Great charity shop bargain

We have 2 volunteers ( outside our shop) who take stuff to value. They aren’t paid. Plus all of us ( 3 ) know our labels.
Re shoplifting. A few weeks ago we stopped a woman in a wheelchair and her daughter outside the shop. She had lots of goodies under her blanket.
Sometimes if the shop is busy and a known shoplifter comes in one of us will stay with her going round the shop.
Yesterday I had a small kitchen rubbish bin with food still in the bottom.
Our shop is in what some might call interesting 😉

We were in a little seaside town in our motorhome recently, and there was a community-run charity shop just across from us. I went in for a wander and picked up a few items, including a brand-new pair of school trousers in my grandson's size. I was amazed when the lady at the till said they were free - as were all items on the school clothes rail. I paid for the other items and left a donation on top as I felt a bit guilty about taking the trousers for nothing.

Last summer we were visiting the town we moved to from London , as we now live quite a way distant we midway day of it .
Met up with friends and had lunch in the church garden provided by the ladies of the church with proceeds going to a local food bank , they were also selling second hand clothing and goods on behalf of Cancer Research, a charity dear to my heart .
Mr Nick got a beautiful designer jacket with the price tag still attached- charity price tag £10 :. I found a lovely embossed silver tablecloth price £4 , a set of 6 Denby mugs price £10, 2 Portuguese pattern jugs just right for flowers £3 each , 2 dresses and 2 pairs jeans all £2-50 each !! We gave them £70 as they were all in great condition and we both felt we had found some bargains and helped a charity .

Dottydots

Yesterday, in a charity shop, I saw a summer dress that caught my eye. It was a size 10 whereas I am usually a size 12. The assistant said I could take it home and return it if it didn't fit me. Well, it looked lovely on me, just the right length as well to hide my awful ankles and only £6.
If I'm honest it was a bit tight around my tummy, but hey ho, I will just have to breathe in.

Salad, salad and more salad! 😁

I am sitting in my kitchen looking at my bargain Laura Ashley curtains. New and I paid £25 for them. Think they would have cost anything up to £100! 😊

I have started donating some of late DH's clothes to charity shops quite a few of them have never been worn, still have labels on and all are good makes. I just hope the shop workers don't keep them for themselves or if they do then they make a suitable donation. After hearing from 2 friends who worked in different shops it seems items are often picked over by helpers and taken home for relatives or friends sometimes without even a donation having been made. Unfortunately I didn't know where else I could take them and did not want the hassle of ebay etc

Congratulations on your yarn haul, Primrose! I would be delighted with that. I can't see the difference between getting bargainous yarn and a valuable pot though. In both cases the person donating didn't value the item and the person buying did. I think that if the only things in charity shops were items that had no value elsewhere they would die out, or have a stigma attached.

Charity shops are a great place to pick up interesting wool. But they have to charge less so people buy it, when you think about it if it is only the odd ball or 2 probably people will only buy them for snoods, hats or suchlike, to make a top you'd probably need more, and probably that makes/colour is no longer available. Super if you can get enough for a bigger project.
I got a knitting bag with a lovely skein of Sean weight wool recently, I got to the till and it was half price, it had been there so long that they wanted the room. Not sure what to do with it mind but maybe some gloves and matching hat Also got some super chunky wool recently and am having fun with that
I sometimes buy books from Oxfam online, when having a browse recently for books about my interest I found several copies of a book I'd love to have but always too expensive. 2 of the copies were very expensive indeed, it's out of print, a short publication run, but the 3rd wasn't. Half the price of one and a third of the price of the other. Still a bit dearer, but not much dearer than had I been able to buy new. I bought it, it is immaculate, it has a protective cover on it, and it looks like it's been read once .
The dear ones several weeks later, still there, £120 and £70. And another copy for £150! The £120 copy sounds to be in worse shape than mine.
Oxfam now have the cost of the copy I have to help fulfil their mission, but the other 3 copies are sitting on shelves
Things are only worth what people are willing to pay for them. I've not felt bad about buying a lovely coat at half price on the label price at the end of the season, as someone else would have, and had it not sold would they have sent it for rags or would they have had to store until next autumn. I did resonate the one that it replaced but to a different shop, sometimes that's all that is needed
I've never found a mung vase or unknown to them gold or diamond jewellery, they do have it in my local one and they sell it for a high price.

I buy my wool at charity shops. I knit it into baby clothes, scarfs, or hats and send off to a charity in Oldham.

our local charity shop is the same , one of the ladies working there says they have had a lot of shoplifting.....how low can some folk get...

Not a charity shop buy but I took delivery this morning of a computerised sewing machine bought from a private seller on eBay.
My first computerised one to replace my little 21st birthday present. Didn’t want to leap in and spend hundreds and find I didn’t like it.
But it’s wonderful and only £100. I’ve been practising all morning.

It's lovely when you get something you really want at a good price, isn't it? Enjoy your new machine

Having looked in every possible shop for a dress for her Reg. Office wedding, one that would not only fit her hour-glass figure but also accommodate breast-feeding her very young baby, dd finally found a gorgeous one in a charity shop - for £16.

