--- title: National Thrift Store Day | TIME description: Money went to Housing Works to see what kind of deals you could find for National Thrift Store Day. canonical: https://time.com/video/PMm43XyP/ og:title: National Thrift Store Day og:description: Money went to Housing Works to see what kind of deals you could find for National Thrift Store Day. og:url: https://time.com/video/PMm43XyP/ og:image: https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/PMm43XyP/poster.jpg?width=720 og:type: video.other twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: National Thrift Store Day twitter:description: Money went to Housing Works to see what kind of deals you could find for National Thrift Store Day. twitter:image: https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/PMm43XyP/poster.jpg?width=720 --- # National Thrift Store Day > Sponsored content. Supplied in partnership with TIME. 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They are at time.com/newsletters and are separate from a paid subscription. ## Video: National Thrift Store Day [Watch (HLS stream): National Thrift Store Day](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/PMm43XyP.m3u8) (14:34)  _Published 2016-08-17. Money went to Housing Works to see what kind of deals you could find for National Thrift Store Day._ --- Jul 27, 2023 8:38 PM UTC --- ## More From This Series [All Videos](https://time.com/video/) [3 Chain Stores That Could Raise Your Property Values MONEY](/video/fD5Fg1bN/) ### 3 Chain Stores That Could Raise Your Property Values MONEY [This New Store Has Everything For Free](/video/7I03RZpE/) ### This New Store Has Everything For Free [Minnesota AG Says Savers Thrift Chain Misleads Public On Charity Donations](/video/xpWJMYYC/) ### Minnesota AG Says Savers Thrift Chain Misleads Public On Charity Donations --- ## Transcript Hi everyone, thank you for joining us. Money Magazine, we are housing shops, housing works sorry. Tomorrow's national thrift shop day and we are here because we're gonna find great deals and show you guys that you can celebrate national thrift shop day by either shopping, going to your local thrift shop, and shop. For great deals or cleaning out your closet and decluttering and clearing out your mind and bringing stuff to donate, which feels amazing. With me right here I have Elizabeth. She's a representative from Housing Works. She's gonna tell us a little bit about how Housing Works works. So Housing Works is one of the largest community- based aid service organizations in the country And part of how we fund what we do is through our thrift shops. So, we have 12 thrift shops in New York City where people can make donations of stuff, like Veronica was saying, cleaning out your closet to sell things to raise money for the work we do. We provide services, health care, housing Legal services, job training programs for people living with HIV and AIDs in New York city. We also have an advocacy department, which is what I'm part of and we're working with other organizations across New York city and across New York state and across the country to end AIDs as an epidemic. Which we can do through testing. And prevention and treatment and social justice. So when you shop at Housing Works, that money is going directly into all the work that we do. So now you've heard a little bit about Housing Works, how that works. But there are so many more chains that you can visit tomorrow on National Thrift Shop Day. You can check out local deals from your local stores or from Goodwill, Savers. They all have Amazing deals tomorrow. Make sure you check also for some other tips. Make sure you check when they're restocking the inventory so you can see more new clothes. They come in very often. You should also check in if they have daily deals on holidays like Labor Day's coming up. A lot of thrift stores have a 50 % off which is amazing because Clothes are already so cheap at thrift stores. Now we also brought one of our reporters, Carry Ann, with us. She's the fashionista from the office, as you can tell. So we brought her along so she can hello find some deals and find some great stuff that I can wear. So she's my personal stylist for the day. She's gonna tell us what we found So Veronica was right. One of the great things that you can do is figure out when your local thrift shops restock merchandise. Big chains will do it continually throughout the day but smaller shops may have certain days of the week or certain times, so that's a good tip. But also, one of my favorite things to do is kind of follow the money So if you know that there are ritzier neighborhoods, higher income areas I would hit up those shops first because you know that those people make more designer or more luxury good donations. They spend more money and they're probably the people who keep things in their closet and wear them once or twice and then bring them in so I know I got a great deal. I got 100 % cashmere cardigan from [ UNKNOWN ] Scotland for $ 4 by going to the Palm Beach Goodwill. So thank you rich people Palm Beach. So what we're gonna talk about is kinda the things that you want to look for when you're in a thrift store. So one of the things that are a big deal for me is you want to look for kind of quality. So the biggest thing for me is kind of like a field test. So you want to touch the fabric. You want to feel and you want to look for things that are either cotton, wool, silk, or lots of other natural kind of fibers. You want to stay away from things that are plasticky, really polyester. And so actually what we found was the exact same dress that Veronica had chosen to wear. This is actually really funny. I didn't get this at a thrift store. I got it at Zara for the full price, randomly picked this dress for today and we're looking through and I'm This looks oddly familiar I probably have the same exact dress from Zara. Probably the same size too it looks. And way cheaper so I'm a little salty right