Wednesday, April 24, 2013

My Shopping Trip to the Goodwill

Yesterday my mom, sister and I decided to go to the Goodwill to look around.  We love doing this together.  The Goodwill in the next town over, Ft. Collins, is really big and clean and I can always find something to buy there :)   I always find tons of  name brands (Talbots, Ann Taylor, Gap, Chico's, Eddie Bauer, Coldwater, etc..).  I've never cared what name brand the clothes are, nor have my children, but if we can score good quality clothing at a fraction of the price that's a huge bonus)!

Usually when we go there I look for clothes for our 5 kids and we usually go on one of the two Saturdays each month when everything is 1/2 price.....but those days are super crowded.  This time I was actually going to look for myself!!  Very few of my dress pants are fitting right now.  Most of them are size 8-12 and although I can still wear the 8's, the others just don't look good in my legs or bottom any longer.... they're too baggy.

Also, in tops, I'm still not use to the fact that I have moved down from wearing Large and X-Large to Small and Medium (mostly mediums but some smalls).  As I was trying on the tops yesterday I wanted to cry....happy tears!!  I couldn't believe that these tops were fitting. I'm not use to that feeling and it always takes me by surprise.   What??  Show my arms?  I can't believe I can do that now.  They definently need more work but I'm comfortable wearing sleeveless tops now. :)

I ended up buying 19 tops, 3 pair of pants, 1 skirt, 1 formal dress (for our cruise this summer), 1 purse, and 2 pair of shoes. I know that sounds like a lot of tops but I need to replace the XL tops in my closet that don't fit any longer and I honestly didn't realize how many tops I had put in my cart to try on.

  So this is what I do.... if I bring home 3 tops, I try to come home and take atleast 3 tops out of my closet to bag up and take back to the Goodwill the next time I go.  Otherwise, we seem to accumulate tooooo much!  And with 7 of us in this house, we can accumulate alot if we don't make sure to donate our clothes back to the Goodwill or to someone who can use them.

All of the items that I bought were $1.99-5.99 (with most of the tops being $3.49) and I have the Blue Card which takes an additional 20% off. (the Blue Card costs NOTHING to get. You just sign up at the store or online when you get home and everytime you buy at least $25 worth of merchandise, they take an additional 20% off)!  You just can't beat these prices.  Not sure if the Blue Card is a Colorado perk or a national one, but if you ever shop there, it would be worth it to check it out.  I mean, look at what I bought below... all for less than $100.00 (minus a top and pair of pants that I left over at my mom's house): 


















Everything's washed and ready to wear.  Now, I just need to spend some time today cleaning out my closet and getting a bag ready to give away.

On a side note, my sister saw a huge bucket of hotwheels for $25.00 so she put the bucket in her cart.  A man came up to her and wanted it and she told him she was buying it (I mean it was in her cart???).  He followed her around the store and then came up to her later and asked if she still wanted them.  She was afraid to take her eyes off of her cart the rest of the time we were there.  But.. it was so worth it.... my boys are going to love playing with them. :)

I hope you all have a great day! :)

5 comments:

  1. I love Goodwill! You got some great finds!!

    They recently changed our Goodwill and I don't like the setup or the pricing so I drive to a town over an hour away to go to the 'old' type of Goodwill. I always find clothes for the grandkids and my daughter always finds name brand stuff in her size. When my daughter was in college in a suburb of Chicago, that Goodwill had a student discount card. We don't have a blue card at the Goodwill's near me.

    Fun to go shopping at discount prices!

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  2. Wow Great job. I love thrift stores too and went to them often while I was losing. In the top picture I have tops very similar to the right and left one. I've never heard of the Blue card, but I'm gonna check now. Have a good one. :-)

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  3. Cute:) Yay for you! It is so funny because today when we went to TJ Maxx there was a Goodwill right next to it so I took a picture to show my mom! She loves TJ and she loves Goodwill! One stop shopping! I don't buy quantities of clothes because I don't do enough to need a bunch. I do love sales when I go to hot places because it is never hot enough in Spokane to wear a bunch of different things.
    We did a cruise to Mexico 10 years ago, so my kids would have been 15 and 17. It was so cool. They tried foods that I never in a million years thought they would eat. A lady was missing after we left Cabo. Her name is Roberta Pagan, I know that because they announced it every hour for about 24 hours. I still look every once in awhile on Google to see if she is still missing...duh...I believe she may have met with foul play:( The Columbia space ship blew up when we were on the ship. All of a sudden people were crowding down to the pizza place and watching the big screen TV's. The one astronaut was from Spokane/Cheney. I eventually met his Mom.

    Well that was all things that you wanted to know:) I am still in Ga and Karson is in bed, but Konner (6 month old) is fighting sleeping. It gets awful quiet when the kids go to bed! Then it's adult Yahtzee time....and I lose, every night!

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  4. http://www.charleyproject.org/cases/p/pagan_roberta.html

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  5. Good for you Kim. I have to confess I have never been to a goodwill or bought anything at a thrift shop. Not even sure where there is one near me, but if I find one, I'll take a look. Even when I was little my mom said I would never wear anything that had belonged to anyone else. Her friends would offer hand me downs but I wouldn't wear them. Not sure where I got that idea, but I'm not a snob or anything! I donate lots of stuff. but the charities always pick it up at the house, so not sure where the stores are. It makes sense to check it out though as it seems you can get some good bargains. Good for you! XO!

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