Thrifty Nifty: Thrifting Tips

I've been wanting to do some shopping lately, and yesterday I decided to go thrift shopping, or as my friends and I call it, thrifting. I'm so happy to have found a floral long sleeve top and white Gap high-waisted shorts for only five dollars for both! 

I have a lot of friends talk about thrifting, but then they tell me the prices of some of their pieces and it's the price of new pieces of clothing from a store like Forever 21! Honey, that's NOT thrifting!

Now, if the item originally costs more than 100 dollars or is designer, then sure, 20 dollars for it is a great deal! If something is also vintage and you can't find it anywhere else, then sure, that's acceptable too. But for most pieces of clothing, you can usually find really good quality pieces for less than 10 dollars at really good thrift stores. Now that's a deal!

Two new additions to my wardrobe: for the cost of a Subway footlong! Haha. 

Shoot, if I can buy an outfit for only five dollars, then you can surely do the same! All it takes is a good eye, and patience. Here are some tips for thrift shopping: 

1. Scope out different stores until you find one with really good deals! Notice how I don't say, until you find a store with lots of pieces you like. You can find key pieces that you like at any store. The problem that most of us have (including me) is the patience to look thoroughly through the racks to find that diamond in the rough. 
2. Goodwill or Salvation Army are good stores to start thrifting in, but in most places, there are local thrift stores that can get cheaper than the chain thrift stores as well. I got my two pieces above at a local thrift store. 
3. Check, check, check! Of course, when you go to any store with second-hand items, there tends to be little rips/tears, stains, and weird fits with some of the items. That's why it's really important to try the clothes on and check for little things you can't fix like stains before buying if possible. Even though these clothes are dirt cheap, it's always sad to fall in love with a piece of clothing, only to realize that you can't wear it because it can't fit or there's a nasty stain somewhere on it. I found a really cute pair of Tommy Hilfiger denim shorts (probably from the 90's) yesterday that I would've bought over my other shorts, but they were waaaay too tight on me when I tried them on. So please, check. You want your money to be well-spent. 

I wish you the best in your thrift shopping adventures! I hope you find cute pieces at cheap prices so you can bask in the glory of saving money. Got any more tips for thrifting? Leave a comment!