Tips for Finding the Best Stuff While Thrifting
Thrifting is a unique shopping experience that can be rewarding especially when you find a beloved item you may not otherwise find in a traditional department store. If you’ve never been thrifting before – or find it super overwhelming and don’t know where to start – here are some of the best thrift store tips to help you find the perfect thrifted pieces.
Before You Head To The Store
Work Out Where and When To Go
Finding what thrift stores are worth your time is half the battle. Thrifting can be exhausting, so you want to narrow down the shops that will most likely have something you’re interested in. Spend some time researching the stores near you to work out what kind of stuff they have. If it doesn’t fit your vibe, then it might not be worth the visit.
It’s also worth finding out the best time to go too. When does the shop restock? That’ll be when the stores are most full of stuff and you’re most likely to find a hidden gem before anyone else.
What Sort Of Things Are You After?
One of the best thrifting tips is to go in with some idea of what you want to find. It could be as vague as some furniture to fill your bedroom or a jacket to match a particular outfit. Going in with an idea of what you want will help you focus, as well as prevent you from wandering around the store aimlessly.
Start With The Things You Want
Once you’ve identified what items you want to get from your thrifting trip, start off in that area of the store. Focusing on what stuff you want to find will give you a goal for your trip, preventing that overwhelming feeling you can often experience in a thrift store if you don’t know where to start. If you find what you’re after or the store hasn’t got what you want, then you can start to look at other things you are drawn to.
Keep An Open Mind
Sometimes, going into a thrift store completely blind is when you’ll end up with the best pieces. It can be quite rare to find a super specific item you’re after, like a red mini skirt. You’ll be better off and have more success if you keep whatever you’re after super open. You may be more likely to find a miniskirt you like, for example, but in a different color.
Being more open-minded about what you’re looking for can allow you to be a bit more experimental and can help you to find more interesting, rarer pieces – that’s why it’s one of the best thrifting tips.
Divide And Conquer
Searching through the endless racks of clothes can get exhausting and frustrating fast. Especially if you just start in a random area. You might even start to lose track of what you have gone through and what you have left to search – you want to leave no corner unturned to avoid possibly missing the best pieces. When stepping through the door, try to have a list of certain areas you want to visit. Once you’ve scoured those, then try slowly sifting through the areas left to maximize your time and opportunity to find something good.
Maximizing Your Finds
When looking through the huge variety of items on offer, you need to be able to work out what is worth it and what really isn’t. Focus on looking for items that are high quality and well-made. You can find out by feel or check the items’ tags to see what they’re made of. You don’t want to bring an item home that ends up falling apart on its first wear.
Another way to maximize your clothing finds is to look at stuff that is not potentially your size. If you find an item you’ve fallen in love with but it doesn’t quite fit, is it possible to get it altered? Altering items can create the perfect fit for you as well as elevate the item’s appearance. You could get creative and even transform it into something new.
Things To Keep in Mind
Just Try Adding One Item At A Time
When you’re new to thrifting, it might be hard to integrate thrifted items into your everyday wardrobe. You can start by investing in one piece at a time to see if you can make things work. Thrifting isn’t just a trend; don’t go changing your entire wardrobe just to fill it with stuff you might find hard to work with and end up getting rid of everything else – this defeats the point of thrifting. It’s also super overwhelming to try to find a bunch of stuff in one go, so make sure you try to get that one item you really like when heading into the store..
If You Didn’t Get Anything, Don’t Be Discouraged
Sometimes it just doesn’t work out – and that’s okay! There will always be another time to visit and get some good stuff. Thrift stores get new stock all the time, so it’s always worth another trip on a different day or at another time; don’t be put off if you couldn’t find anything on your first visit. Sometimes, just visiting the stores and having a browse is a fun day out in itself, even if you don’t go home with anything!
We hope that you enjoyed this beginner-friendly guide to thrifting. It can be very intimidating stepping into a thrift store for the first time. There are endless racks laid out in front of you, and it can be tricky to work out where to start and how to end up with some really neat pieces. Even though thrifting can require some patience and persistence, you should now have a bunch of useful hints and tips to help you make the most of your next thrifting trip.
For more info, visit thrifttownstores.com to find your local store, check donation guidelines, and see how thrifting fits into a more sustainable future. It’s simple, it works, and it’s for everyone.
