Dollar Day at the Goodwill

Mondays are Dollar Days at the Goodwill...

So of course we only picked items with blue tags and ended up with these items...

An Old Navy dress and shoes for $2 total...

A simple black dress and heels for $2 total...

Pants and a top for $2 total...

And another top to go with the same pants for $1...

I love shopping at the Goodwill!

Our "New" Coffee Maker

Hubby's coffee maker suddenly died this week but instead of running to Walmart or Target to replace it, we ran to the Goodwill.  For less than $4 he found a coffee maker in perfect working order.  He brought it home, cleaned it up a bit, ran some vinegar through it a couple times (then rinsed it thoroughly, of course), and set the timer which gave him perfectly brewed coffee when he woke up the next morning.  This is the first time he has ever had a coffee pot that you could set a timer on so it will have coffee made when you wake up and needless to say, he is quite impressed by this (I didn't have the heart to tell him that this technology has been around for 30+ years!).

Saving Money at the Goodwill

Whenever we need to buy something, the first place we check is the Goodwill.  Last week hubby's coffee pot got a crack in it so instead of running to a department store and buying a fancy (read, expensive) coffee maker, we hit up the Goodwill (on Wednesday which is 40% off for seniors, of course).  Hubby found a perfectly nice, and actually pretty new looking coffee maker for only $4! 

And since my walking club was going to have our first walk of the season this weekend, I got a nice outfit for walking which included a new looking RBX jacket and new looking Nike athletic pants for a grand total of $5.00 for both pieces.  I love the Goodwill!

Need Gear? Check Out the Goodwill

Last month I needed some new stuff for walking (stretchy athletic pants and a cute top to go with it) so I went to a local department store and got some "sale" items.  I spent $30 for a pair of Nike athletic pants and a store brand top.  I hadn't shopped for clothes at a regular store in years but I was in a hurry and the store was on the way and, long story short, never again.  The pants are already wearing as is the shirt and I am NOT HAPPY about it.  So it was back to the Goodwill I went this week.

While I always buy my shoes, socks, underwear, and backpacks brand new (but still on clearance, always), I have no problem buying clothes--pants and tops--at thrift stores.  I know exactly how they will fit as they have already been washed several times, I know exactly how they will wear because if they haven't unraveled after someone else wore them they should last for me as well, and, most importantly, people get rid of really good brands and the thrift stores sell them for a fraction of the price of new (the pants I bought at the regular store for $24 would have been less than $8!).

Here's some great deals I found a couple of days ago at the Goodwill...an REI rain jacket, a fluorescent yellow shirt for an upcoming fun run, and an Eddie Bauer vest, all for under $5 each with a senior discount.

Raving About the Goodwill Outlet

Once a week on Wednesdays, we go to our nearest Goodwill store.  Wednesdays are senior day so everything is half off which allows us to buy some really great stuff at really super prices.  Since we missed our regular trip to the Goodwill yesterday, we decided to go to the Goodwill Outlet today where everything is sold in big heaps by the pound.

The outlet has to be seen to be believed.  The place is packed with people (mostly resellers by the look of them and judging by the quantity of stuff they are buying) and every time a new bin is brought out, the stuff starts flying (imagine Walmart the day after Thanksgiving) as people sort through it.  It took over an hour of searching through the bins (note to self, bring gloves next time!) but we were able to leave with a whole bunch of stuff for a little under $15.  Here's some of the stuff we got which averaged about 50 cents a piece...

...a Jones New York sweater

...some Hollister shorts for hubby

...a cute LeSportsac bag

...a Nike Climalite tank top

...a steamer for our wok

...an Axcess top for me

...and yarn (I want to teach myself to knit)

If you have a Goodwill Outlet near you, you really should check it out.  It may seem a bit intimidating and a bit icky (the stuff isn't cleaned up and neatly displayed like in the regular Goodwill stores) but the super cheap prices make it worth the effort to sort through the icky stuff to find the gems!

And I Thought the Goodwill Was Cheap

We are Goodwill converts.  Ten years ago if you would have told me I would even enter the door of the Goodwill I would have said "ick" and "no way".  But after seeing how much money we can save shopping at this thrift store and how cool the items are (name brands and high dollar items if you were to buy the things at the mall), we rarely shop anywhere else these days.

So imagine our surprise when we found out that our city now has a Goodwill clearance center.  We went to check it out today and found that this is an even better (read cheaper) way to shop for some items.  The place is a huge warehouse filled with bins of stuff.  The items aren't neatly arranged and cleaned up.  In fact it looks like a backhoe picked up stuff by the cart-full and dropped them into the dozen or so bins that filled the store.  So we jumped into the fray and came away with the following: 2 long sleeve Gap shirts, 1 pair Billabong swim trunks, one waist pack for walking (that I couldn't find anywhere...this one is exactly what I was looking for!), one padded envelope, one pair of sweatpants for lounging around the house, and a very cool curtain that matches our living room decor perfectly.  All of this for a grand total of $3.60!  They sell stuff by the pound and apparently we bought three pounds of stuff.
We will definitely add this to our shopping rounds each week (and also get there early as the people we saw at the store today looked like professional resalers (they had gloves on to search through the bins, raced from bin to bin quickly identifying stuff they wanted, and were buying huge carts of stuff for pennies on the dollar).

If you have a Goodwill clearance center in your area, it is definitely worth the trip to check it out!

Day 7 of My November Challenge (and some Goodwill Goodness)

The challenge was uneventful...no exercise, no money earning, no activity, but I did get one more chapter of the book edited.  I suck at challenges.  :(
What we did do today was to get the hubby some new pets...

...the bowl was from the Goodwill (99 cents), the rocks were from the $1 store ($1), the plant we had, and the fish were from Petco (97 cents for all three).

We also made a haul from the Goodwill--for $24 we bought 9 shirts for hubby (photo below--great brands!), and a pair of jeans and a long-sleeved shirt for me.