was a knock off? I'm convinced they were not, because all the purses had the LV logo on all of the hardware and "Louis Vuitton, made in France" leather label inside.  One of them even had a serial number on it.  My theory is that if it was a knock off, the manufacturer would not go through all that trouble.  It just is not worth the investment for them to do all that if they were just trying to make a quick buck.

Back in the day, when I was much, much younger, I desperately wanted one (or two or more) of these bags.  But even in my insane youth, I was not crazy enough to spend a king's ransom for one lousy bag.  So I never got one, until I purchased the three in the photo.  This is the extent of my Louis Vuitton "habit."

The largest one was purchased at a garage sale for a whopping $3.00.  Compared to the ones I saw today at Goodwill, this one was made when Louis Vuitton was synonymous with quality.  The leather handles have a rich patina from use by the previous owner, and I get a big kick every time I use it, which is not often.  But, I know I have the satisfaction of other people noticing that I own one, and the secret satisfaction of knowing how much it actually cost.  Hey, it cost less than coffee from Starbucks!

The white one was purchased about 3 years ago at Goodwill for around $3.00.  Funny thing is, it was in the "valuable goods" case at the store, but the price was not so valuable.  I purchased it not to use, but to eventually gift it to one of my husband's nieces when they are old enough.  Same for the other brown bag wich was about $1.50, no kidding! I purchased it last year at my local Goodwill.  I have not yet decided if I will gift it, but I'm probably going to use it as a make up bag when my current one falls apart, because it is just the right size for that.

Now, I have no clue how much these things retail for.  I thought, at most, $100?  I have a high school friend in Japan who has the Louis Vuitton account for a market research firm in Tokyo.  When I posted a photo of the two smaller bags on my Facebook account and wondered how much they were if new, she told me quite a bit.  She mentioned that an iPod case was going for over $300!  Insanity, I tell you!  I'm sure glad my "habit" cost less than lunch at McDonalds!

Do you have a "habit"?

If It's Not NEW, It's EWWW!

For other people, perhaps, but not me. (A shout out to the Thrifty Chicks blog, where I lifted the above phrase.)  I've been loving to thrift shop ever since I discovered them.  My only regret was not discovering them earlier than I did.  I shudder to think about how much money I wasted shopping retail in my youth.  By the time my first son was born, I wised up.  Most of his baby clothes and through his toddler years to about five were all purchaed at thrift stores.  Beyond that, boys are so tough on clothes, especially pants, that I had to resort to retail sales items.  But I figure I saved a small fortune regardless.

But most mothers are not like me.  They want the best for their progeny, and will spare no funds.  If it's not new, it's ewww!  Seriously.  Even my late mother-in-law, God rest her soul, looked upon me with disapproval when we let it slip that her grandsons were dressed in second hand clothes from the thrift stores.  You see, she was a product of the Depression Era and lived through some hard times in her youth.  It did not matter that her father was one of the very few who never got laid off because he was a deputy sheriff and a big wig in the small town where she grew up.  Anything that was previously used, to her, was garbage. 

In her mind, even true, honest to goodness antique furniture that a well-to-do person would willingly pay thousands, if not tens of thousands for at auction at Christie's or Sotheby's was rubbish.  So she just never understood why we would pay several hundred dollars to buy a piece of antique furniture, because it was somebody's cast off any way she looked at it, regardless of the fine craftsmanship you just cannot get in brand new furniture.  When we told her it was part investment, since we knew when time came for us to sell the antique, we could probably recoup the purchase cost, she just shook her head as if she thought we were crazy.  She was content to buy a cheaply made set of furniture from Sam's Club that was "Made in China."

On a grander scale, this was the case in McAllen, Texas, in the Rio Grande Valley where my younger son was born and where we lived for two years.  Now, this is a part of Texas that is very poor and where there is a very high percentage of people living in the lowest of low socio-economic level.  Yet, there was a building boom the whole time we lived there, and from what I understand, nothing has changed in the 15 or so years since we lived there.  In McAllen and the nearby suburbs, big, brand new single story houses with soaring ceilings were all the rage.  And the operative word was "NEW."  The market was so strange in that previously occupied houses had a hard time selling compared to new construction. People wanted houses that no hands had touched except those of the workmen that built it. 

The weirdest part of the whole equation was that McAllen and the entire Rio Grande Valley had no major industry except for citrus and other agriculture, but nothing you could get really rich off of.  That is, except for the underground "industry" of dope smuggling across the Mexico border.  McAllen just did not have enough jobs to justify all of the nonstop construction.  So did that mean that the neighbor next door was involved in the "industry" somehow?  I never found out.  Rumor had it that a high school in Starr County near McAllen received an anonymous cash donation to build a school gymnasium upon the condition that it had to be built in the shape of a marijuana leaf, and it was.  But I digress.

