Shopping, shopping, shopping

There is a downside to doing 90% of your clothes shopping at thrift stores: sticker shock when the time comes (and come it will) when you must buy something at the {gasp, shudder} mall.

My childrens nightclothes being little more than flimsy rags shrugging from their shoulders these days, and colder nights having arrived, I decided they needed new pajamas. Pajamas are one of the items I seem to have a lot of trouble finding at the thrift store. They’ll have the tops but not the bottoms, or sixteen pairs of size 10 but nothing in the 3-5-7 age range, that kind of thing.

Also, they needed new shoes. Everybody’s tennis shoes had actual holes in the toes, and Captain Adventure has already outgrown the one pair he already had. Two things I don’t buy at the thrift store even if they are available are shoes, and underwear.

So I went to the mall.

Five pairs of pajamas: $60.
Four pairs of shoes: $80.
Expression on my face at the shoe store: Priceless

I did, however, stop into Bath & Body works clutching $50 in gift cards I had gotten from MyPoints and a coupon for a free tote with a $40 purchase. It’s rather a nice bag, too. So I got a bunch of stinky bathy stuff that I ordinarily wouldn’t get for myself and lugged it out to my car where I languished for a moment recuperating from the trauma. On a related note, however, I must say that the pumpkin hand soap I got is too smelly. It’s a lovely scent, but it lingers forever. I washed my hands with it last night, and the scent is still clinging to the back of my hand. If I wanted a hard-wearing perfume, I would have bought some.

But I digress.

For comparison purposes, here is what I bought at the thrift store that same day:

Two pairs of jeans for Captain Adventure
Three long-sleeved shirts for Captain Adventure (two in “logger-style” flannel, SO CUTE!)
One sleeper for Captain Adventure
Five shirts for Danger Mouse and/or Boo Bug (who wear the exact same size and thus interchange their clothes incessently)
Two pairs of overalls for Danger Mouse and/or Boo Bug
Two brand new t-shirts for the husband.

Set me back $17.50, which for the observant among you means that with the change from my $20 bill, I had just enough for a tall mocha at Baristas up the street.

My thrift stores spoil me, really they do.