Full Circle Thrifting

Ask anyone I know, yes anyone, and they will all tell you the same thing - Sue is thrifty and just a little lucky. Sue hates to spend money, especially when there are perfectly good items out there waiting to be recycled and reused. Perhaps most of all, Sue likes to make money off items she cannot personally use.

How did it all start? It was so long ago, in fact I'm embarrassed to tell you how long ago, but I will never forget the first time I fell in love.....with a very handsome bow front china cabinet. I was 17, had spent all my money partying and was moving into my first flat. I needed furniture, well at least a bed and a dresser. My Aunt gave me an old twin bed and I hit the thrift stores in search of a dresser with $35 in my wallet. I remember walking into the first of 3 stores in town and there it was! Not the dresser I was in search of, but the most beautiful thing I had ever seen, a bow front china cabinet! And that is how I came to store my clothes in a china cabinet for my first year of adulting! At some stage over the course of that year, I also picked up Arthur Elsley Print from 1907 from another thrift store. That was in the 70s and I still own both of these items today along with a lust for thrifting.

As I grew older and moved apartments (flats in New Zealand), bought my first and subsequent homes, married and had a child, I considered it to be necessity to be thrifty and that had me shopping at thrift stores. It soon became apparent that I had developed a love for antique and vintage items and that I was destined to have a home full of a weird mix of eclectic, older items. Each and every one of which I loved. Some antique, some vintage and some just for fun.

In those days I was living in New Zealand until I fell for a handsome Canadian, we married and eventually moved to Canada. We sold almost everything, except for a few treasured items such as the china cabinet, Elsley print and a dresser which was mine as a child and my father's before me. Again, we furnished our new 1880s home in Stevensville, Ontario mostly from thrift stores and second hand items.

In moving to Canada I hit the jackpot in friends. I quickly became BFFs with 2 incredible ladies who also, as coincidence would have it, shared my love of thrift shopping and yard sale-ing (and wine drinking, buy that is another story). Life was good, and so began the second phase of my thrift store journey, the hobby. This was when I didn't really do it for necessity, but just for fun, in search of a bargain and looking for the next big find, or thing to fall in love with. There were many of both. It was also during this time I found my first big score. We were at a charity yard sale and rummaging through a pile of costume jewelry. My friend tried on a ring and said "it's too big, do you want to try it?" as she handed it to me. It was a bent, dirty, probably glass, costume ring but as I went to put it down I noticed the band was stamped. For one dollar I decided to take my chances and I bought it. When I got home I cleaned it up and found that it was 14K gold, and wow, the stone really sparkled! I tried to act nonchalant while I waited for the jeweler to look at it and confirm my suspicions. YES! A diamond. The valuation came back at $1125 ,but as I didn't particularly like the style of the ring I eventually sold it for a tidy profit.

That gave me the bug for finding treasures. The next treasure was a painting at a estate sale, $8 for the small painting and a few other items. For items like this painting I have to trust my spidey sense. True! I have a 6th sense now and if I feel strongly about something and have to look at it twice, I trust my instincts. That is what happened with the painting and sure enough, it was a known artist from the early 20th century and I made a cool $800 profit at auction.

I was on a roll, then one day while looking a books for my husband, I stumbled across an autographed Wayne Gretzky autobiography. "Could there be more autographed books in thrift stores?" was my next thought after congratulating myself on this great find. The answer is yes, and some are quite valuable. Before long, I had a large selection of autographed books, with the 2 best finds being Nelson Mandela (50 cents) and Leonard Cohen ($4). Eventually I had to start downsizing and made a great profit of close to a thousand dollars on those three books alone.

Yes, those were some great finds and there are plenty more where they came from but I am going to do a quick hop back to my rule of not buying new when there are so many reusable bargains waiting to be found. Thrift stores, estate sales, yard sales, Marketplace and Kijiji are great places to find items for the home projects, big or small. We purchased a house 4 years ago when we moved to Windsor, Ontario. It was a cute house, all in good condition, except for the kitchen, which was a disaster. The cupboards were rotting, it was poorly laid out and it was uglier than the ugliest kitchen you have ever seen (you will have to trust me on that - I wouldn't lie to you!) At the same time, we were renovating a small lake cottage we bought for $8000 because it was in really bad repair. It had no kitchen, an poor excuse for a bathroom and the floors were rotten. My husband proved it by falling through them - twice! We had to renovate literally from the floors up and I needed 2 kitchens on a very tight budget. Labor, no problem, we are handy-people, and it didn't take long for me to find used kitchen cabinets, with doors that transcended time. After updating the hardware they looked great.

