What is your charity shop bargain of the week?

VfM4meplse wrote: »

Help me out here.


According to him, charity shops are there for people in need, not me. So I should not be buying from them. I’ve never thought of it like this before. Does he have a point?

Not a logical argument at all I'm afraid. Yes, you help the needy by donating but you're also helping the charity by buying the clothes or books or whatever.


I think there's a two fold misunderstanding too. One that there isn't enough to go around so you should leave all the goods for the needy. There's more than enough to go around and many things that the needy wouldn't buy plus there are other issues like recycling etc. to add into the equation. Second there's the idea that stuff in the CS is scruffy and dirty (but that's somehow OK for the needy?:o). Personally I do check if things are washable but then I mostly do that with new clothes anyway.

VfM - I wonder if your Dad's attitudes may stem from the time that second hand clothes used to come from a dealer who bought them when clearing the houses of the deceased? I remember there being second hand clothing shops that were quite seedy places when I was little. Nothing like the bright places that the charity shops are now ( or as big business!)
Floss is right - those of us that can donate do and many of us are happy to purchase too as many of the donations are unworn or unwanted. Helps the environment, our purses and the charity - wins all round

A pal manages a Red X chazzer and they will GIVE things to those in need, should they ask for them.

I buy abiut 90% of my non-food shopping from charity shops. I know this because I keep (and have done for the past 19 years) personal accounts in the back of my diary. Alongside chazzer purchases are the letters 'cs' and it is a constant run of 'cs' interspersed with the odd thing like a bus fare or a (f)utility bill.

I shop there, and I also donate there, am registered for gift aid with three national chains who have shops nearby. No shortage of good places to give things away, imo.

My parents are in their mid-seventies and when their wartime-born generation were setting up home, there was nothing like the amount of manufactured goods around that there is now. Mum has remarked; there wasn't much secondhand stuff around and what there was, was absolute rubbish.

She's spoken yearningly of how much easier their lives as young parens would have been if a huge bootsale site, going since the 1980s, had been running near to their home in the 1960s-1970s.

So, it may be that some older people, who haven't enjoyed the wonders of charity shop shopping, think that they're just stationary jumble sales full of unsanitary tatt.

Mind you, I've met some extremely poshly-vowelled ladies in the scrummage at village jumblies and even walked out with lead crystal decanters at 20p each.

I guess it's a bit hyacinth bucket to care where your clothes were purchased (said by a woman who bought everything she's presently wearing secondhand - the knicks were in an unopened multipack of m & s).

Ooops, tell a lie, the socks were a cast-off pair of my mothers, everything but the knicks and the socks I bought at the Everything 50p Chazzer; next trews and next wool sweater and icebreaker merino wool crew top. I reckon full retail for what I'm wearing right now wouldn't be much change from £200, the icebreaker top sells at £80-£90 new.

:beer: Winning!

silvasava wrote: »

VfM - I wonder if your Dad's attitudes may stem from the time that second hand clothes used to come from a dealer who bought them when clearing the houses of the deceased? I remember there being second hand clothing shops that were quite seedy places when I was little.

Same here. We never discussed this in my childhood, but my mum was never happy about me joining my best friend at charity shops. (Tbf, my first purchases as an 8 yo were pretty dreadful). He also has a big problem with YS in my fridge, although he does eat my goodies . I don’t understand why he thinks it’s shameful.

In my haste to post yesterday, I forgot to mention my actual purchases . A small stainless steel key and letter stand for £1, and a perfume bottle similar to this one, but more ornate and in pinks and purple for just 50p (£6.69 from China on eBay).



And of course books (just 2 on this occasion).