Thrift Store Scores - The Mommy/Daughter Date Edition

Thank you Queen Bee Coupons for posting about Value Village's 50% off sale on Presidents day!

Since the man of the house was home from work earlier than usual on Monday due to the holiday I decided to ask Ashlyn, my just-turned-11-year-old daughter, if she wanted to ride along for a little thrift store hunting.  She agreed to go and grabbed her purse containing her birthday money and off on our mommy/daughter adventure we went!

First stop was the local Starbucks for a much needed 3pm-ish pick me up.  I used my Starbucks gold card birthday reward for a free drink and paid $2.95 out of pocket for Ashlyn's chocolately chip frappe.

Then off we went to Vancouver.  Slowly. I forgot what a pain it is to deal with after work traffic.  One fun thing I discovered on our crawl towards I-205 was using Siri to send text messages.  We also noticed some fun graffiti with the message "Excuse me world, I know you're busy but I wanted to say you are loved" Ash tried to snap a picture, but the words weren't quite large/dark enough to see.

We finally arrived at Value Village and I put Ashlyn to work searching out clothes in her size.  She's not really in need of much clothing wise, but she is getting to the point where she would rather pick things out for herself than have me shop for her and I can accept that.  She ended up with 5 or 6 tops that we narrowed down to these three:

Top left: Longsleeve from Justice (her new favorite store, crazy expensive in my opinion!) I was happy to pay $3.50.  Top right:  xhilaration brand short sleeve, $2. Bottom: 3/4 sleeve short sweater that she is excited to wear over her zebra print cami, $2.

I paid for her clothing selections and she found a new book and a softball that she purchased with her own money.  Neither of those items were half price, but we talk a lot about the value of buying good quality items secondhand and I think she is beginning to understand this concept more and more each time she accompanies me on these treasure hunts and THAT, to me, is priceless :)

I found a few maternity items for myself, because who really wants to pay full price for something that will only be worn for a few months?  The best thing about these purchases is it will be easy to sell these online when I am finished with them and make back the money I paid or more.

Liz Lange shirt for $2.50, Liz Lange jean skirt for $2.00 and a pair of new with tags bermuda length khaki shorts for $2.50.

Our last, but not least, finds at Value Village half off prices were my favorite:

I heart Dad Oshkosh tee $2 (perfect for father's day, right?), Hanna Andersson 2pc pjs $1 (super score!), Old Navy muscle tank for my blonde boy who desperately wants to play tball in the spring $1.50, Gap swim trunks in the coolest nautical/sailor print $3, Thinsulate snow mittens $1, and a pink Gap onesie that says BYOB Bring your own bottle for .50 cents (we'll keep this if we have the girly sort of baby in June or toss in the consignment pile if our baby ends up being of the boy variety.)

We left Value Village and it wasn't too late yet so we checked with Siri to find the closest Goodwill because I know there are a few in Vancouver.  It just so happened that we were 0.3 miles away so we decided to head there for just a little more browsing before calling it a night and I'm sure glad we did because these are the treasures we found there:

Two new in packaging Taggie blanket clips for 99 cents each.  I will probably keep one for our newbie and use the other in a baby shower gift or add to my consignment sale inventory.  One pair of Gymboree cargo shorts for $2.99, and two pairs of excellent condition Stride Rite shoes in wide sizes for $1.50 each (they were marked $2.99 but happened to be the half off color!)  I am undecided on the shoes.  We may hold on to these until we find out the gender of our baby... we'll need wides if this one takes after it's bigger, redheaded brother... or I may list them on ebay, probably in the neighborhood of $10-12 each pair.  Not pictured are a usb mouse & keyboard for $3.99 each that we needed for our new kid's desktop computer set up.

Ashlyn found another book and a Nerf gun while we were at this location.

We worked up quite the appetite with our evening of shopping and hit up Subway for dinner before heading home.  It was a great time spent with my daughter, and I really do hope that having these experiences with her now will carry over into positive spending and saving habits as she gets older.