As a general rule I have always avoided so called “thrift stores” like the plague.  Lets be honest, there is a certain stigma surrounding thrift stores…some of them for good reason.  On the other hand I didn’t realize just what a great resource they can be for some things.  I was talking to my brother the other day and he had just gotten done going to what he called a “red tag” sale.  He was super excited about it, and he is a 21 year old wildman, so I was fairly skeptical.  I figured it had something to do with discount liquor, or possibly another one of he and his friends bizzare outings (like the time they picked up 20 free gallons of iced tea from someones back yard….or the time they left a 70s hot tub in my front yard…or the time they tried to get bronze scrap metal out of an old broken piano…).  He was actually referring to a thrift store sale.

Turns out he was actually on to something.  He came back with some pretty cool stuff.  There are some tshirts for things from the 90s that I was pretty enamored with.  He managed to get a jersey from one of the CSU players from the late 90s.  Seeing as old jerseys are hard to come by, its a great find.  He also managed to grab some workout shirts that are nothing less than awesome… some to be worn as tshirts and some to be cut up into workout shirts.  His tshirt of choice to make into a workout shirt is old American flag tshirts.  I found that I long ago went through my old tshirts for ones I wanted to cut off into lifting shirts so the idea of a huge selection of $2 shirts out there all begging to be worn sounds great.  For the nostalgic among us there are great old cartoon tshirts (mighty mouse anyone?  How about teenage mutant ninja turtles?  )  Not bad for a fun tshirt.  Good luck finding anything new that has quite the fun nostalgic value.

This got me thinking, what things are BETTER from a thrift store than they are brand new?

1) Workout shirts - see above.  Teenage mutant ninja turtles tshirt for lifting in? Priceless.

2) Nostalgic tshirts - see above as well.

3) rags/towels - I need some new shop towels.  I certainly am not going to steal Lauren’s towels and I am sure there are some big ones that would be perfect.

4) Resellable antiques or cool antiques - sometimes gems slip through the cracks.  You never know what you might find.  Can’t buy antiques new now, can ya?

5) Halloween costumes - What better place to find things for crazy Halloween costumes.  Want to be a little old lady? sold.  Crazy costumes? sold. Karate kid? sold.

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