Goodwill Hunting

(No, I'm not talking about the movie starring Matt Damon.)

A fellow frugalite who owns a trophy and awards shop made a comment on a previous post about how she finds things she can use at her business at going-out-of-business sales and also at Goodwill. This requires a little thinking outside the box, but is well worth it. She has found multi-shelf TV wall units at Goodwill that she uses as retail displays.

She also likes to quickly browse through Goodwill's clothing aisles, and notes that at many stores, they sell new, name brand "seconds" at a fraction of department store prices. She has also found wicker and woven baskets that you could buy at craft stores for $10, $20, or more, for a quarter or $0.50 at Goodwill.

I have my own Goodwill Hunting story to share. My ever-growing 13-year-old was in need of pants. Again. There were none from his brother in the hand-me-down bucket so I went shopping. I tried Plato's Closet, which is fast becoming my go-to store for teen clothing, and came up empty, so I tried Goodwill on the way home. I found a pair of nearly new Levi's and Tommy Hilfilger jeans for $5.99 and $6.99, respectively. Great deals, but then I got to the register and found out that all apparel was 50% off that day. SCORE! 2 pairs of name-brand jeans for $7.74.

My chance experience underscores a very important thrift-store principal: know when to shop. Know what days the items you look for can be found on sale. Know what days new stock comes in. That is what my brother-in-law in Las Vegas does, and he manages to find amazing deals on name-brand shoes and clothing (he specializes in skateboarding stuff) that he buys on the cheap and sells on eBay for a pretty nice profit.

Goodwill sometimes gets a bad rap as being a bit of a junk store, and to some extent, it is. But, among the trash are plenty of treasures for the Frugal Finder. Any Goodwill success stories to share?

More Secondhand Stuff

Here are some of our more recent secondhand finds to inspire your own bargain hunting.

A pair of Abercrombie & Fitch jeans, bought for my 16-year-old son at Plato's Closet for $22.00. Considering that Abercrombie & Fitch jeans start at $80 in the stores, I consider this a major score.

We borrowed this 20-gallon aquarium from some friends who no longer had their snake. That, and the driftwood log (partially obscured by the plant on the right) are on permanent loan to us until they need it back or until we decide to get a tall aquarium for Morty, our gecko, who is sleeping in the fake foliage on the left.

Morty himself is another story in frugality. While he was the most expensive gecko at the store ($49), he was the only gecko there that does not require live crickets for meals. The small bottle of crested gecko diet mix in the lower left corner of the picture will make enough "gecko mush" to feed the Morstser for about 4 months, and cost us $8, saving both the $2 per batch of crickets and the time running back and forth to Petco every other day.

My 8th grader needed a Texas Instruments graphing calculator for school. They run about $99 in the store, or close to $110 after our lovely 9.5% sales tax. I found this gently used one on eBay (it has the name of a previous owner engraved on the back) for $65, which included free shipping.

What are some of your most recent secondhand finds? Where do you find them?

My Savvy Teen Shopper

One thing I haven't figured out how to do yet is to stop my boys from growing and needing new clothes. Believe me, I've tried, but they just keep growing. My oldest, who is almost 16, recently told me he had outgrown all his shorts as well as his dress shirt that he wears to youth dances at our church.

So, we went shopping. I suggested we try Ross (no luck) and Plato's Closet, which specializes in buying and selling gently-used name-brand clothing, mostly for teens. We hit the jackpot at Plato's, finding 2 pairs of shorts and a shirt for $30.

These shorts look to be brand new (still had tags), and were only $10.

These shorts are from Foot Locker (so the tag says) and were only $8.

This dress shirt was only $12.00. I figure we would have spent at least twice what we did, if not three times, if we had tried to buy the same brands and/or quality at a regular retail store. He was thrilled with his finds and declared that Plato's Closet is now his third favorite store. That's high praise from someone whose #1 store is GameStop (where he buys and sells used games--I've obviously taught him right) and Games Workshop.

Coming Soon

I've been focusing on saving money in my early posts. That will always be a feature of this site. However, I thought I'd let you know some topics that will be coming up in future posts:

• Consignment stores
• Craigslist and eBay
• Things I never buy at the grocery store
• Things I rarely buy at the grocery store
• Fun and useful things to make with things you already have around the house
• Things I reuse.

Stay tuned!

Technology Reuse--A Great Deal for All Involved

On Tuesday, I took a little trip to the SoDo area of Seattle to buy a used HP LaserJet 1100 at a great place called 3R Technology. I needed a new laser printer for the swim team, and with little budget and the constraint of having to connect it to an antiquated laptop loaded with Windows ME, I decided to go for a used printer. 3R Technology had posted the 1100 on craigslist.

Not only am I thrilled with getting a great deal on the printer ($15), I was really impressed by their entire business. 3R Technology provides technology recycling and remarketing services. Their primary focus is developing donation and reuse channels, and proper handling and recycling of computer equipment. I'm a big believer that, even with computers and peripherals, one ought to "use it up, wear it out." Why pay big bucks for a brand new printer when a used printer with plenty of life left will do the trick?

Plus, Andy was incredibly friendly and helpful. I'll definitely be doing business with them in the future (come to find out, even though the 1100 was originally supported on ME, HP no longer provides ME drivers...a good excuse to finally upgrade to a laptop running XP). If you are in the Seattle area, I highly recommend them.

Secondhand is Firstrate!

A friend of mine e-mailed me this story after seeing the new blog. It's a great example of how secondhand items are a great way to save money.

Everyone needs un-frugal friends with lots of money! Our friend's Xbox 360 wasn't working right, but wasn't doing the red ring of death that Microsoft will fix. He wanted to play Rock Band so he just went out and bought a new one. He gave us his old one, and we turned it on and off till it did the 3 red rings, sent it in, and got it fixed. Now it works perfectly!

Some good friends of ours gave our eldest son a free super single waterbed last summer. It's got lots of character from having been passed around to family and friends for the past 30 years or so, but he loves it. All we had to do was buy new sheets for it. (This waterbed also set off a chain reaction of home improvements--we decided to paint his bedroom before plunking the waterbed down for who knows how long, and ended up painting just about the entire interior of our house, but that's a story for another time.)