Thrifting Notes From New York (so far)

Hi guys! Brooklyn has been amazing so far. I think I've breezed through between 8 and 10 thrift stores by now and I've been able to control myself believe it or not.  Before I moved I'd been cautioned that my thrifting adventures wouldn't be like the ones I have in Atlanta...but who really wants to experience the same things in life over and over! I think those were precautionary tales around price points and actually finding thrift stores. I will say this to that– Pricing wise I find thrift stores here to be quite comparable to those in Atlanta and it's surrounding areas. I've been to a "higher end" thrift boutique, standard Goodwill & Salvation Army retail shop, and a few smaller shops here in NY so I think I can make some comparisons.

Here are just a few notes...
1. Higher end items have higher prices– You find your occasional Valentino scarf for $3 and you see a fake Coach for $60, but hey, what are ya gonna do? This is a pretty standard situation.

2. Goodwill's prices creep up just a bit, for example in Jacksonville, Arkansas blouses are like.... $3. Near Atlanta they are $4.95, and here in New York, I've seen tops between $5 an $6.

3. I actually really like Salvation Army here in New York! I'm a regular at only a few in Georgia, so I'm happy to say things are a bit different here. In Brooklyn, it seems like you are more likely to run into a Salvation Army before a Goodwill.The prices fluctuate just a bit, but that also makes you more likely to find something that you love for cheap. Think, Value Village.

4. Vintage, vintage, vintage. I visited a Salvation Army in Queens that had an entire rack of vintage dresses. I thought they were "specially priced merchandise" until I noticed that this was one of the only two dress racks on the sales floor, every dress was priced individually and quite reasonably! Vintage clothing seems to be more popular than ever so you are bound to find many more "vintage thrift stores" than anything.

this is a really interesting abandoned building across from my new favorite Salvation Army....

4.5 Many of these vintage-thrift shops don't have"thrift" anywhere in the name, most likely you will stumble upon shops called "Dottie's Powder Room", or like... "Fancy's Up-cycle Shop" or "So-and-so's Closet". I made all of those up, but you see my point? This is where google, and Yelp have been super helpful.
In Atlanta, I found smaller shops like these are much cheaper than the "big names". I think it might be too early for me to make that call here though.

5. Goodwill Outlet. If you don't know–that's right, you better ask Madame Google!
Goodwill Outlet is like Goodwill snatched those "color-day items" and shipped them out to the coast  for final goodbyes to the USA.  Actually that's exactly what Goodwill does, and they sell these pieces to you by the pound! $1.25 per pound!

The Goodwill Outlet can be a hit or miss. This place is definitely not for thrifting beginners. There are shelves and huge rolling tubs of apparel sorted by article...and that's it.

Shoes-shoes, pants-pants, shirt-jacket-top-tee-tank, coats-coats and... fabric...ssss?.

I repeat. Not for beginners. My trip to the outlet in Queens was what most would call a miss, but I live for the journey and adventure, so it was alright with me!

Sorry, I have no photos because I didn't want to drop my phone and never see it again, but I do have a video link for you!

 Now the facility I went to looked more like a warehouse... not um...

 not like this store, but you'll get the point.

I've heard some stories about this place, and if you search youtube, I'm sure you can find some craziness. People tend to get uh... frenzied when a new cart of merch comes out.
 If you are "bout that life" then go for it. I probably won't make that journey again for a while as it was an hour and some change away by train.

So those are just a few of my Thrifting NYC notes....I'll be back with some of my recent thrifting finds really soon!