TGIF Means Garage Sale Shopping For Me

I mentioned last week that my family is a big fan of second-hand deals.  We moved trans-Atlantically a few months ago.  The cost of overseas shipping was so excessive that we only moved that which we really loved (somehow our most beloved possessions still amounted to 62 boxes!)  I kept all my grandmother’s dishes and my copper pots that were a wedding gift, but we sold all our furniture and a good number of books, toys and knicknacks.  When we landed back in the States, it was time to start fresh.

I had a very limited budget ($2,000) and of that amount, I had to allocate several hundred toward new mattresses. Thanks to hand-me-downs from my parents, Craigslist deals and garage sale steals, I was able to pull together a comfortable, attractive apartment. No, it’s not a page out of Better Homes, but it’s no mismatched bachelor pad either. My favorite finds: A beautiful pecan-wood china cabinet and six-seat dining room table for less than $250, a less than 2-year old Maytag washer and dryer for $250, and matching Pottery Barn quilts for the boys’ beds ($20 for both, including the matching shams).

In addition to scoring home furnishings deals, I have also come to prefer shopping for my kids’ clothes (and mine, too) at garage sales and thrift stores. I’ve found some unbelievable deals: All cotton GAP PJs for $.50; Tommy Hilfiger tops for under $1.00.  There are a few items that I won’t get second-hand, namely underwear, socks and shoes.  But everything else, including the kids’ winter coats, goes on the garage sale list.

Now aside from the really good bargains, I like shopping at garage sales because they are a much more earth-friendly way to accumulate new (to us) goods.  First, there is the fact that so much of the stuff that gets sold at garage sales would otherwise end up in a landfill somewhere.  By buying it and using it as is or re-purposing it to fit our lives, we’re extending the life of that good and reducing the amount of waste in our garbage dumps. I recently read that Americans generated 246 million tons of municipal solid waste in 2005.  That’s a 60% increase since 1980.

Second, making new stuff is incredibly resource-intensive. There is the electricity and natural gas that goes into manufacturing, the petroleum that is the basis of some many of our consumable goods (think anything plastic), and of course the fuel that is used to transport these goods to our mega-malls and big box shops.  Buying the kids’ t-shirts for a quarter at a garage sale eliminates my small part in this massive energy suck.

For more on avoiding the consumer trap of new goods, check out this article from GOOD Magazine about the San Francisco-based group called the Compact. Back in 2006, Bay Area friends committed to not buying anything new (outside of food, medication and a couple other exceptions) for one year.  Their pledge sparked an international movement, which I will admit has been a real source of inspiration to me.

So, are you a seeker of second-hand deals and steals?  What’s your inspiration?