Treasure Hunting

Our eleven-year old daughter is growing like a weed and thus in need of new clothes on a regular basis.  We are on a pretty tight budget since I've been home, but even if we weren't my number one place to begin looking is Goodwill.

In my younger years, I was never one for scouring the aisles of a store that contained somebody's old clothes.  Does the word "cooties" ring a bell?  But today being a mom of three growing children, as the saying goes, I ain't too proud to beg!

The particular Goodwill that I frequent has a large front room with merchandise organized on racks, as one would expect.  But this Goodwill also has a secret buried within.  If you go all the way to the back of the store, past the organized merchandise hanging on the racks, around the corner, and down the ramp you will enter the bin room.

The bin room is just that.  An equally large-sized room with about 50 or so bins of merchandise all mished-mashed together.  One day a friend of mine told me about the room. 

"Have you ever been to the Goodwill on Cameron Street?" she asked. 

"No," I answered.  It was kind of out of my way and I never really even considered going there. 

"I used to get all my sweaters there for seventy-five cents in their bin room," she said.  "But recently they upped the price to eighty-five cents." 

'Wow', I thought, 'Eighty-five cents an item is worth going out of my way for.'  The next chance I got I stopped at the store.  Well, I wasn't prepared for what I saw the first time that I walked into the bin room.  There was a class of people there that I did not feel comfortable being around.  I know that this sounds prejudiced, but I'm being honest.  Combine that with the fact that I would have to hand-surf bin-by-bin for several hours through the remains of clothes belonging to God knows who so that I may or may not find what I am looking for.  With all of this swirling around in my head I did what came natural--I turned on my heel and left that bin room with a quickness!  Yes, I shopped second-hand all of the time.  Yes, I am the queen of bargain grocery shopping.  Yes, I brake for yard sales.  But this was beneath me.  I am not a scavenger.

I told some of my friends as well as my husband about the bin room experience.  They were all very surprised.  Basically their surprise was over the fact that I was not up to the challenge.  As frugal as they have seen me be, they couldn't believe that I felt uncomfortable at all.  Their comments empowered me.  I went back, made out like a bandit, and thoroughly enjoyed finding the wonderful treasures hidden in all of those unorganized bins.  I also made some observations that I thought you would find interesting and amusing.

1.  All kinds of people shop in the bin room.   Muslim women, old men, rich white ladies, poor black moms with kids.  You will find all types there with the same goal--finding a bargain.

2.  People like to share what they cannot use.  There seems to be a sort of courtesy culture in the bin room where people will lay out a good find on top of the other items that are scattered in the bin.  They want others who are searching to easily spot this item since they themselves have no use for it.

3.  Bargain bin room customers are about the business of hunting.  If you sneeze, which you most likely will from going through all of the clothes, don't expect a "God bless you."  People's minds are like steel traps as they dig, sort, and look over any potential finds with a fine-tooth comb.

4.  Even though everything is just eighty-five cents, it's still costs money.  When I shop in the bin room I am still scruitinizing every purchase because these days every penny counts.  This may sound ridiculous, but I also see others in that room picking up and putting back, choosing between this or that, and looking through what they've compiled before purchasing. 

Today I was able to find about ten shirts and five pairs of pants for my daughter and I only paid $13 for everything.  The trade-off of course is time as I spent about three hours there looking through the bins.  But it was like a work day for me.  I went through a little over half the bins, went to my car for a packed lunch, and then came back and tackled the rest.  I love my job!