Category: Thrifting Fun

Are you shocked that I have a thrift haul? Me too! I haven’t thrifted or shared a haul since November because I’ve been hunkered down, but I did spend about 20 minutes in a thrift store this month between doctors appointments and came away with some fabulous stuff that I can’t want to share with you!

{Pssst, you can read about my previous thrifting adventures here}

Books, Books, Books!

My library has been closed forever and I miss just browsing through the aisles picking up anything that strikes my fancy. My local crappy thrift store has a couple rows of books, so I decided to give it a try and found these:

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• You are a Badass by Jen Sincero
• The 5^th Wave by Rick Yancey
• Forensics: What Bugs, Burns, Prints, DNA and More Tell Us About Crime by Val McDermid
• House of Night: The Beginning – this had 2 books in it (Marked and Betrayed) by P.C. Cast and Kristin Cast
• Matched by Ally Condie
• The Matchmaker by Elin Hilderbrand

Each book was around $2, so it was a pretty low risk purchase… 6 books for $15 total. I’ve already read a most of them (you can find my 2021 Book List here) and plan to give them away to anyone who wants them when I’m done.

1 Dress that Led to 2 Dresses

When I was on my quick browse of the thrift store, I saw a dress that caught my eye. I normally don’t bother with Old Navy because it’s pretty inexpensive to buy it new and it doesn’t typically hold up well in the long term. However, this dress had a nice fabric that didn’t seem to pill easily and even had a built-in slip. I loved the print too… the only problem was that it was a medium and my boobs typically require a large. It was marked awfully high for the thrift store at $19.99 and the fitting rooms are closed, so I decided to pass and took a quick photo before I left.

Off I went to my doctor’s appointment and as I was waiting there alone in a room wearing nothing but socks and a paper robe, I decided to waste some time by perusing Poshmark. I used a few different search terms including: Old Navy dress, Old Navy midi dress, and Old Navy tier dress and within a few minutes I found 2 of the dress I was looking for in a size large! One on the sellers had the dress available in both the black pattern and a yellow pattern, so I bundled them together and sent an offer for $38. And she accepted!

Here they are:

And just for funsies, I put them on and pranced around my front yard to take a couple outfit photos:

As it turns out, the size large fits great… so the medium would have probably been too snug in the bust. I ended up paying $19 per dress (+ shipping) but used some money sitting in my Poshmark account so it was even more of a deal. Got to love secondhand shopping!

I’ve already worn the black version of the dress out and about with a moto jacket and booties. Once the weather warms up, I’ll add the yellow version to my rotation with a cute pair of sandals.

As I’m sure you can imagine, I haven’t done much thrifting lately. I did have a chance to make one visit at the very beginning of the month, but now that the COVID numbers have been growing I’m not leaving my house very much. I have had some secondhand scores on Poshmark though, so I figured I’d include them in this month’s Thrift Haul!

{Pssst, you can read about my previous thrifting adventures here}

In my in-person thrifting trip, I ended up with two sweaters from the men’s racks:

John Bartlett Consensus men’s cardigan, $6.99 on sale for $3.50. I did a bunch of searching and the best I can tell is that the brand was carried by the Bon-Ton department store in 2011? This one still had the bag of extra buttons attached to the inside, so it must have been sitting unworn in someone’s closet for years before they decided to just donate it. It’s just a simple sweater, nothing fancy and I’ve worn it a few times over a t-shirt on those ‘in between’ weather days. Unfortunately, after even a couple wears it’s getting quite stretched out and the fabric is pilling so this one will soon be leaving my closet.

Black Brown 1826 sweater, $7.99. This sweater is a bit of an experiment for me. I typically stay away from wool sweaters because I find them itchy and too hot. This one is 100% merino wool but it actually feels very plush and soft. Someone obviously shrunk the hell out of it, because it’s a Men’s XXL and now fits the same as a Women’s large. When I brought it home, I threw it in the wash on cold and then laid it flat and stretched it a bit to dry. I’m planning to give this one a try on those super chilly days around the house where I just can’t get warm. Worst case scenario, this one may get re-donated at the end of winter.

Moving on to Poshmark:

I bought a Rag & Bone pullover from Nordstrom Rack over the summer for a steal, and when I popped the tags off it as soon as the weather got colder, I realized how much I really, really, really loved it. It’s the perfect mix of comfortable like pajamas, but looks cute enough to wear on a work zoom call. I like them with jeans and I love them with my Athleta joggers. It’s basically the perfect top! I found myself wearing it over and over again, so I searched on Poshmark for similar versions from the same brand and ended up with these.

They were all purchased separately from different sellers. I ended up paying $25 for the maroon and black version, $31 for the solid black top, $65 for the new-with-tags blue v-neck, and $60 for the striped version. So, $181 for 4 shirts… which is obviously much more expensive than thrift prices. However, I’m really happy with the purchases considering this exact top costs $155 each from the Nordstrom and/or Rag & Bone website. Also, I’ve been wearing one literally every single day with my Athleta joggers. This has quickly become my perfect comfy but cute winter teleworking uniform.

While you may not want to do any in-person thrifting right now… it’s the perfect time to try out Poshmark! You can help someone else clean out their closet while finding some scores of your own. If you’ve been meaning to try out Poshmark, I have a special invite code that you can use. Just open a Poshmark account and enter the code POCKETFULOFJOUL to get $5 off your first order.