80-20 Living: The April and May Haul

As you may have noticed by now I not only like clothes, I have a lot of them. I do not, however, spend a lot of money on clothes. My primary shopping destinations are a handful of thrift stores that I know and love and are within five miles of my house. Because these stores are so close to home, and therefore a tempting way to spend a morning off work, I limit my thrifting to once a month. Blogger has just underlined the word thrifting and spell check recommends that I use the words rifting or thrusting instead. While these words might make a more interesting, and possibly NC-17 post I think that thrifting is the term I am looking for.

There are two primary reasons that I prefer to shop at thrift stores, the first is to save money and the second is that I try to follow the Buy Nothing New Compact that I first read about at the Non Consumer Advocate. I admit that my shopping habits when it comes to clothes may violate some of the spirit of the Compact, but I do feel good about doing my small part to not directly support fast fashion and all of the downsides to the West's obsession with constantly changing styles. Some people recommend investing money in classic wardrobe pieces that you can wear for years and using cheaper accessories to keep up with trends. I have nothing against this way of building a wardrobe but I know that it would not work for me.

For one thing I am too hard on my clothes to feel comfortable spending a lot of money on a few items of clothing (except for boots, which I will spend good money on). I also know that no matter how classic the look, I would get bored with anything that started to feel like a uniform. I like color and pattern and occasionally texture. I do make a handful of exceptions to thrift-only shopping; undergarments and socks are bought new, because eww.

I also have a weird anti-foot thing so I buy the majority of my shoes new as well. One of the things that I truly enjoy about thrifting for clothes is that I buy things off season with some regularity. This means when I take them home and wash them, they get put away with the other off season clothing not to be seen again for months. When I do switch out my summer and winter clothing, or as I like to call it here in the desert, my hot and not hot clothing I am always pleasantly surprised to find unworn, new to me items.

Here is what I bought during my April thrift excursion. Some of these items have been worn already.

Things that can be worn now:

Both tops $2.98

Solid Burgundy $2.98 Black, White and Burgundy $3.98

Blue & Black dress $4.98 Blue cotton dress $3.98

Things that will be worn when it's not hot

Brown Sweater $2.98 Black and Cream sweater $3.00 @ 50% off

Burgundy top $4.00 @ 50% off Black, Teal and Blue top $5.00 @ 50% off

Pants $.99 (yes really, under a dollar)

Total spent in April $31.85 (before tax)

And here is what I bought in May, one of these items has been worn already.

Things that can be worn now

Butterfly Dress $4.98 Black and Cream dress $6.98 (This dress broke my unofficial rule of not spending more than $5 per garment, but I think it's worth it.)