Thrifting or Bust!

As promised, I went thrifting on Saturday with my mama and Turner.  The main goal was to get 9 month clothes for Tu, and maybe some other goodies for the house if I found any (we needed an outdoor rug desperately…if you can need an outdoor rug desperately).

We started out at a thrift shop in a small town.  We confused consignment shop with thrift shop.  This particular thrift shop would take ANYTHING.  I saw half empty bottles of shampoo for sale.  I did get a potato masher for $1, so I call it a win.  The place was more fun for the people-watching.  Zach and I have been watching Big Love (HBO show about polygamy), and I felt like I was in the show!  Potato masher and an experience?  I’ll take it.

Second stop was Castaways Consignment in Washington.  I was much underwhelmed.  I was half looking for a pair of jeans, but they didn’t have any long lengths in my size.  Also missing were any 9 month clothes for Tu.  I found exactly 2 items that were 6-12 months.  After I left, I realize I paid $7 for each item.  A little (A LOT!) ridiculous for second hand.  I am not proud of that.  I was just so excited to find something!

Third on the list was a new consignment shop in Washington, called New 4 You.  The store carries new accessories.  It’s smaller than Castaways, but I really liked the décor.  They only have women’s clothes and accessories, and this mama found a super cute scarf for $5 and it was new!   I tried on a pair of jeans, but tiny back pockets on a big butt look like regular sized pockets on a huge butt.  NO THANK YOU.

After New 4 You, we went to Peoria.  I’ve heard good things about Wee Wares from several people, and it was a success!  Tu got three pairs of shoes, a dress, and two pairs of shorts.  All this was only $27 including one pair of shoes were StrideRite, which are not cheap new.  Again, we had a lot of trouble finding 9 month clothes, but what we did find was good.

Even though Wee Wares was better than the other consignment/thrift shops, I still didn’t have enough to outfit Tu for the spring.  Target just so happens to be just down the road from Wee Wares.  Jackpot!  Well, “jackpot” might be a little overkill.  Does everyone have a baby in 9 month clothes right now, or do they just not stock as much?  Either way, I decided the way to go was comfy.  I got a bunch of onesies and cotton pants.  She even got a bicycle onesie for PawPaw Brian (he’s a big time bike rider)!  I also got an outdoor rug at the Target.  They had almost all of their Threshold outdoor rugs on “clearance”.  Sidebar;  .99 off $12.99 is not a clearance.  $6 off $12.99 is a clearance.  Naturally, I chose the only one not on clearance, but the extra .99 didn’t hurt too badly.  Last on the list was formula (we are so lucky that we had the most luck with the Up&Up brand of soy formula since it’s half the price!).  Out the door, I was $138 poorer.  

So, I failed at the second hand shopping game; bust.  Do you have any tips?  I’m excited for garage sale season.  .50 is more my style than $7 for second hand.   

Updates!

I’m sorry I’ve been neglecting the blogosphere these days.  The job, post-promotion, has been taking up all my time!  Oh, and snuggling with my baby girl.  That takes up the rest of my time.

I thought today I’d update you all on some past posts:

• The Shark:  We still love the new vacuum.  So far, it was definitely worth the money.  Since Turner will be crawling soon (we think…) it was a necessary purchase.  I definitely feel better about putting her on the floor now.
• Working Out:  I don’t understand the question… I haven’t been doing so well in the running department.  As many of you know firsthand, winter in the Midwest this year was ROUGH.  We’ve had a couple nice days, so I plan to get on the move soon!  I even snared a running buddy (that’s you Brittany C!).   But let’s focus on successes.  I have been doing some squats and lunges to get ready to run.  Hope it helps!  Part of the working out post was also what I needed to buy to start running, and contacts were on the top of the list.  Walgreens now carries contacts, and they give some pretty good deals to get people on board.  My contacts were 1) cheaper than 1-800 Contacts (where I usually get them) and 2) 20% off with a coupon!  In total, I spent just over $70 (hello free shipping) for a 6 month supply (my 3 month supply was about that much before).  To you non-astigmatism people, count yourselves lucky.  Toric lenses cost about 50% more per box.  I really hope Turner lucks out and doesn’t need glasses (both for her eye health and our wallet!).  
• Wedding Invitations: So, I think they turned out great!  The bride hasn’t seen them, so I suppose I haven’t passed the real test yet.  If you have no clue what I’m talking about, I offered to address my friend’s wedding invitations as a shower gift (part of tapping your talents to save money).  They took about 3 hours over 2 days, and I only had to throw away 3 envelopes.  Since there were 79 to address, I’m going to put that in the “win” column. The bride (hey Liz!) is pretty excited, so I hope they live up to her expectations!