"Yeah, but how much did it all cost?" you ask. You may find this hard to believe, but try. We made a profit! The used cabinets were from a very large kitchen in a high end home. They were "$50 if you take them today or I'm taking them to the dump!" (I think he was trying to save himself a trip to the dump and was unaware that people actually buy used kitchens.) There were enough cabinets to do our home and the cottage with a few left over to sell for $50 each. We could reuse the faucet and sink in our home, so I sold the used kitchen ones for $50 each. Now do you believe I am thrifty? Out of that profit we bought some of wood for a breakfast bar we added into the wall between the kitchen and dining room, and some nice used counter tops from Habitat for Humanity, a few other hardware store items we needed, and still held on to a small profit.

Now, how about the 'job' aspect of thrifting? I am glad you asked! On moving to Windsor, I took a job managing Escape Rooms. I had a brilliant idea to try to combat the issue of people not coming back once they had played our 3 rooms. I decided I would build seasonal rooms, swapping them out 5 times a year. Of course, building and escape room is expensive, but not if you use thrift stores. I was able to build each room for usually between $200 and $500 dollars, leaving room for a tidy profit over Christmas, Valentines, Easter, Summer and Halloween seasons. On some occasions, the whole room was themed around one thing I found in a thrift store.

This brings us full circle, in a way, back to necessity. When Covid hit, escape rooms were first to close and last to open then first to close again. My employment became a Covid casualty when the rooms closed for good. When other things reopened briefly, I did a lot of thrift shopping and found some great bargains, especially as people had been clearing out during lock downs. I found I was getting some very valuable items for a few dollars each and decided to turn my passion into a business. Being in our third lock down job postings keep dwindling, and was finding when I did apply, I was too old or 'too qualified' for them. Cue the business. I now have an online business selling vintage items and it is doing great! OK, so I am not making a full time living yet, and I declare my profits so it comes off my unemployment, but eventually it will be a good source of income, either as a supplement for another job, or an income in the event that my unemployment runs out and I have not been able to find employment.

This is where thrifting gets interesting and also, where I added knowledge to my spidey powers. There is an abundance of vintage household items in thrift stores and the trick is to know what is valuable and what is ten a penny. I have bought books and done hours of internet research, particularly on glass items (depression, carnival, cut, pressed etc), ceramics and cookie jars as I found certain items sell really well and they can often be found. Nice sets of mid century glasses for example, especially with large colorful flowers or geometric patterns. Vintage clothing and shoes are also popular and good condition vintage cookie jars can fetch a nice profit. I have sold 3 cookie jars, bought for under $10 each, for in excess of $100 each in the past 3 months. In fact, while I have been writing this, my phone went cha-ching. I love that sound as it means another item has just sold! This time it was a cookie jar I paid $4.99 Canadian for and it in a thrift store and it sold for sold $149 U.S. ($188 Can.) Cha-ching!

It did not take long to realize that signing up for thrift store membership or loyalty programs is a great way to save money and get better bargains. It's important to know which days are discount, and in my case, senior days and many stores set their senior age at 55 or 60. Finally! A good thing about aging. In fact, Value Village has 30% off on senior days and every time you donate they give you a coupon for 20% off, great for using if it's not seniors day. One local store even has a points card and I can use my points for dollars off my purchases.

In conclusion, the thrifting life is a good life. It can be exciting when you find the good stuff, and sometimes disappointing. Having a vintage business fulfills the thrift-aholic in me and I basically see myself as a personal shopper for whoever is looking for that item for their collection. Having a store online is the perfect way to go, with low overheads and no Covid shut downs, but it takes a lot of trial and error to get pricing right and not lose too much profit to fees and shipping. I could write another entire story just on selling! I still find some awesome items for myself however, if I absolutely love it, I often keep it.

I will leave you with a few more of my treasured finds. The condiment set was picked up, put down and picked up again, as it had my spidey senses were screaming at me. I had to pay $4 for it and the scrooge in me didn't like that, but when my research showed the markings to be 99% pure silver and it weighed 28 ounces, I didn't mind the $4 so much. My profit after fees and shipping was $408. The next find is a Sika Mobler, Danish, teak mid century bar cart. At just $10 in Goodwill, it took just seconds for me to scoop it up and no time at all to sell for $280. Lastly, believe it or not I shelled out $60 for the buffet (gulp!) but it was coming home with me to stay, as once again it was love at first sight. I had to con my husband, under fear of death, to help me move it as it weighs about the same as a baby elephant. Fortunately he liked it and I escape alive! I hope you enjoyed, and possibly learned something from my story. Happy thrifting!