First of all: What is Thrifting?
Thrifting to me means shopping for clothes, furniture, accessories etc at locations like thrift stores, charity stores, vintage markets, or really anywhere where second-hand goodies can be found at usually much better prices! Not to fear if you prefer new things, they often have the tags still on them!
Why should you move to thrifting?
1 – The first and very important reason is that its way better for the environment! Billions of clothes are put into landfills or shipped to places like Africa every year so if we can circumvent buying clothes new and rather look for our clothes from what’s already freely available!
2 – You are typically supporting charities when you shop at Charity Shops and Thrift Stores! This is a really great way to make sure your money is making its way to people that need it the most! If you buy from large brands rather, you’re just giving your money to the CEO of the company who won’t even pay their garment workers liveable salaries .
3 – Arguably the best reason of all; Its wayyyy cheaper! If you think about buying new, a garment will cost upwards of £20/$20 for one item! That’s like 4/5 items at the thrift store! Not to mention, the quality of the clothing is way better at the Thrift store!
4 – Last but not least, its such a thrill getting vintage things for a fraction of the price! I absolutely the thrill of the chase, when you find something, you’ve been dying to get your hands on and its only £5! Its indescribable!
Onto the Thrifting Tips!
1 – Find your thrift stores!
The best place to start if you have no idea where your thrift stores are in your area is to go onto google maps and simply search “Charity Shops” if you’re in the UK or “Thrift Stores” If you’re from America! The results will come up with a bunch of places you can start with and more often than not there are extra charity shops sprinkled around town that you might not have noticed!
2 – Make a Plan!
It’s so important to have a plan in place before you step into the Thrift stores. The biggest mistake people make is feel overwhelmed by the number of things in the thrift stores. If you have a plan, you can ignore the thrift store as a whole and search for what you want. Your plan can be as simple as keeping in mind that you are looking for red socks or it can be more detailed like a list of things you’d like to find. As long as you know what you’re looking for, chances are you’ll find it!
3 – Be mindful of the time.
If you’re anything like me, you can probably spend hours at the thrift store easily! But if you have places to go and things to do, this can problems. If you’re guilty of being “time-blind” once you enter the stores maybe its time you timed yourself or gave yourself a time frame for each store so that you can hit them all but not waste your entire day!
4 – Remember that you don’t “need” everything that you like the look of.
There should be more of a thought process when you decide to purchase something from a thrift store. For me, I like to think like this; Could I style it easily with what I have at home? Would I be comfortable wearing it like it is? If it needs to be altered, am I able to do it? And the most important question to ask yourself is will I actually wear it? If it won’t be loved and cherished in your wardrobe, then why would you need it?
5 – Don’t be intimidated.
While there may be dozens and dozens of racks of clothes and walls of jewellery etc. don’t get intimidated. Just get stuck in! If you are someone who goes to the thrift store and has a look around and wonders why they can never find anything good, there’s a reason for that! Looking at the clothes is too passive, when you look through every item individually, you’ll be able to find much more as I find the good stuff is always hidden away almost acting like a prize when you finally find it!
6 – Be aware of the different brands out there.
Thrift stores and charity shops have started clocking on to where there is demand for certain brands and they intentionally mark the prices higher so be aware that if you are searching for a well-known brand you may have to shell out more! With that being said, there are always deals to be made and half of the time the shops don’t know about all of the brands you might be after. This is why it’s so important to do some brand research so that you’ll know when you’ve struck a bargain!
7 – Last but not least, make sure when you buy something, it fits!
I know not every thrift/charity shop will have changing rooms but if they do, I recommend you try on what you’re looking to buy. Otherwise, you might be stuck with something that had a lot of potential but didn’t quite work out! If there are no changing rooms, I have discovered some tips that help me! If you’re looking at trousers or skirts and you’re not sure if it’ll fit, wrap it around your neck and if it can’t get the whole way round your neck its too small and if you can easily fit it around your neck with excess then it’s too big! This will work with items that are meant to fit around your waist. I learned this trick ages ago and it’s always helped me weed through items to find ones that will fit!