I had to add to the suggestions on thrift store shopping because it’s basically how I’ve clothed myself for the last six years.
1. Contrary to the folks who commented below, I don’t thrift in town if I can help it. I travel to the smaller towns in the region, avoid Goodwill and Salvation Army, and hit up the little church thrifts in Nowhere, Indiana.
One major reason I skip town that the tiny towns may not have excellent quality clothing, but they have a ton of clothes and sell them cheap. A thrift store not too far from here offers $2 a bag sales in which the little church ladies force you to fill your industrial-sized garbage bag of clothing before you leave. Another reason is that if you’re like me and don’t mind mending and spot cleaning, you can find some funky clothes that would otherwise be snapped up by hip-minded college-aged students with an eye for vintage t-shirts. I’ve never found anything designer at a thrift store, but then again I haven’t looked.
2. Know your size. Don’t just know the number, but be able to eyeball what will fit and what won’t. I know certain styles, shapes, and fabrics will work with my body and others won’t. I can pretty much look at a piece of clothing and know whether or not it will fit me. My safe bets, being pretty curvy and of average height, include all things polyester, A-line skirts (preferably polyester), sweaters, and cardigans. I’m not so much worried about what brand label it is so much as it looks wearable, feels machine washable and I like it. After all, I’m getting an enormous amount of clothes for quite literally a few dollars.
3. Go ahead and try it on — over your clothes. My friend taught me how to try on clothing in a thrift store by wearing things in that easily come on and off in the aisle under your potential buys. Nobody cares, I’ve gathered, and neither do I since I’m out of town.
3a. I don’t buy pants or jeans at thrift stores. Not only do I hate buying pants, but it’s hard to try on pants and/or jeans over my own jeans, and I’m really not into unwittingly tucking my skirt into my underwear and walking around in public.
4. Don’t go in with a particular item in mind. Think more openly about, for example, what season of clothes you’re looking for, or specifically what you aren’t looking for. Like Genni says, there are always more clothes. Buy what you’ll actually use.
Thrift store shopping provides the great majority of my wardrobe — the only things I spend a good amount of money on are pants and shoes, although I have quite a few pairs of thrift store shoes in my arsenal as well. Purchasing a good pair of pants for work is a good investment if you’re an office monkey, because a black or brown pair can be worn with nearly any crazy shirt you pick up at the thrift store and be made to look professional. I have one pair of black pants, one pair of brown pants, and a pair of purple pants (thrifted, in spite of myself). This is all I need for work with my collection of thrifted tops.
Shoes, too, are a good investment, primarily because you have to care for your feet lest you end up with hooves like mine. If you work on your feet, I highly recommend saving up for some Danskos. I know a nurse or two who spend upwards of ten hours a day on their feet that swear these clogs have saved their knees and backs.
There is a new consignment store for women next to Once Upon a Child. Check it out.
You’re also a lot more likely to get great furniture at small-town thrift stores, and cool stuff for decorating. Recently, I got an old 45 record called “How to be Lovlier” that was put out by a cosmetics company in the 60s and apparently was used in a local high school’s home economics class. That same day, I got a family photo album from the 40s that I’ll use for collaging, and a set of tea set for reading tea leaves from the 70s. All for around $5.
Oh do I love the thrift source. I think this started when I helped my grandma tag and bag in her church-basement thrift shop and she would sometimes recognize an item and tell me stories about its former owner. That, and the aforementioned sack-for-a-dollar.
.
Global perspective: in West Africa (and I’m sure other places but I can only speak from experience) there are acres of used-clothing markets, where rich-country castoffs are baled up and sold by the pound.
3a. I don’t buy pants or jeans at thrift stores. Not only do I hate buying pants, but it’s hard to try on pants and/or jeans over my own jeans,
A trick I picked up some years ago that might help with this. Do up the buttons/zippers, and wrap the waistband of the pants around your neck. Yes, like a cape. You’ll get some odd looks, but the fit around your neck very closely approximates the fit around your waist. I was skeptical at first, but it’s saved me many a trip to the dressing room with items that were never going to fit me.
I agree with Brenda about wrapping the waistband of the pants around the neck. I swear by it and even my teenage boys do it when we have a quick run for pants!