Charity shops

newMS

todays PDSA shop bargin was a Ben Sherman shirt for my 18 yr old son..... £3.50 ..... £40 if bought new

pws52

I bought a lovely hand embroidered table cloth for £1.95 today which I will be using tomorrow when friends are coming round.

I also bought an ironstone jug for 75p for my son's MIL in the US who collects this type of pottery.

I love charity shopping!

Hardup_Hester

I bought a plastic cereal box & a Corrs cd today at our local one.

painted_lady

Oh I love the charity shops for a bargain. Last week I got DS a NEXT coat for next winter, £2.50, its lovely. He also got a new bedding set for £1.50.
Some other baragins over the years
-his bedroom curtains were 75p
-big tub of wooden bricks £2, played with them everyday for 2 years now
Maybe one day I will find something for myself

Dazi

My small town has 10 charity shops, soon to be 11. Or it could be 11 soon to be 12 TBH I can't keep count!

I find them quite expensive for what they are selling. For example, one shop was selling a scarf for £2.50, I have the same scarf, £1.50 from Primark.

I think it is because we have too many charity shops, they all have signs in their windows asking for stock, we have at least 4 bags through our doors a week. It makes sense, if there are only a few charity shops in the town, they get a lot of donations, so can sell them on at a decent price, we have too many fighting over the donations and they have to charge more to get the income, even charity shops have sales targets.

I think its a shame, I used to enjoy have a good rummage in the charity shops where I lived before, and used to buy up a load of stuff for making national costumes, one shop would keep any material they got and give me first choice, then used to make the costumes and take photos and they would put them up in the shop.

Don't enjoy looking in the ones where I live now, as I said, too many and the workers in them are turning into pushy sales assistants and asking what you are looking for, suggesting things etc, ok, they have probably been told to do this, but I just want to rummage!

Saying that, I will be doing a trawl of them in the next couple of weeks as need a new jacket to go with a dress I have, only get half hour lunch so could take me a few weeks

babyshoes

I have found the same as others with Oxfam, especially as the independant charity shop near my work sells paperbacks for 20p and hardbacks for 50p! Clothes from there are cheap too. I used to pop into Oxfam on the way home from work every week or so, but now I mostly ignore it as books are too expensive to take a chance on, in case I really don't like it.

With the cheap books, I pick up a load of different genres and if something turns out to be carp, I don't mind leaving it partly read and taking it back to the charity shop!

[Deleted User]

We have two 'sense 'shops where I live the little one is great as its sensibly priced to sell things,but the bigger one prices things as though they were brand new. But it also sells furniture so maybe thats why its dearer. I feel a bit sorry for our little one man business as they cannot compete with the charity shops .There is a small wool shop near me and she has to compete with the charity shops plus Wilkinsons .I don't live in a big town only a faily largesh village and I have seen lots of little business's fold because of this .Our local craft shop,a glassware shop,a small clothes shop,a Stead & Simpsons,a cheap kitchen ware shop and a small second-hand jewellers have all gone in the past year .Even the Age Concern charity shop closed its doors before Christmas.Possibly because of the credit crunch,I don't know ,but soon apart from Wilkinsons and Tescos Metro we will only have charity shops left where I live.Then the prices will really soar as there will be no competion left and the big shops will 'gang' up on the small independant I agree charites are having a tough time at the moment but so are the public ,there has to come a time when you reach the bottom of the barrel and can say 'no more'
I did hear that charity shops had a different business rate from normal shopkeepers ,that doesn't seem very fair somehow

Pitlanepiglet

I'm sure there is another Charity shop thread somewhere but I can't find it...

Today's bargain was an Imperia Pasta Machine for £3! It's in beautiful condition, in its box with the instructions. It's got the main sheet roller and the second angel hair/tagliatelle type attachment as well. Very well chuffed with that!

There pricing seemed strange though, they wanted £2 for a stainless steel gravy boat but only £3 for pristine pasta maker - very odd!

lisawood78

It's on the Ebay board.

frosty

I have just come back with an icecream maker for £10,the one that mixes and freezes at the same time,they even made the poor delivery man carry it home for me because it was very heavy,thankfully I only live a few minutes away.