fashion on a budget

I have always wanted to be one of those vintage/secondhand shoppers who finds thirftstore gold, people perfectly able to peruse shops stuffed with clothes and accessories and come out with Miu Miu shoes. So unfair. Also, I hate unorganized stores. They give me the heebie-jeebies. My organizational anal-retentive gene kicks in, and I start foaming at the mouth. Clothes should be laid out nicely, color-coded and folded to almost-perfection. (This is why I don’t shop at TJ Maxx. I hate having to search for my clothes. I want them to find me, not the other way around. Yes, I’m neurotic.)

I partly blame geography for my lack of options to shop secondhand. The only consignment shop in my town is Goodwill, and I’ve avoided it for 26 years. But after reading so many of my favorite bloggers’ thrifting adventures, and after perusing Goodwill’s website, I found out they were having a 50%-off sale last Saturday, a perfect excuse to pop this girl’s secondhand shopping cherry.

My sister-in-law Abby was ~~brave~~ kind enough to go with me. As we rounded the corner and saw the scrum of cars fighting over parking spaces, we knew we were in for a shopping experience.

There were so many shoppers. Seriously, it was like Black Friday in there. The clothes were arranged by color – not size. First problem for me. I’m an impatient shopper. I don’t like to spend five hours looking through the longest racks I’ve ever seen in my life.

I immediately made a beeline for the blazers. I’ve been looking for a hot pink one for a while, and I figured this may be the place to finally find this Holy Clothing Grail of mine.

No luck. Sadly. But I did find something else that I tried on and immediately grabbed before the ~~vultures~~ other shoppers descended and stole my amazing find.