How the hunt started

As I have mentioned before, I love saving myself money on anything I can. The reality is that with economy now at days, who doesn´t? Though I love garage sales, online auctions, and classifieds, my favorite thing came when I discovered Thrift shops. I have only been in California for almost 5 years, and I discovered a nice thrift shop half a block from my home. Not only did it became very entertaining, but it became a way for me to exercise since I was walking around in circles for many hours. I have always loved dolls and since I took care of most of my childhood dolls, I think they will be decent enough to pass on when I have kids.



That being said, that doesn´t mean that I stopped buying them at all. As an adult, I kept on collecting dolls. I´ve always considered dolls as a work of art, and as many other adults, I too have a nice collection. My collection consisted mostly of those 80´s dolls that I so very much wanted as a kid and never got for whatever reason. Later my collection got diverted towards collectible dolls by themes such as: Holidays, World-cultural, Celebrities, Fashion statements, and any other special occasions. Of course many of you already know what type of doll I am talking about, but since the point of this post is not to talk about that brand, I would just leave the name for a future post.

I love Disney dolls. My favorite are the Animators editions, and Princess & Me.

Anyhow, so I have a very nice and decent collection of dolls here at home, but I also have quite a few dolls back in my home with my mom. I decided that for the moment I have enough dolls and I should entertain myself collecting something else. Since we already had baby on plan for next year, last November I began searching for things I needed for the baby. Either by winning some giveaways, buying through sales and coupons, or Thrift shop hunting. This last one became my favorite so far because it´s like hunting for treasure. Just to put it this way. I´ve gotten things worth $400.00 and paid only $6.00 for it. Of course you have to know what you are hunting for, otherwise you might end up with just more trash for your home or things you truly don´t need. Yes, that has also happened to me. We all have a bit of a compulsive buyer in us. Anyways, I wanted to share every Thursday a fun "Thrifty" find from my adventures at the thrift shop, and today will be the first share. It is not my first buy, as mostly I purchase baby blankets, and clothes. I know some people are a bit paranoid about buying second hand stuff. I can assure you that there are tons of thing with tags still on, some never used, and others used just a couple of times, so it´s not that bad. I know that I have quite a few things in my closets that still have tags on them and that I´ve never worn, and they have been pilling dust for a couple of  years. But I do have them because of emergencies like: You have a last minute guest and needs some clothes. Ready, done!

I am pro reusing, and pro saving. Second hand is not an alien from another wold. Within families relatives are always handing you down something that belonged to an aunt, cousin, uncle, mom, dad or grandparent. So why not pretend the family is just bigger than that circle? And aside of that, you are donating to charity, so two birds with the same stone.

Back to the thrifty baby buying. There are things that are a big no-no on thrift shops. You should never buy baby gear such as playards, cribs, strollers, car seats, and stuff like that. Why? Well, you don´t know if they are damaged, or if they had been recalled at some point. Remember that saving money should not be at your baby´s expense. Though it is fair to think somethings may be in great shape, you truly never know, unfortunately. Another thing that is not recommended to buy is certain bedding and matrices. Because of sanitary issues and bed bugs and blah blah you know where this is going. So for the moment, for me, it has come to buying only clothes, baby blankets, and cloth diapers. Anything that I can throw in the washing machine and disinfect thoroughly. And then I am all set. I have to say that since November that I started until the date, I have spent about as much as $120 dollars on products worth about 10 times as much. So we´ve done pretty good. I am truly impressed at the amount of money we´ve saved by buying baby clothes this way. Many of which had still the tags on, and others which didn´t but looked like never used. It also leaves me with an open mouth thinking: "Oh my! The baby industry is truly a millionaire business!"

My husband and I had already discussed that since babies grow so quickly, it was pointless to spend a lot of money on the clothes. So we are rather saving that "extra" money for things that we want to have for a very long time such as the crib, stroller, and other heavy duty baby gear. We truly want things that we can pass on to our kids, just like they used to do long time ago. Crazy? Na, we just believe that not everything has to be thrown to the trash or recycling bin.

 I love Alice in wonderland. Not my favorite Disney movie, but I love the artwork in this onesie. The one with the kitty, I really don´t know the name or I just don´t remember, I know I´ve seen the cartoon, but it was just long ago. I don´t know if we are going to have a boy or a girl, but we do want to have the pair at some point so they will be used, and if not, there is always someone that would be more than happy to receive them as a gift.

Price: I think originally their cost must have been between $7.00 - $10.00 each. I paid $1.00, so that made me happy. It was a great find.


My question to you is: Do you guys thrift shop? If so, what is your favorite type of find, or what has been the thing that you´ve been most amazed to find? Tell me about it in a comment, I would love to read your responses.

I hope you have enjoyed this post.