"I'm gonna pop some tags

Only got twenty dollars in my pocket..

This is effing awesome" -Macklemore "Thrift Shop"

At some point in my late high school experience thrift shopping became a sort of in activity. My friends and I would parade into the local Goodwill singing the ever popular anthem "Thrift Shop. It was more of an antic and quickly wore thin for them.

Most of them had never even set foot in a store that carried secondhand clothing meanwhile I grew up on it. It wasn't a fashion trend for me in my childhood but a necessity from belonging to a below the poverty line migrant family of six. It wasn't easy for my parents to provide clothing for four rapidly growing active children and there was a phase where I hated everything second hand and begged for mall clothes. I was such a brat at 13 but who wasn't.

Now thrift shopping is the sort of hipster thing to do for our youth and I'm glad. I wish more people would turn to upcycling clothing. The thing is most people's first time in a thrift shop is a peculiar experience. There is the intial distaste as the old, stored, slightly moldy scent of the store wafts up your nostrils and the confusion of how the hell do I find anything in the endless racks of randomness?

I know this is what caused my friends to walk out after 15 minutes of wandering around the store completely clueless (also some admitted they found it gross that the clothes were used, ah the stigma). After my many years of experiences in thrift shops I know there's a lot of great things to come from them, it's just a matter of learning how to look and being adaptable. 

That being said there is one great rule to thrift shopping. Don't expect to find something when you go to a thrift shop. Sometimes it just doesn't happen. It's about keeping your mind open and not carrying a preconceived notion of what you want or expect to find. 

And in my next blog post I'll give some more hints and details, as well as share some of the great thrift finds.