Best Car Boot, Charity Shop and Jumble Sale Bargains - New Thread 4/10/09

Busybody

thezib wrote: »

an extremely large embroidery art/painting, not too good with measurement, but its slightly larger than a 50inch tv. was rather expensive tho- £30 (maybe i should have haggled more?) it was priced at £40,but i haggled down to 30, while i was taking a look around, a gentleman walked in and wanted the painting. the lady explained i had just bought it

I cant believe you would haggle in a charity shop!!:mad: they are there for a reason and that is to make money for the charity involved :T I bet the man would have payed the full price:(

jtz

went to the car boot I-Owe-You told us about yesterday, didn't ahve much time to look around properly but got a gorgeous Gap cow leather bag for £1, then had a stroll around Brick Lane area and got a dress for £5 from the Sunday upmarket!
hope you all had a good time

thezib

Busybody wrote: »

I cant believe you would haggle in a charity shop!!:mad: they are there for a reason and that is to make money for the charity involved :T I bet the man would have payed the full price:(

Excuse you, "Busybody",
Get off ur high horse,
the manager suggested to me to make an offer for the work.
the manager at the cs did not have a problem with it,
if you do, too bad.
im pleased with my purchase:j

Ches

Busybody wrote: »

I cant believe you would haggle in a charity shop!!:mad: they are there for a reason and that is to make money for the charity involved :T I bet the man would have payed the full price:(

Nothing wrong in making a serious offer. I work in a charity shop and as our pricing is 'finger in the wind' we wouldn't take it amiss.

lulu650

Bought a coat last autumn in the local charity shop for £5. Only just started making more use of it. It's made in Italy and 100% wool in a classic style, grey colour. It looks great on and is made by ICA. Anyone heard of the name??

I-Owe-You

I have to say I do think haggling in a charity shop is also a bit cheeky...as most are extremely reasonably priced to begin with.

The Sue Ryder shop a few miles away from me offered me a loyalty card the other week! You get a stamp for every £5 you spend, and once you've got around 6 stamps you get another £5 off your next purchase. I rejected the offer of course!

I love getting a bargain like everybody else, but I also get great pleasure from the knowledge that the cost of my fab new purchase is going to a charity. Infact if something is, say around £3.50, then more often than not I put the 50p change from my £4.00 in the collection tin.

Ive even seen people take stuff back to Charity Shops too... would you bother for a couple of pounds?! Re-donate it!

I'm not having a go at anyone, but IMHO I'd feel extremely embarrassed to barter in a CS. But each to their own huh!?

copperjar

Most of the well known chairty shops exist to pay their directors huge sums of money - my former boss has just joined a well known chairty as director of operations on £80k a year!!!!

JesaRose

Thats not even true. Some do pay their staff well but thats because of their expertise and the amount of revenue that person will bring into the company. If you don't know the business you really shouldn't make those kind of judgements. Ever heard the phrase "speculate to accumulate"? Charities do not go around wasting money on staff - they do it for a reason and all those decisions go through a very rigorous planning process and have to get through a comittee first too which is not an easy task.

Fine have an opinion but no need to make such an unfounded statement. This forum is about bargain finds not to moan about something you have no idea of

Can we please get back to the bargains and fun which this thread is all about.

I-Owe-You

copperjar wrote: »

Most of the well known chairty shops exist to pay their directors huge sums of money - my former boss has just joined a well known chairty as director of operations on £80k a year!!!!

In fairness, this is true. I no longer participate in Race For Life for Cancer Research UK because of this...

I work for the NHS and we get CRUK's job alerts, I noticed in the past 6 months around 4 jobs for new starter admin paying £24k + bens.
Now as the jobs are new starter, I dont see why they can pay the annual salary around 15-18k as this is still attractive for an office junior in their first professional role.

Makes me wonder how much of my donations are actually going to research! I now give to a smaller less known charities that prodominately run their shops with voulenteers.

I appreciate charities will have over heads though...

WelshHybrid

Cancer research get money from sources other than their charity shops. The shops are there to promote the charity, not to make money for research. They spend millions on research, do you honestly think the high street shops and donations could fund that?

Now, there are charities that do rely on their shops for a large part of their income. These will be mainly the local ones - such as Hospice shops. I avoid the "chain" stores as these can be expensive or over stocked with new goods.

Oh, I would barter in a charity shop if I thought something was too expensive. Remember that many of the shops will only display the stock for so long then it will be either ragged (get pennies per kilo) or moved to another shop or, if they are allowed, put on to a sale rail for a quid or 50p.

I also take stuff back to shops - usually my local hospice shop.