The point I was trying to make is that "used" is not a bad thing. Not at all.  In fact, even my mother-in-law knew that, though she didn't realize it.  She left her diamond rings to her granddaughters in her will.  If "used" was truly that bad, she wouldn't have, right? 

; )

Cheap Chic

Many moons ago, when I was either in high school or college, there was a bestselling book on fashion titled Cheap Chic in the U.S. Lately, I've been thinking about what I remember from the book (it was a LOOOONG time ago), and I wish I had paid more attention to it than I did back then.  The book was about how one could dress fashionably even if you didn't have a lot of money, and interspersed throughout the book were bios of real life young women and how they shopped and dressed on a  limited budget.  The book promoted shopping in thrift stores as a way to combat the high cost of fashion at a time when, I realize now, people who were not "poor" never ventured into such stores to shop.  I know the concept was new to me. Heck, I've never even heard of it until the book came along!  I also remember myself feeling somewhat superior to a high school classmate who I ran into at a mutual friend's party after we had all graduated from college, when she mentioned how she regularly shopped at Goodwill so she could save money. Oh the horror! The truth is, she was waaaay smarter than me. I was downright STUPID.

Back in the day, I thought nothing of buying 10 ( ! ) pairs of shoes on one shopping trip. But that person no longer exists. . . I don't remember buying any "retail" new item of clothing for a minimum of 5-6 years.  I've shopped at thrift stores and garage sales for at least 20 years now.  The other week, a neighbor gave me the opportunity to look through some discarded clothes from someone she knew before she took them over to the women's shelter. I gladly took what fit me. New clothes from heaven! So what changed?

I think when one settles down and start a family, and you are no longer responsible just for yourself, one's priorities takes a big hit of reality check.  I know mine did.  Especially so after the birth of our first son.  We went from two paychecks to one paycheck in addition to the added burden of moving to a city with a higher cost of living (San Diego).  Something had to give, and that was paying full price for things.  If we could find it used, we did. If it was free, that was even better. And if we could do without, then we went without.

That doesn't mean we will never pay retail.  Another important concept I remember from Cheap Chic was the idea of "Price Per Use."  This is where that cute outfit you absolutely had to have because "it was on sale and so damn cheap" ends up costing you more in the long run if you end up wearing it once or twice or not at all, than the expensive, top-of-the-line item because if you divide the purchase price by the number of times you use it, the expensive item comes out cheaper than the throwaway item.  For example, if you purchased a classic blazer for the ungodly price of $500.00, but you wore that at least once a week for 5 years, then your price per use would be less than $1.92. But if you bought an outfit for $15.00 but only wore it once or none at all, your price per use is $15.00!  I'm not trying to rationalize here, I don't think I can fork over $500.00 for one item of clothing, but you get the idea.  Just because an item is expensive should not deter one from purchasing it if you absolutely know that it will be used over and over, and you can afford to buy it without putting it on credit.

I guess what I'm trying to say here is that if you can't find what you need used, you don't necessarily have to dismiss buying it retail. But if you can't, or if the used item will end up costing you more to use it, as the case may be with old electric appliances, then you might consider buying it new (but preferably on sale).  Cheap Chic is all about being smart with your hard earned money. 

Coeur a la Creme

We're not big into celebrating Valentine's Day, but here's the coeur a la creme I made for my husband and my two sons that we had after dinner. I found the porcelain mold at the thrift store some time back for 99 cents. Quite a bargain compared to what the large molds go for in stores like Williams Sonoma or Sur La Table, which is around 35 dollars. I've been wanting to make this for some years, but was too cheap to fork over the full retail price! BTW, it was divine with the raspberry sauce I made. Oh, and the glass serving platter was another find, but I forgot how much I paid for that, probably a couple of bucks.

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Frugal Bathroom

This is our hall bathroom, meaning it is the one used by guests and our family when we are hanging out in the family room. It was totally gutted when we purchased the house. Although a renovation is not exactly a frugal proposition, I tried to furnish it as frugally as possible.

The only items purchased new were the black photo frame and the iron scroll over the window. Actually, they are both something purchased some time ago unrelated to the renovation. I had purchased the scroll when we lived in our former home, and it ended up as a window treatment here as it was the perfect size to fit over the window.  I felt that a curtain would have looked busy over such a small window.  I like to think of it as a quasi French prison/tower room look.  The magazine rack/toilet paper holder was a whopping $1.99 at the thrift store. I plan on spray painting it with a hammered finish paint when I get around to it.

