Just Like Fishin'

"Let's go "shoppin'", Thomas," said my grandpa, sometime back in the 80s. Grandpa was in his 70s at the time, so he needed a bit of help with the "shoppin'" he had in mind, as I was soon to discover. Next door to his business was a thrift store. Grandpa shopped in the dumpster out back for dress shoes which fit his size 11 EE feet perfectly, 1950s era stainless steel Sunbeam toasters that just needed a new cord and a bit of cleaning to make the most perfectly browned toast you've ever seen and other similar goodies. "One man's trash is another man's treasure, ain't that right, Thomas?" I nodded. "They're getting downright stingy over here, these days, not like they used to be, wha?" I'd never been over here before, so I couldn't judge, but we only found one item in need of a new cord that day. Apparently, though, that was stingy of the thrift store's owners in comparison to former times in the past year or two.

I'd say I got my thrifty genes along with my Y chromosome from grandpa, but since his mother was where he got his Scots heritage from, it's probably not true. Many of my best finds have long ago been lost, stolen or sold, but I still have a few pictures to share. Current pride of place goes to the illustrated copy of Pinocchio above, which I rapidly stuffed into my brown paper shopping bag a few years ago at the $5 per bag library book sale. It was printed in Italy and given as a Christmas gift to a child by his aunt and uncle in 1925, based on the inscription. It's not in pristine condition, obviously, and my barcode scanner didn't help me find it.

Scanning the shelves

When you're actually shopping instead of "shoppin'" like grandpa used to do, something like this barcode scanner can come in very handy. Sure, there are other ways to do the same thing with your phone, but if you're in a roomful of shoppers at a $5 per bag book sale, time is of the essence. Or when you've got an hour to spare at an unfamiliar thrift store with a whole lot of books. This scanner found me a whole lot of books and other items with good resale potential. Probably my best quick turnaround with the scanner was a $27 sale on Amazon the week after I bought the book for $1. It was by written Tolkien, but I can't remember the title or much else about it, sorry. Another good one was a school textbook for hairstylists, picked up for a couple of bucks at a thrift store and sold for considerably more within a couple of weeks. I haven't sold books online for a few years now, so I probably have several boxes of formerly profitable books of which a few may still be worth listing if I decide to take it back up. Probably, there are a few DVDs and other barcoded items in those boxes as well. When I moved across the country, I had to leave behind the lion's share of my inventory; it just wasn't worth the cost to move it, unfortunately.

The bespoke look

Back when I was a senior in high school in the 80s, I needed a suit to wear to some senior awards functions and other events. At the local Salvation Army, I picked up a bespoke three piece gray wool suit for $10 and had it altered to fit me for $20. Nearly all the other guys in the room had off the rack single vent jackets. My $30 double vented jacket, pants and vest were all tailored to fit me at that time. Obviously, I outgrew those quite a few years ago, but I got a fair bit of use out of them and would have spent a whole lot more money on something which didn't look nearly as sharp if I hadn't gone thrifting.

Sterling finds

The wooden utensils aren't in the best shape, but when I asked the price for them at a yard sale and was told 50 cents, I bought them. They have solid sterling silver handles which unscrew from the wood. The candlesticks aren't in great shape, either, as you can see. I got those for $1 at the same yard sale. Also sterling, though the bases are filled with cement or something similar and there's a wooden dowel up the middle so they aren't solid sterling. Still, I'll gladly pay a buck or two for a few ounces of silver whenever I have the opportunity. I slightly overpaid another time with a $2 price tag for a sterling silver teaspoon, but that was because I threw in a few silver plated ones to disguise it and the woman at the yard sale was charging 50 cents apiece for each one of her "silver plated" spoons. That was back when silver was selling for around $15 an ounce, so I came out well ahead on the deal in the long run.

A few thrifty tips

Trying to make a living off of thrifting finds is a lot of hard work, but if you treat thrift store shopping as a fun hobby, it can offer a lot of enjoyment as well as some profit. It's also addictive, so you may have to give up some other hobbies to make time for it. As for tips on being thrifty, I recommend you check out Charles Long's How to Survive Without a Salary. Yes, you could buy a new copy of the revised (1996) edition of How to Survive Without a Salary for $30 on Amazon instead of reading the 1992 edition on the Internet Archive. But before you do, you might want to ask yourself WWCLD "what would Charles Long do?"

"If you're reading this book at the public library, you already have the idea. Go to the head of the class." Charles Long, How to Survive Without a Salary (1992)