My friends and family have seen what I've been able to find, how I've decorated my house and what I resell, and a whole lot of folks have joined the thrifting world.
Mr. Fabulous has developed quite a keen eye. He has good taste by nature, and can easily spot quality. He looks for things I'd never thought had value, and finds great stuff. He found a huge set of Norwegian flatware for ten cents a piece that I resold for a hundred bucks or so. He found some outdoorsman shirts for a few bucks that sold for a whole bunch.
He used to buy his clothes at regular stores, and now shops for his duds exclusively at thrift stores. He looks, well, fabulous in anything he wears, and that asset, combined with his eye for quality, means he'll never go back to the expensive places.
He came home yesterday after having gone sale-ing solo, and he'd found three pair of Levi's for 99 cents a pair. For less than a latte at Starbucks, he bought pants that would have cost him almost $100 new. So cool!
Sometimes he'll go thrifting while I'm working, and he'll call, all excited about something he found. Many times, he's tripped across something very worthy of buying. It's amazing what people give away.
And there's more....
My dad lives in a gated community, and his dump has a valet. He's found all kinds of great stuff at the dump, much of which he excitedly passes along to me. And of course he's found items he's integrated into his life - he has a perfectly functional recumbent bike in his garage that someone unloaded at his fancy dump.
My sister is very proud of a Lady of Guadalupe revolving lamp she got at ARC, and she should be. It's completely cool.
Shawn likes vintage clothes. Christine likes glassware and kid's clothes. Anne likes everything, as does her sister.
Lots of my friends are thrifting converts, and I'd like to think I had just a little to do with their conversions.
Oh! Let me add a photo here! I found this cool thing at the ARC on Broadway for 9.99, and it was essentially free to me, because I'd returned something and had store credit. It's an old gaming wheel from a county fair. It's been on my wall for years, and I know there's some information on the back side that gives this cool thing a history and origin, but I just like looking at it:
Maybe it's items like this, if you're prone to finding coolness in the discards, that create thrifty converts. Lots of folks I know don't need to thrift. But I think they've seen, vicariously, how much fun and how much cheaper it can be to find things worth reviving among the castaways.
Not everyone feels the urge to avoid the splurge. But I'm glad I'm surrounded by people who think it's as much fun as I do. I'm pleased I found a man who loves my favorite pasttime as much as I do.
If there's a cure to this thrifty virus I and my people seem to have caught, I'll take a pass.
I think they will, too.
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