I love love love goodwill and other thrift stores. I don't have a lot of money and I haven't bought clothes anywhere except goodwill since 2007. Before that it was cheap stores like walmart and ebay finds anyway! And when people compliment me on something and ask where I got it I enjoy telling them I found it at goodwill! (as opposed to saying I forgot and hiding that I shop at thrift stores.) If I have the time and energy and pass a goodwill, I'll stop and check it out. There are 4 of them within driving distance for me in Indianapolis (and a bunch more within the entire city, so if I'm clear across town for something and see one I love to stop) and I check them out periodically. Sometimes hunting for something specific, many times just checking out what they have. Sometimes I worry I'm suspicious and looking like a shoplifter I spend so much time, LOL. I believe long browsing times without buying anything is supposed to be one of the signs. But I like to look at everything really carefully. I always check out the shoes, in the winter check out hats/gloves/scarves, coats (year round because sometimes the best finds on nice wool winter coats is the middle of summer), belts, pajamas, and go super slowly checking all the kitchen/electronics/etc stuff. So its not unusual for me to go in and spend an hour and end up empty handed. I really hate trying on clothes and still leaving empty handed! My method though for clothes shopping is to grab as much stuff as I can that I like and looks close to my size, and then take a closer look in the fitting room plus of course trying it on and seeing how it looks on me. Being in a wheelchair makes it harder to find clothes that fit well and look good. Things that look gorgeous on the hanger or would look great on someone standing can be pretty awful when your sitting down. I sew at least so that also helps with being able to do certain alterations on clothes myself, like I bought a skirt I loved 2 sizes too big and shortened it and took in the waist so it fits me and falls to just the right length. I also frequently buy clothes to disassemble and use for other things sewing. Like I've bought leather pants and suede skirts and turned them into things like dog collars, gloves, specific projects. Cheaper than buying the materials new!
The stuff I mentioned I actually just got the other day. I've been bugging my boyfriend to take me to the goodwill near him when I stay with him. Finally got him to take me because of him getting into soap, I enticed him with tales of cheap crock pots and he wanted one for shaving soap. There were only 3 crocks there and 2 looked pretty beat up and crappy plus one had kids graffiti all over! The third didn't have a lid, but of course I'm going super slow looking at everything, and so I told him to go check over where I'd seen a ton of glass crock/pot lids for one that fit. He did, and they didn't even charge extra for it. He also started getting *****y about how much time I was taking, but if I hadn't been going so slowly, moving around things as I looked I wouldn't have found that silicone loaf pan! And I'm ecstatic that it has a lid too, I'd like to start gelling some soaps. I also found silicone baking cups but they were overpriced, 50 cents EACH. They're actually cheaper in a small set at my local walmart, plus much cheaper for a large set on ebay. Too bad because there looked to be about 2 dozen in the stack.
Can you tell how much I love goodwill?