now. [ LAUGH ] I'm a little upset but you know that's how it works. So, if you can find great deals from high street stores, mall stores, like Zara. But also, you can find really good, high- end brands, depending, we found here a skirt from Theory, which is a little bit more designer. This one is a wool cotton blend, so good materials that you want. We found also for Veronica Beautiful, just pull it up a little bit. A beautiful strapless red dress. All cotton. From J Crew. Probably, I don't know, maybe this is in their little wedding dress section, but probably well over $ 100. Here. [ LAUGH ] I feel like you're gonna skip off into the dressing room with that. No it's a great swirling dress, like It's very flowy, I love it. But yeah, the other thing that I, as I said, going to the fitting room is key, because most places do not allow you to return stuff once you purchase it, so you want to make sure before you walk out the store with it that you're sold on it. So you want to try it on, make sure it fits, and let's be honest with each other, most of Time we're shopping here because we want something cheap. Unless something is a really high end designer piece here, absolutely over the moon about, don't get it if there's something wrong with it. Like if it needs an alteration, if you have to sew buttons on, like unless you have a sewing machine at home, you're not gonna do it. We all have pieces sitting in our closet, we're like if I just got that changed, I would wear it. So don't buy something that you have to change Just either fall in love with it and buy it, or put it back and say, hm, I wish it worked but it didn't. The other thing to look for, is obviously, Housing Works and other places like this do their utmost to pick the best pieces. So they're getting rid of stuff that has a lot of your stains or tearing. But just before you leave, you wanna just make sure that all the The seams, like I always like to check in the arms if the seams are still good cuz sometimes it can start to pull a little bit but you won't notice it. This dress which we picked out for Veronica, which is a lovely color for her. Unfortunately it has just a small stain here. It's very tiny. You probably wouldn't notice that, it's very minute, and for some people it might not even be a dealbreaker. They might take it home and think I can wash that. But it's just something that before you walk out of the shop, you really just want to give everything a once- over so that you're walking out knowing before you buy. And it's only $ 5! See, and this is where that comes in. This is where I get excited, the price, the cheap price. But you can decide, is that a dealbreaker for me or not? You can't even see it. I guess. [ LAUGH ] Somebody's asking, can you haggle the price of thrift store finds? That's a good question. So some are owned by larger chains and will have a no- haggle policy, because it's not an individual store that owns it. So they won't be able to make individual calls, they'll just have to go with the set price. Smaller local shops may allow you to haggle more. And then like Veronica said, a lot of them do these great deals. Where they have a certain day of week they'll knock things down, or there are certain stickers on merchandise that's been around a little bit that knock the price down. So you can go then and then you're getting an even better deal. Although as Ryan said, when something's $ 5 I don't know what you're gonna haggle it down to. I mean you can be a super. [ LAUGH ] Super saver. Yeah and haggle it maybe down to $ 2. But I don't know that you're gonna get much cheaper. [ LAUGH ] The other thing that I just wanted to point out, so we talked a little bit about clothes. But one of my favorite things to scout at thrift stores is actually shoes. I've gotten a great pair of Dolce & Gabanna wooden platform soles for like, $ 40. They were in great condition. So basically what I just want to show you guys here is we picked out some shoes, all great bands. Here's a brand I really love, Alice + Olivia. Sorry. Alex and Olivia. Great quality. The only thing is you want to just look over shoes and look at the soles always and the heels. And you'll see here, there are dings. There's lots of wearing. This is one that you're probably not going to get a lot of use out of. This is something that has already lived kind of a full life. On the other hand, look at these great shoes that we found. Look at the soles. Never been worn. Someone clearly spent over $ 100. We Googled this brand which is also another tip. If you're not familiar with a brand, you don't understand the pricing, this is a little bit pricey, Google it. Make sure it's actually worth the quality. Use your smartphone, look up the brands, look what they normally retail for, And make a judgement call yourself to see if you feel like it's really worth that. But as you can see, this one has no marks on the soles. Perfect. That's rare. What's you're probably normally gonna find is something like this. Which is actually great. It's barely been worn, all the soles are still beautiful, still wrapped in [ UNKNOWN ]. So that's another tip. I would say the same thing with. Handbags, you wanna pay attention to closures, zippers, places where your fingers touch a lot. For the same kind of usage marks, check the handles, make sure there's no little nicks or frays in the leather. But yeah, other than that have fun shopping. I'm sure you guys will find great deals tomorrow. As Veronica said, lots of stores are offering deals. And that's it for me. Yeah thank you guys for watching. If you guys want to tell us other stuff you guys love to buy at the stores of flea markets, and stuff like that, then that's great, but thank you for watching. Certain things you should check like zippers or anything like that. Zippers are something where you can do it obviously when it's on the like here, closed buttons but here you can do it up here. This one goes up pretty easily so that