With all the spring cleaning that people have been doing lately, our local second hand store is overflowing with donations. So much so that they have no room to put anything, and took an empty warehouse and used that to store all the clothing donations temporarily. The warehouse needs to be emptied as soon as possible, so they made a sale- instead of some things being 50 cents and some things being 25 cents like they usually are, they made everything be 25 cents, and opened the warehouse for set hours that they aren’t usually open.
My friend who volunteers at the second hand store had posted about the sale going on, and I was unsure about whether or not I’d go, whether or not it was worth it. Then this morning, while the boys were in school, I took my two girls with me to the warehouse with all the clothes.
I got quite a shock.
A mountain of clothes. Literally.
The warehouse is probably a quarter of the size of a basketball court. And it was entirely filled with clothes, up to a few feet deep. You could not see the floor.

While I was there, a few other friends came as well. We had 10 friends, each in a different section of the warehouse, just digging through the mountain, looking at the clothes one by one, seeing if it was something that would be good for us, and if it wasn’t for us, we’d see if it was good for one of the other people there or their kids. We all got a great amount of stuff, and since we worked as a team, finding things for each other, we were able to get many more great things than if it would have just been each person there on their own, looking for their own stuff.

In the end, I got more than 50 things, spent a total of 15 dollars on the lot.

I didn’t take everything I saw- if it was something that I had more than enough of, like clothes for Rose, etc… I turned it down. I do need clothes the next size up for Anneliese, stuff for the boys, both their current size and the next size up, some stuff for myself, and for my husband as well.

Here’s my haul:

2 short sleeve shirts for my husband- one polo, one button down.

A whole bunch of stuff for Anneliese- a bunch of shirts- long sleeve and short sleeves. A bunch of jumpers and sleeveless dresses, plus one long sleeve dress and one tutued leotard. And 3 hooded sweatshirts plus one nice sweater. Most of these things are for the next size up, but a few things fit her now.
It was really funny- my friends saw certain dresses and said “This definitely looks like Anneliese’s style.” Which I thought was funny. Because which 2.5 year olds have “a style”… But she does. she likes long dresses, ideally with flowers. And ideally “princessy”. She absolutely refuses to wear pants of any kind. And she likes dresses that are big on her. So I have to hide what I just got, or she’ll try to get away with wearing it now, and not only when they actually fit her…

I specifically was looking for shorts and nice shirts for my boys. Unfortunately, I only found one pair of shorts, but found a bunch of nice button down shirts for the boys, some their current size and some a bit big to put aside for later, plus 3 nice vests.

For myself I found 2 skirts, one shirt, and one robe.

I love scarves and have a semi-large collection of them, and was looking to expand my collection. And for this price, why not? I got a bunch of scarves and a decorative silver flower on a silver braid.

I also got 3 books, a belt for my boys, and some waterproof sandals for Lee.

Yea, it was a bit crazy at the warehouse. But worth it. I had fun socializing, talking to my friends while we dug through the clothes, and came home with a lot of useful stuff for very little money.


If you were told about a mountain of clothes that you’d have to dig into to find super cheap clothes, would you do it? Or would you rather just spend more money and buy clothes from a store in an organized fashion?