What is your charity shop bargain of the week?

GreyQueen

Pair of Cl@rks gore-tex hiking shoes, totally unworn, for £12. Checked the near-identical-but-for-colour thing on their website and it was £99! Chuffed.

Potternerd

silvasava wrote: »

Potternerd - does your Tu top have a knotted hem? If so I've got one that I grabbed - I think it was in their sale for about £6. It hangs well and washes beautifully!

No it's quite long and the sides are ruched towards the bottom.

VfM4meplse

Just a weird piece of trivia: I drove past the Barnardos store in Barkingside today and was stunned to see the unit empty! The reason I find it so odd is that the charity’s HO is sited less than 200m away

Pollycat

GreenBitterfly wrote: »

Talking of overpricing books, £4.50 is far too much, not when people can buy brand new books from Tesco, Sainsburys, Amazon etc for less than that!

I had a spat with British Heart Foundation on Facebook, when people were having a go at a woman who complained about their pricing policy. I chimed in that their books were far too expensive for what they are, when they are in not too good condition. The BHF responded back saying they price competitively, I said in my local area, local hospice charge 50p per book, and usually have a long term offer of 3 for £1, Cancer Research usually around a £1 for their books (used to be more but they seem to have brought in uniform pricing), Scope is £1 for paperbacks and £2 for hardbacks. I didn't get a response back!

We've had this conversation on the thread before, GreenBitterfly and I agree with you - especially about over-pricing books when there's another charity shop with more competitively priced books just up the road.
A national charity (like BHF) - who seem to set prices nationally - may think their price are competitive but they may not be if they don't know what the area their shop is in is like.

I posted this some time ago

Pollycat wrote: »

Overheard in my local Barnados yesterday:
"I've got some books for you"

"Well, I can take them but I have to tell you that they'll probably end up being scrapped as we get so many. About 250 donations a week and we only sell about 20".

I suggested they have a book sale but she replied that prices were set by head office.

Well, head office ought to be informed that charging £1.99 for a OK condition paperback is - in our area - downright silly.

50 yards away our hospice shop sells similar books for 50p to 75p and the hospice clearance shop about 250 yards away sells them for 25p or 5 for £1.

Unless it's a book that you've been looking for for ages, you're hardly likely to pay 8 times as much for a Dan Brown or Lee Child.

The lady walked out without leaving the books.

If I were the manager of that shop, I'd be on to head office telling them that their pricing policy is not working in this particular shop and a sale of books would almost certainly bring more customers in who might just buy something else.
Does anyone else think that some of these charities have lost the whole idea of raising money from donated goods?
And scrapping books donated by well-meaning people is really - imho - not the right way to go.

OK - she steps off her soapbox (see what you've started, GreenBitterfly ).

My latest bargains from Air Ambulance are:
a bright red Sticky Fingers sleeveless fitted dress in a very heavyweight jersey with trim around the hips (I can get away with this as I'm slim hipped). Almost 1960s style. It's in the washing machine now, I'm unsure whether to shorten it, it's a style that looks good with opaque tights and ankle boots (I'm thinking my tartan DMs). £1.00

A bright red Per Una 3/4 sleeved top with random buttons on the front. £1.00
Hoping it will go with these (main colour is navy):

Pollycat wrote: »

• a fab pair of tartan (red, navy, biscuit and off-white) trousers by Gok for TU. Very stylish with slanted, jetted pockets edged with silky material. Slim legs. Look like wool but a mix of polyester, viscose & elastene. And the best bit is they are a size smaller than I usually take and no elastic in the waistband! :j Look fab with my navy chelsea boots but I have absolutely nothing to go with them 'up top'.

VJsmum

A Fat Face dress for £5. Looks like it has been worn a couple of times (little bit of bobbling, but nothing that can't be picked off) and a DVD for £1.

Pollycat

Pollycat wrote: »

a bright red Sticky Fingers sleeveless fitted dress in a very heavyweight jersey with trim around the hips (I can get away with this as I'm slim hipped). Almost 1960s style. It's in the washing machine now, I'm unsure whether to shorten it, it's a style that looks good with opaque tights and ankle boots (I'm thinking my tartan DMs). £1.00

Whoops! :eek:
Just taken this out of the machine and hung it up.
Happened to look at the label and it says' do not wash'.
But with a mix of viscose, nylon & elastene, why wouldn't you wash it?

silvasava

Polly - I always look at the labels for the fabric content - most times they say 'do not wash' because of interlining or items being returned after washing incorrectly. Nearly everything I own can be washed - apart from my leather jackets and a lovely Alexon coat thats wool and alpaca.
I'm sure many of us have seen items in CS that just need a proper wash and iron to be restored to their full beauty!

Pollycat

silvasava wrote: »

Polly - I always look at the labels for the fabric content - most times they say 'do not wash' because of interlining or items being returned after washing incorrectly. Nearly everything I own can be washed - apart from my leather jackets and a lovely Alexon coat thats wool and alpaca.
I'm sure many of us have seen items in CS that just need a proper wash and iron to be restored to their full beauty!

Thanks - I usually do check before washing newly bought items, I must have had my sleepy head on.
I never dreamed that it would say 'dry clean only'. It looks like it's come out OK anyway.
I'm with you on the 'shove it in the washing machine' - I don't do hand washing - and it's only wool coats and leather than I'd not do that.
I think I posted about a Jaeger wool coat I bought that said 'dry clean only' - more boiled wool than 'proper' wool - and it came out fine.

Gingernutty

A black silk Ted Baker blouse with one of the front buttons missing and no spare.

Found a box of black and gold buttons the same size and replaced two of the six cuff buttons, with two of the new ones.

I now have a button to replace the missing one on the front and one spare.

Gingernutty

Sorry. Blouse was £3.95, buttons were £2.99