Charity Shopping - bargains galore for 2021!

Miró

Went for a meander around the local charity shops in the melting heat this afty.  Came home with a pretty Paisley pattern long dress bag for 50p.  All my best wool coats and jackets are being stored  in zippered bags now away from the bloomin moths!  Also found a BNIB soft bra thingy, no wires, no padding just hoik it over ya head for £1.  Then in the  hospice shop I got a pair of b/n Hotter suede trainer type shoes in a shade called. ‘Blood Orange’ - they were £8……originally £79.  Might regret it as I have had a couple of cases of ‘crumbling soles’ with Hotter shoes.  They looked so cheery tho!!

 

Pollycat

patricia50 said:

My daughter and I went to a small town not too far away to charity shop. We primarily go for a small independent charity shop that is small but had lots of stuff. The prices were reasonable and we looked forward to going there. Unfortunately it seems to have a new manager and the prices have sky rocketed. ( Ted Baker plastic shopper bag £27.99, pair of Jeans £10) The £1 rail had disappeared and there was a rail of sweatshirts and hoody’s that looked like they had been tightly crammed into bags for months they were so creased. Needless to say we left with nothing and I’m a person who loves charity shops and will buy a lot if the prices are reasonable. The sad thing is we used to go mainly for that shop but always went in the others in town. We won’t bother to go back there any more so all those shops have now lost business. When will these managers realise that this drives people away, not bring more money to their tills

I've posted a few times about charity shop prices.

I was once in a Barnados and the manager refused a suitcase full of books because 'they had too many'.
I can see no sense in refusing donations of books 'because they're not selling' when you've priced novels by authors such as John Grisham, Dan Brown etc at £1.99 and another charity shop less than 50 feet away are selling similar books for 50p or 75p.
How is that good business sense?
How does that help the charity?

This shop would have room to have a table of books priced at 50p each or 3 for £1.00 and it might encourage someone to pop in the shop and buy something else.

Anyhow...I went for a wander on Saturday and found a few bargains:
In Lighthouse (not sure what charity this supports) I found 4 linen summer dresses (made in Italy). I've often looked at these in a department store but wouldn't pay £40.
One is a creamy-apricot colour, one lime green, both with embroidered front. One is blue with darker blue flowers and the other is grey with blousy pink flowers. 
So 4 for a total of £15.80.
And I added a navy linen mix Next dress for £3.95 too.

Brie

I quite get the problem with charity shop prices.  I would have no problem paying a high street sale price for a new something in a charity shop.  But love the bargains that can be found.  

I also get the fact that sometimes they turn stuff away when their storage is overflowing.  That's why if I have the car and am dropping stuff off I normally offer the boot of the car for them to load up with stuff to be taken to the dump.  

Best price item I ever paid was £1 for a really tatty old paperback priced at 29p.  It was quite literally falling apart, ripped cover etc.  The woman working there apologised and said it should have just been binned (bin a book!!!) and tried to refuse any payments as I was (in her eye's) taking away something useless.  But it was a book I had read and loved and knew had been out of print for decades so was very happy to pay over the odds for it. 

Miró

Wobbled into the 'weird 20p shop'* in Otley today and there hanging up was a pair of Monsoon white, wideish-legged jeans in my size.  Well, I couldn't leave them for 20p could I?  Amazingly, upon examining them closely at home they are great quality and, I think unworn.  I'm tempted to run the legs in a little to make them slightly less wide-legged which would not be hard as there is no top stitching on the seams but....I'm sure I've read that the slimfit and skinny look is now 'out' for jeans....anyone know?  Not that I'm cutting edge in my style but one does like to be reasonably up to date .  Several pairs for sale on EBay....these are they....




*Must stop calling it 'the "weird" shop!!!

Lucy5781

I've been buying bundles of like 7-8 things at £2.00 per item in my local shops lately, brillliant stuff, M&S, F&F (which we get unworn samples of as H/O is local), TU, NEXT. Great stuff.

Also, found new, bigger sized fleece dressing gowns for DD & DS, an M&S space themed one for him and an Elsa from Frozen one from John Lewis for her. £1 each. Also dressing up costumes, Iron Man and Minnie Mouse and Rapunzel all £4.00 each.

Have also been enjoying people's 'charity shop hauls' on Tiktok, stupidly guilty pleasure!!

killerpeaty

I personally take the attitude that I like something and I think it's worth more than the money then I've done well. I am however put off by very high prices consistently through the shop. I don't know how to reconcile those two feelings honestly!

I can see why shops decline donations. When I volunteered in one (over 10 years ago) there was very limited storage. One of my local ones explained that they quarantine donations in these times. I imagine they are also trying to limit the number of people sorting if they are still social distancing. It must mount up pretty quickly.

Went to my favourite charity shop at lunch, someone there managed to find roller skates! They seemed delighted. I rummaged but didn't find anything I needed.

goldfinches

@Miró - I was going to say that based on the students/early twenties people I've seen over the last few days I think wide legged might be very cutting edge at the moment but having thought about it that might just be local to here so I'm not sure how applicable it is to Leeds. What do they look like on you? I'd have thought they would be very flattering on because of your lovely long legs, you might look rather like Katharine Hepburn.



@Lucy5781 - I can see exactly why you like the tiktoks, I hadn't realised how clever they are until now. Brilliant little short films, thanks for telling me about them, I feel so much more up to date now! 

cbsexec

I actually managed a buy today as I went to a different area and town.  A pair of very nice Boden cotton trousers for £7.  My local charity shops are awful for clothes - not many good makes and very overpriced 😱.  One of them often has good furniture items though.

goldfinches

On my way home from an afternoon jaunt yesterday I happened to fall through the door at the Oxfam shop (and it was fall through! They have this weird door where you push it, it resists until you've got it about half way and then suddenly an electric door opening mechanism opens it the rest of the way so you can imagine the effect!).
I found a Pyrex cook and freeze dish with a lid, Robert Carrier's Taste of Morocco and Wilma Paterson's Lord Byron's Relish The Regency Cookery Book for £12.47 total.

Rosa_Damascena

goldfinches said:

On my way home from an afternoon jaunt yesterday I happened to fall through the door at the Oxfam shop (and it was fall through! They have this weird door where you push it, it resists until you've got it about half way and then suddenly an electric door opening mechanism opens it the rest of the way so you can imagine the effect!).
I found a Pyrex cook and freeze dish with a lid, Robert Carrier's Taste of Morocco and Wilma Paterson's Lord Byron's Relish The Regency Cookery Book for £12.47 total.

Cad of the highest order.