I love thrifting, vintage shopping, and secondhand stores. Whatever you call other people’s stuff they no longer want, I love it! Here are five reasons why:
1. Finding Stuff You Never Knew You Needed
I am by noooo means a minimalist. I’m definitely a maximalist. While shopping at second hand stores, you can almost always find something you love and fits seamlessly into your life, but you would never have put it on a shopping list. For example, I found a metal tray with strawberries printed on it for $2. I bought it and it now hangs on the wall in my kitchen. It reminds me of my grandma; her kitchen had strawberry decorations everywhere!
2. Price
I am as much of a minimalist as I am a millionaire, so not at all. However, shopping second hand makes my shopping addiction somewhat reasonable. I love that I can change my wardrobe up frequently and still save a few bucks because I only paid $10 for that dress second hand that cost $49.95 in stores. Plus, sometimes the dress I found at the second hand store is still sold at the retail store.
3. Nostalgia
Recently while looking for something else, I stumbled upon a Dooney and Bourke backpack purse on Etsy. It was black with hand drawn hearts all over it. My sister and I used to be obsessed with that print. At least once a week during our afternoon program we would go to the computer lab and look up this print and the handbags it was on. Then we would get dropped off at the mall and we would head to Bergner’s. They had glass cases full of these bags, but we never got to purchase one because they were way out of our eleven and twelve year old price range. Then I found one of these Dooney and Bourke bags listed on Etsy from a vintage shop in Canada. I paid the international shipping and am now in possession of this bag and I could not be happier.
4. Environmental Impact
Shopping used/secondhand/vintage vastly lessens your environmental impact. To make one new pair of jeans 1,800 gallons of water is used. That is mind blowing! Do you know how many gallons of water it takes to purchase a used pair of jeans? Zero.
5. The History Behind it All
Thinking about the big picture and the entire span of time, we are just one small part of this beautiful blue planet. It is so cool to me that these items had a life before me and will hopefully have one after me too. I love reading messages people have wrote to one another in books they’ve gifted. Or buying a purse and finding an old ticket stub in there. It’s a little cheesy but maybe we are a part of these items life instead of these items being a part of our lives. Basically, live your life as if every pair of used jeans could turn out to be the Traveling Pants from the Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants.
Thanks for reading. Comment below and tell me what your favorite thrifted item has been! I’d love to know!
xo, Kari.