• Meal Planning: This one does NOT go in the “win” column.  We’ve had some extra busy nights lately, and sometimes we don’t even eat dinner.  I guess that saves money!  I’d really like to work on this one, though.
• Tax Return:  I’m sure you know that we spent some of our tax return on the Shark (have I written enough about it?), but we didn’t tell you where the rest went.  Post baby, the doctor bills were through the roof.  We’ve managed to pay off all but two (including Turner’s bi-monthly doctor visits).  That left our emergency fund almost completely depleted.  Well, it’s beefed back up to $1500!  Dave Ramsey (we follow his plan) suggests having a $1000 starter emergency fund until you are out of debt, but Tu and I are currently uninsured.  Zach and I feel much more comfortable having that little $500 cushion just in case.  As soon as we’re covered (come on June 1st!), we’ll send that $500 toward debt.  As for the rest, well, Tu may have gotten some new clothes.  Girl is growing like a weed!

On tap for this weekend is some thrift shopping!  It seems silly to buy a whole bunch of brand new clothes for the baby when she’s in them for about 3 months.  Since that seems to be how long babies stay in once size, Mama and I should be able to find some good stuff at some local consignment shops.  I’ll report back!

Slip Up

It was just a matter of time, right?  The mall was calling my name this weekend.  As many of you shoppers know, January is an amazing time for sales.  Gap dramatically marks down their prices (they had men’s jeans for $15 each!).  Just like its big sister, Baby Gap marks down their clothes, too.  I got Turner a romper, swimsuit, headband, and shoes for just under $20!  She also got two sleepers and two outfits from Macy’s (I had a gift card so this part doesn't really count) for about $45.  The prices were amazing.  I didn’t even look at my section of Gap.  I have vowed to not buy any clothes until all the baby weight is gone.  I still have about 15lbs left (funny enough, that’s about how much Tutu weighs).  

Oh, and I went to Target (bad news bears) and got more than formula.  *We love their Up and Up brand of soy formula.  It’s half the price, and Tu spits up less than when we used the Enfamil ProSobee* Tutu needed a Valentine’s outfit and matching shoes, right?!  The girl can’t go anywhere without a bib, so she got some of those, too.  I walked out of Target $85 poorer.

How does all this fit in the budget?  Oh, right.  It doesn’t.  About once a month I get an itch to shop.  I see this as a victory, since it used to be about every three days.  Lately, Zach has done the grocery shopping (yes I even get my shopping high from the grocery store) since the car seat takes up a majority of the cart.  I needed my fix.  I hadn’t shopped since Christmas, and I got that done early (thank you, Cyber Monday).  After church on Sunday, Mama and Brian took us to Flat Top (Thank You!) and asked if we wanted to go to the mall with them.  We thought it would be fun to push Tutu around in the stroller, so we said yes.  We spent about 3 hours walking around, going in and out of stores.  Word to the wise: if you can’t hold yourself back, don’t even go!  EVERYTHING was on sale.  I was saving my Macy’s GC for Tutu’s Easter dress/hat, but we’ll have to put that in April’s budget.

Hopefully, this will be the last shopping trip for awhile.  Maybe when Tutu is in all that ridiculous stuff from Justice, I won’t be so tempted.  Any slip ups out there?