Gracias, ajsmama :). Now it all makes sense. At least till I forget what I just learned; occupational middle-age hazard these days! Re. the ebay/thrift store relationship--do you think that the now ubiquitous online markets (EBay, Craigslist etc) have hurt, harmed or not affected bricks n mortar thrifting? Years ago (I was working PT, had more time to do fun stuff like this) my MIL and I enjoyed going to local bazaars,yard sales and church rummage sales. There were fairly often some nice things dumped in there. Now I suspect many more people are doing what flyleft encountered, shopping in order to then resell. I think there is a whole new 'entrepreneur' niche, at least I've read about people who make their living or at least some income from selling online. Dunno, just wondering what folks who are more in the know think about this? Ann

We love yard saling, thrift shops not so much as the prices are higher there and quality lower. We live near a very small town so the thrifts/2nd hand shops are not very good. I've noticed thrift prices in the city have gone up over the last year. We yard sale every Saturday morning from April thru September. It's something we miss if we are busy with other things. We usually do 6-12 yard sales a week altho when we lived in the city would do as many as 40. We used to buy and resell then. We don't travel as far afield now with the increase in gas prices. We only buy "what we can't live without" but it's sometimes amazing what we think we can't live without! ;) We regard it as a bit of a splurge considering the cost of gas but since we aren't extravagant in other ways it's entertainment for us. If I tire of my mostly home decor purchases I sell them in my yearly yard sale for the same price I paid. This year there were very few things I wanted to part with so only had a small sale. I used to be in retail so have a fair idea of what some of these things cost new and there are real bargains to be had. I think one has to be fairly selective but if I love something and it's cheap I always get it. If you like buying in these venues I hope you will be open to seeing the possibilities in objects. Many things can be repainted, repurposed, or improved upon in various ways. Lamps and chandeliers can be rewired if necessary. Furniture can be refinished, painted or reupholstered. My DH picked up a free old very shabby cast iron gate years ago and made me a lovely wall hanging. He took it apart, put the good pieces together, sanded and painted it and it's better than most that cost $100. If you are interested you could google trash to treasure and see what others are doing with "junk". There's a huge world out there where people use pre-owned items. Some of the collections which I have acquired from yard sales very inexpensively are silver holloware (never pay more than $10 and usually less than $2 for anything), framed original oil paintings (these range from less than $1 to $20), handcrafted pottery items (25 cents to $1), cast iron cooking pots, glass fishing balls and shells. I also buy craft supplies, china, furniture, and home decor of various descriptions. I seldom find clothing I like but will buy if I like. I am amazed at the amount of Christmas decorations available at very cheap prices this year - I haven't bot any but found some nice things on a free table. I'll often buy newish home decor magazines for 10-25 cents each just to read as we travel to the next yard sale. Picture frames are a real bargain and only need a spray of paint to look good. Baskets are free or cheap and some are really good. My DH buys tools and fishing gear. He's gotten very good deals on a lot of things. I don't know why anyone buys plant pots at full price when there are lots available at yard sales for a fraction of the price. We like the environmental aspect of it also, there's way too much going in landfills unnecessarily. We always take at least $200. and a cheque book "just in case" we find a really good buy on a large quality item of furniture. Also a large collection of change. We don't bargain much if prices are reasonable. If we are buying a lot of things or it's late in the day and they haven't lowered their high prices we may offer less. When items are overpriced we usually just keep going. I've been guilty of the "charity" buy too, but it's usually something I like, I just often pay the asking price which may be a little bit more than it should be. I seldom buy home decor at retail altho love to look in stores and think to myself that I'll wait to get that in a yard sale!

I like to collect housewares: dishes and glassware and centerpieces like vases and candleholders. I find tons of stuff at thrift stores. I brought home 3 large ceramic vases on my first spree, and I keep going back to try to find more. They are getting harder to find. Glass vases are plentiful, probably because of floral deliveries. I buy things on 50% off days for $1-3 that I would never pay full price for because I don't need them that badly. A footed bowl, a fish griller, teapots, a variety of stemware (cheap stuff and nice stuff), any set of four dishes that speaks to me (yesterday it was palm trees, other times it was sushi plates, oval multicolored glazed salad plates, williams sonoma tuscan style low bowls). I've picked up candles and holders from crate and barrel, pottery barn, a nambe bowl, wooden candlesticks and a vase. Lately I have been finding these realistic looking faux apples (pink ladies, red delicious, granny smith) that I had never seen before. I have a whole closet full of fun stuff to set the table with now. It's fun to go down the street to my local thrift store and see what I can find. It's almost like you can find things that you have been searching for that are not currently available in retail stores. You also see a lot of repetition, so you can find things that go together if you visit a variety of thrift stores regularly. I get the best finds when the staff is restocking the shelves. Otherwise a lot of the stuff is picked over. Now I am at the point where I have to get rid of something to make room for something new, so I only buy if I want to upgrade or if I can make a space for it or stack it. I still want to find some amazing blue stemmed wine glasses though. When I see a beautiful one, there are only 1-3 and I need four. Or irish coffee mugs - ceramic or glass without seams, in sets of four. Those are harder to find.

I love a good revived thread. :-) My good deals are all from eBay this time. My desktop computer is not quite four years old, but since it gets a lot of use and we believe in "lifecycling" electronics I've been casually looking for a good deal on a somewhat high-end refurbished PC to replace it. Before I found anything, my computer quit. Just refused to turn on. I researched possible causes, and called in my expert: my son. The power supply was a common source of the problem, so I bought one on eBay for $20. Nope, that didn't do it, but we kept the replacement in the computer and held onto the old one as a spare. Next we replaced the motherboard ($70 on eBay). Yes! The computer works fine at this point, but we figured since the hard drive has been spinning all these years, why not replace it--or add another, which is what we did--rather than wait for it to fail? So I bought a 1TB SSD drive on Amazon ($100), and now have a "new computer" for under $200. Also, I've been wanting an L.L. Bean tan canvas "barn jacket" for a long time but was unwilling to pay over $100 for it. Even eBay prices on them aren't usually tempting, but this time I found one for under $20 including shipping. I love it! It really is "like new," and I look forward to wearing it when spring starts to make an appearance. All I need now are olive green "wellies" for our muddy season.