should make you confident. But obviously you always wanna play with the zippers when it's actually on you because if there is a knee strain on the zipper that's when you often have trouble getting it Up and down. Also you wanna make sure you can do it up and down yourself. I live alone some of our viewers are more luck and they have someone to live with who will do their zippers for them everyday. But, yeah, that's a big thing. But basically you wanna make sure that no fabric is getting tangled on either side. Like stray threads or something like that will bunch. And you just wanna give it a few tests, make sure it goes up and down easily, and try it on on you. Go up and down a few times on you. If you're having trouble with it this time it's probably not going to be any better at home. So I would just move on. But if it goes up like the one that we have on the hanger you're good. And what do you think about buying houseware in thrift stores? [ LAUGH ] I always buy like house stuff at thrift stores it just like it's not something other people use so it's easier to just grab. If you like it, you like it. It doesn't have to be a certain size, it doesn't have to be a certain color something that's gonna fit you perfectly like your body right? Doesn't matter, if it looks good in your house just get it. It's often very cheap. Like sofas are so expensive, but at thrift stores they're not bad at all. But, I think [ UNKNOWN ] especially sofas, I would still do my spot test. Definitely give everything you buy a sniff, Yeah. just to make sure that it smells okay. I need to take her with me because I always This is so cheap, I'm not gonna find this anywhere else, I'm taking it. But I need her to like, control me. She's like the little A lot of housewares are good though because things like lamps, that's one thing I would say. So if you see anything electronic like a lamp, a phone, anything like that, plug it in, make sure it works. I once fell in love with this like, when we still had phones, fell in love with this old vintage phone Loved it, the woman said it worked. I went home and yes when someone called it rang but they couldn't ever hear me and I couldn't hear them so kind of a useless phone. So I would just say test everything that is electronics to make sure it works before you take it home but otherwise, if it's a dish, if it's a plate, if you like it there's really no reason. Then to just swipe it up and take it to the register. Any more questions? You have to be less cautious. When you think about shoes, would you buy a pair of shoes and resell them for cheap here? Like bring them to a cobbler? Would that be worth it? I wouldn't just because I'm lazy and I don't like to go out of my way and take them somewhere pick them up. And pay more. This is what I was getting at, if you really love them, if the uppers of the shoe are great quality, I would say you wanna go with something that's a little bit better quality. So if they're a designer shoe, and the upper's really great, you love them, you know that you can't find them anywhere else. You've looked online Maybe on Ebay and stuff, and no other person selling them, I would say maybe then you consider, but you have to really love it because otherwise like [ UNKNOWN ] you are not gonna make that extra effort, and to pay the extra money you are not gonna make the extra effort, and then you are gonna have them right back here in about a month or a year, whenever you clean out your closed you'll send them right back. And so you have some good, you owe me a donation but other than that. [ LAUGH ] How about bed bug? Do you worry about bed bugs in a. That's why you should probably wash. Wash. Everything that you buy from the store before you put it on your body. Just give it a good wash. [ LAUGH ] Things like sofas and stuff like that, I would be a little more cautious about. I think that buying like wood furniture, and plates and things like that are really safe homeware investments. Anything that has like fabric, I would be a lot more cautious with. And then, one more question. Is there like a difference in quality between vintage store and thrift store. Ooh, I feel think that really depends on the shop and the area. The owner. I feel like there are some vintage stores, [ UNKNOWN ]. So true vintage stores that are only for vintage stuff, they're not consignment, they're not thrift, they're only selling vintage goods. And they typically sell only high- end vintage quality stuff. So they're selling Chanel, they're selling Hermes, Those probably are going to be hard- fought, they're gonna be a lot pricier. [ LAUGH ] I mean, everyone knows that a Chanel is an investment bag, it would be more expensive when you sell it, so those are probably not cheap, you're going there because you want a certain aesthetic, I would say, more than a deal necessarily. So I would assume if I was going Going to a purely vintage shop, and especially designer vintage house and expect high quality. I would expect much higher quality than I would find just going to Housing Works or a thrift shop. Having said that though, there are tons of thrift stores that carry designer brands. They're probably not vintage. Like you're not gonna find 1950, 1960s pieces, but you'll find contemporary designer pieces that are good quality for a lot less. That it? Okay great. That's it for us. Let us know again your favorite finds at thrift stores. How much money have you saved over the years shopping at thrift stores. Send us pictures of your receipt of how much money you've saved. Anything. We'd love to hear it . >> I wanna see your best find. Yeah. Send me your best find. [ LAUGH ] Well, thanks for watching. [ BLANK_AUDIO ] ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"VideoObject","name":"National Thrift Store Day","description":"Money went to Housing Works to see what kind of deals you could find for National Thrift Store Day. 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