Over the past year, my family and I have enjoyed shopping at thrift stores. We bought lamps and kitchen supplies for our son's apartment in Austin, Texas, and our daughter likes to browse the rows of jeans and cargo pants. My husband looks for kitchen item replacements (an iron skillet, a spatula), and he recently found a very nice casual jacket from Orvis that only needed a tear repaired in the lining. Having grown up in a family in which hand-me-downs were the norm, I prefer brand-new clothes; I don't find much to interest me in adult women clothing at thrift stores (but recently, a yellow silk sari caught my eye--I resisted, though). However, looking through other people's junk can be entertaining, and I often find something useful or just weirdly interesting. A month ago, I replaced our well-used coasters with a nice set I found at Goodwill, and I purchased about nine wool sweaters that I will felt for crafts.
It pays to be thrifty in today's tough economic times, so check out the thrift stores as folks are cleaning out their closets to make room for those new Christmas items. Or clear out your own closets. Someone can use what you no longer want. Today's Atlanta Journal-Constitution has an article on year-end donations: "Year-End Charitable Giving Empties Closets, Fills Stores," Bo Emerson, AJC, December 30, 2008.
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