My son has a vintage clothing shop and has an eye for bargains. He is quite an expert on vintage band t-shirts - self taught - he recently bought a ‘Cocteau Twins’ T for £4 and knew it was valuable and sold it for £280. No need to feel guilty. The shop should know the value of what they’re selling. Also even if they did know it’s full value no one would buy a T in a charity shop for £280. There’s a charity shop he goes to and the manager saves him things he might be interested in. He bought 100 T’s for £300 and they’re valued at around £4800. I think it’s fantastic that a young entrepreneur (he’s still a teenager) is forward thinking and is helping to stop cheap throwaway clothes being made.

I really think it depends on the town / city the shop is situated in. London,Leeds,Sheffield, any big affluent town. Wells and Ludlow aresupposed to be very good for charity shops. However, sadly,parts of Wales, Scotland Bradford ,and in the small depressed towns any good bargains are few and far between. They need our custom probably more than the affluent areas.

Bluebelle. A couple of well placed mirrors above the doorway might help. Also now staff know can’t you all keep e keener eye open.

I always start off in the charity shops unless I am looking for underwear or nightwear.

To me this makes sense both financially and evironmentally.

And I agree you can get some marvellous bargins.

Got a glass topped patio table from the council dump the other day. 30 Quid! Cleaned up like new. Perfik!

NotSpaghetti and Callistemon21, agree with you both in principle.However, last year I pointed out to the manager of a local charity shop that a quality Victorian ceramic item it had on sale for £2 was in fact probably worth around £500. ( I am not exactly an expert, but have taken an interest in these particular items over a number of decades, and did some careful double checking before I said anything).Manager replied, thank you, would take it off the shelf, speak to HQ and get it properly valued.

Nothing happened except that later that day when I called in the price had been put up to £10.The following day it had disappeared and I was informed by one of the volunteers that it had been sold for this amount.
Next time, I shan't feel like being quite so helpful...

Nannynoodles

Bluebelle ours is the same, we have been loosing more and more stock recently. It’s so so sad because we are mainly volunteers and don’t have security guards obviously so I suppose it’s easier to steal from us although we do our best.
I challenged one shoplifter the other week and got a mouthful of abusive, actually quite frightening. If I though they really couldn’t afford the clothes and needed them I would have some sympathy but I really don’t think this is the case.

I volunteered in a charity shop for 14 years. We regularly had a Big Issue Seller who used to come in, try jeans and jackets on and just walk out in them, leaving his wet stuff in the changing room. He was Romanian and said he hardly spoke English so none of us wanted to confront him. The Manager said she was annoyed because if he just came and asked for some clothes she would have given them to him if he was that desperate.

Only on Friday picked up a bargain in a charity shop. Have been looking for a light beach cover-up for 12 year old GD. Only thing in stores for her age were like ponchos, not stylish enough for wearing at meal times. Spotted a blue and white sleeveless long top in a size 8 lovely light pure cotton. Thought would need a little adjustment at armholes but at £3.99 worth the work. Didn't look at label other than material. Took it to give it a wash and spotted the Jaeger label. Wished there had been in my size.

Knspol definitely not allowed in out charity shop

We buy any good at the price on the ticket but with a small discount and only the boss or deputy can serve us
We certainly don’t ‘pick over’ the items

I love charity shops and have had many bargains. Many of my books are from charity shops and quite a lot of our furniture. I have always said that if you were setting up home with a small budget, then charity shops are the best place to buy it as it is often much better quality than cheap new items. I have bought lots of other things in charity shops, including clothes, although a lot of my clothes come from eBay. Two of the best bargains I ever bought were when my daughter was small. The first was a summer party dress for £1. It was lacking a sash and I bought a matching length of ribbon from our local haberdashery shop for another pound. The second bargain was a pair of brand new sequinned Gap jeans for the princely sum of 50p. She wore and wore them and when she outgrew them they were still in very good condition so that l was able to pass them on to a younger child.

It always amazes me what people donate to charity shops, whether good or bad. I always try to ensure that my donations are in the condition that I would like to buy them. I donate older, more worn items for rags as I know that they can still bring in money for the charity. I put them in a separate bag and mark the bags accordingly. I have a friend who is a hoarder and does not believe in housework. One time, she gave me a carrier bag full of clothes that had belonged to her and her daughters to take to my local charity shop. They were creased and obviously not clean. She told me that it didn’t matter what condition they were in as they could clean them at the shop! I knew they this was not the case - what a cheek - but I could also see that the clothes were good quality and would sell easily so l washed and ironed them myself. My daughter, who was a teenager at the time, thought I was crazy but I knew that the shop would get quite a lot of money for them so felt it was worth the time and effort.

My DIL bought a broken Vivienne Westwood bag for £10 . The man behind the counter handed her another bag and said that’s broken. She explained what it was and that I would mend it . I did fix it and she uses it a lot. That would have gone to scrap as it was broken. My zip mending skills helped. She could never have afforded a designer bag , this gave her the opportunity to own one .

There are some fabulous bargains for babies. A lot of people buy first size for newborns and they don’t get worn. I’ve seen brand new baby grows, hats, bootees, blankets etc for pence.

Today I saw a black trendy pram that had all rain covers and lift out baby carry chair in immaculate condition for £30. I imagine it would have cost several hundred £.