The armoire was purchased used on Craigslist for $120. It holds all our towels and bulk toiletry supplies. The eagle mirror was a $4.99 find from about a week ago at a thrift store, as was the large full length mirror that was $25. It used to be a dresser mirror orphaned from the dresser. It was made by Thomasville, so if I were to purchase it new, I guesstimate it would cost me at least $400 or so.

Although you can't see it very well, there is a china cabinet opposite the commode also purchased on Craigslist for $200 together with a buffet that I turned into the sink vanity (I'll post a photo at some later date). When the weather gets a little bit warmer for me to work in the garage, I plan on painting the china cabinet to recreate a look I saw in a decorating magazine.  The painted cabinet in the magazine cost around $7,500.

Overall, not bad considering you could spend $50+ on a toilet paper holder alone. . .

BTW, this is what this bathroom used to look like when we purchased the house.  WHAT WERE THEY THINKING???

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Thrift Store Find

A bit hypocritical following my post on "Wants -v- Needs" the other day, but I found this mirror at the thrift store and could not pass it up. This is a federal style reproduction mirror with the requisite convex mirror. I believe this particular one was manufactured around the 60's or 70's. Even close up, it appears to be made of wood, but is actually some type of composite plastic. It is a very traditional design with 13 balls surrounding the mirror representing the original 13 colonies with an American eagle on top.

I've been wanting one of these for a long time, but true antiques run in the hundreds of thousands of dollars, and a quick search on the Internet resulted in a RENTAL mirror of the same design going for $70 per month! This baby cost me $4.99! It's not an original antique, for sure, but good enough for me. For the time being, it resides in our bathroom until we get around to refacing our fireplace in the family room. Thereafter, I plan on hanging it over the fireplace.

My late father used to tease me that I had champagne taste on a beer budget, but this is the case of champagne looks on a beer budget, don't you think?

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$199 -v- $10 Rice Cooker(s)

Last year about this time, my rice cooker died a sudden death.  One day it was working, the next day, not. I've heard Alton Brown on the Food Network repeat his mantra over and over that a "single purpose appliance is not a good investment."  Well, I beg to differ.  You have to understand where I'm coming from, literally.  I grew up in Japan and rice is my manna. If I don't have at least one serving a day, my inner peace gets out of whack. So this "single purpose appliance" is an absolute necessity for me.  Yes, I know you can do it the old school way and cook it in a pot on top of the stove, but it is a hit or miss proposition because you have to hover over the stove so you don't burn it. A rice cooker is like a coffee maker. . .you put in the water and coffee (or rice), and voila! It is done to perfection! Besides, I never heard Alton ever suggesting that a coffee maker is a "single purpose appliance" and therefore one should not own one! What gives, Alton?? But I digress. . .

What to do?  I went to Walmart, and was not impressed with my choices. The offerings were too small or too chintzy.  I scoured the thrift stores, but I did not see any.  Out of sheer desperation, I went by a Williams Sonoma to see what they had.  Oh, they had one all right, for $199! Um, I don't think so. It looked like this:

Months went by without finding one in thrift stores.  But I was determined not to pay retail. I figured it will eventually turn up somewhere, donated by someone not impressed by the "single purpose appliance." When I had all but given up, I went to a local thrift store I usually don't frequent, because it is too disorganized and "junky" even for a thrift store aficionado like me.  I wasn't looking for anything in particular, and was about to leave the establishment, when, out of the corner of my eye, I spotted something that didn't quite belong. . . My rice cooker! Its pink flowered exterior was not my style, but hey, all I care about is whether it will cook rice.  I went up to the counter to ask if I could plug it in to see if it worked. It did! $4.00 later, it was mine.  It now resides in my kitchen. 

Shortly thereafter, I came across another rice cooker in a different store for $6.00.  Although I thought it was excessive, I purchased that too.  It is wrapped in plastic and is quietly awaiting its turn in case the other one dies. I don't ever want to be without a rice cooker again. . . So, for a total outlay of $10.00, I'm set for a long, long time.  Sure beats spending $199!

Thrift Store Score!

I LOVE thrift stores. I've been shopping them for about 18 years now.  I hate paying retail and I love to find deals.  One person's trash is another's treasure. How true! I went to my local store today and hit jackpot! (Well, at least I think so.) I've been on the hunt for a pair of cowboy-ish boots, and there it was. A black, almost mint pair.  I tried it on and it was just ever-so-slightly large, which was exactly perfect for my purposes, because the reason I was looking for a pair was due to the fact that I could wear the pair I currently own only if I wore nylons.  Who wants to wear nylons?  I wanted to wear socks in my boots.  The price: $14.99.  Hello, beautiful! You're mine. I then looked inside just out of curiosity to see who made it.  It said "Cole Haan."  As far as I could discern, a new pair would set you back upwards of $250.  Woo hoo!