Tuesday, August 13, 2013

Tuesday Bargains

Today I did something a little out of the ordinary. I did go to my two usual grocery stores, Food Town and HEB, but I didn't buy much there. You see, I planned to go to a local charity shop called Treasures of the Heart and I didn't want to have any perishable food sitting in my car for hours. I did bring a cooler and some "blue ice" to keep my produce chilled.
As far as food bargains go, I got a good price on celery (68-cents) and mushrooms were only 88-cents per 8 ounce package. I bought two of those but I don't know yet what I will do with them. I plan to make Unpotato Salad tomorrow to go with a pork roast so I needed to buy a cauliflower, celery and a red onion. I had to pay full price for the cauliflower ($2.99) but the red onions were on sale for 69-cents per pound. They also had yellow onions on sale for 39-cents per pound so I stocked up on a few of those.

That's the extent of my food shopping for today. But, my bargain clothes shopping more than made up for it. I hate shopping for clothes and I especially hate shopping at malls. If I buy any clothing for myself, I either buy it all in one big all-day shopping trip about once every year or two, or I just pick up an item or two now and then while I'm grocery shopping at Walmart. I recently discovered Treasures of the Heart. It's a lot like shopping at a place like TJ Maxx or Ross where there are just rows and rows of racks of all kinds of things jammed together. But, nothing there costs more than about $5.00 each, at least for women's clothing. Everything is color coded, which indicates how long an item has been hanging on the rack. So, you might get another 25%, 50% or even 75% off of the basic $4.00-5.00 price depending on the color of the tag. This was only my second time shopping there. The first time I went, a few months ago, I spent about $20 and got a pair of shorts, a wool suit (skirt and jacket) and three tops. Well, this time I made out like a bandit! I did so well that I had to share it with everyone here on my blog. I spent just under $46.00 and bought:

  • 2 pairs of jeans (one blue and one black denim)
  • 1 skirt
  • 1 nightie
  • 9 tops
I noticed that one top came from Ann Taylor and at least two were from Chico's yet the most I paid for any one item was $5.00! Here's the price breakdown:
  • $5.00 x 1
  • $4.00 x 6
  • $3.00 x 3
  • $2.50 x 1
  • $1.50 x 1
  • $.75 x 1
How's that for bargain shopping? Here's a photo of my new wardrobe:


I fell in love with the skirt and was so pleased to find that it fit me. My two favorite tops are the red one and the very colorful one. You can't tell in the photo but the red one has tiny spots of gold glitter on it. I don't usually go for sparkly things but that top is sparkly in a cute fun way. I think that three of the tops will probably go pretty well with that skirt which has a little bit of a rusty colored pattern on it. I think those two salmon colored tops might go fairly well with it and I know for sure that the cream colored one will. 

I'm exhausted from trying on all of those clothes, plus the 50 or so other items that didn't fit me, so I think I'll have some lunch now and just relax this afternoon.



8 comments :

  1. What a great store. Good for you! I hope you enjoy them. -Dawn

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    1. Besides the obvious cost benefit of shopping at a thrift store, unlike shopping at a regular department store, you're not limited to the current styles and color trends when buying used clothing. That's always been part of my frustration with clothes shopping. I rarely like what's in style or the styles and colors don't suit my figure or taste. The high end department stores usually sell more classic styles but I can't afford to shop in those stores.

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  2. You're lucky -- the clothes are beautiful and at a hard-to-beat price! I live in Durham NC, and I have my choice of high-end consignment shops or really bad Salvation-Army-type stores. On the other hand, my mother-in-law, in High Point, NC, finds beautiful stuff for great prices. I guess a lot depends on who's doing the donating!

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    1. Yes, that place really is a treasure trove. It's massive and it can take hours just to look through everything in the women's clothing section. There are at least two or three long aisles of shorts, jeans and slacks and then maybe four or five long aisles of tops, sweaters and coats/jackets. The dresses are in another section. I've never been there but they also have a boutique shop in another location where they sell the higher end stuff. When anything has been there a certain length of time, it's sent over to this place and marked down 75%. I think I heard that after anything is still on the rack after four weeks, it's sent to other charities where they give the stuff away for free. These shops are run by Northwest Assistance Ministries which also runs non-profit pantries, clinics and educational classes and the like. They're a pretty big operation in this area. Several years ago I volunteered to help teach a basic computer class there. The classes were for seniors and for those who needed to learn computer skills in order to get jobs.

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  3. Those skirts are really cute. I love thrift shops! I buy nearly everything second hand.

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    1. It's been over a month since my last shopping trip so I'm thinking about going to the same shop next week to see what I can find.

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  4. Hi. I would like to go shopping at the store you go to! I looked it up and there are 3 different locations. What is the address? Thanks so much! I could use some decent clothes. Jane

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    1. They've apparently changed their website because I can't find the addresses there anymore either. They used to be posted there. I did find the locations on the main NAM website here: http://tinyurl.com/lgsq2no. The one nearest me is the 1960 location but their "boutique" shop is just around the corner from the new location in the main NAM building. I haven't been to the 1960 store yet since they moved.

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