I started thrifing at a young age, which apparently is not a word. The outfits displayed on the mannequins at the mall and the need to look like everybody else wasn’t on my agenda, and I sought to express myself through my clothes. Another contributing factor was that by the time I was 14 I had a job and was told, rightfully so, that I could purchase my own clothes above what was “needed.”

As I recall, selling Birkenstocks in the late eighties was grueling.  All employed eyes would be on the customer silently hoping that they were just browsing in the back, and not be about to summon one of us to climb the rickety thousand degree stairs to retrieve a million pairs of shoes, one at a time.  It sounds dramatic, but I was a teenager, and that money was precious.

I can still hear her.  My mother commenting on my recently thrifted articles. Sometimes she just looked, sometimes I was called a ragamuffin, and more often times than not she said “I used to have that same dress, I wish I didn’t get rid of it.”  This statement used to make me cringe. I dreamt of all the cool 60’s and 70’s dresses I could be wearing, and reluctantly thought that my mom must have been pretty stylish.

Fast forward to my own Teenaged spawn. She is not employed yet, she has plans to be, but she also likes to thrift and has an eye for picking out awesome stuff out of the jumble.  I taught her how to shop just by looking at the fabric, color and the tag.  I love old tags, here are some I grabbed last week.

To my great astonishment The Teenager came home all excited about her “new” jacket  that she scored for 12 bux.  She had already taken a slew of selfies of herself in it, so a photo document was easily secured.

However she didn’t believe me this time so I had to pull out the scrapbook and prove it.

And now we are a part of this member’s only mother daughter club. Jealous? LOL