Thrift Shopper: Thrift Store Addicts of the World Unite!

Are you a thrift shopper? Stand up and be counted! Do you ADORE thrift shopping? This page is for you.

You know you’re a thrift shopper if:

• Ordinary “retail” stores bore you to the point of tears, but you can never pass by a second hand clothing store.
• Your first reaction to retail prices is always, “I’m not paying that!" As a result used clothes make up the bulk of your (extensive) wardrobe.
• Your pulse quickens at the sight of a new, unvisited second hand clothing or thrift store.
• When visiting a new town, you scout out thrift stores before anything else.
• You’re known for your cool, “vintage” present giving.
• If you suspect a recipient of one of your thrifted presents might be the squeamish type, you murmur, "It's vintage, darling." Or buy something from the thrift store that still has its tags attached.
• You're a thrift shopper if you never panic buy at Christmas because you pick up interesting cheap presents throughout the year.
• You have a serious weakness when it comes to collecting (........) You fill in the blank. It could be enamel pins, vintage blankets, embroidered pillowcases, vintage florist’s vases, pink Pyrex bowls, or owl figurines. The world is your collector’s oyster. Despite knowing you have MORE THAN ENOUGH ALREADY, you are incapable of stopping yourself in the face of temptation.
• You own a storage bin full of craft supplies (wool, knitting needles, paint, embroidery floss, ribbons, wooden blanks, stencils, glass paint, etc), and no idea how to actually use half of them. But they were so cheap.
• You're a thrift shopper if you have to strenuously resist the urge to blurt, “It cost me a dollar!” when someone compliments what you’re wearing. Instead, you smile demurely, murmur a gracious, “Why, thank you.” And then blurt, “It cost me a dollar!”
• You have a drawer (or two) of thrifted clothes that are a) way too small b) way too large, or c) way too weird to wear in public. Because you often can’t be bothered to try on clothes in the thrift store and rely on your (usually) accurate ability to judge a size by eyeballing it. But there are always exceptions. Which go straight into the “What was I thinking?”drawer.
• You’ve been known to Google your purchases the instant you get home. Dump contents of bag. Chortle gleefully as the pretties emerge. Pink Deco-looking McCoy vase. Purchase price 0.50 cents. Find comparable item on Ebay: $25.00. Score! Set of 23 Corelle Iris pattern dinner plates, side plates, and bowls, $6. Online price (for new): $293. SCORE!
• You’ve been tempted to buy a really cute cat condo/dog bed/hamster habitat, despite the fact that you don’t own a) a dog, b) a cat, or c) a hamster.