Save Big With Summer Bargain Hunting

The following is a guest post written by my wife, The Cavewife. She regularly writes here about what’s on her heart as a frugal stay-at-home mom.

For the past few months, I’ve spent a lot of time shopping for bargains. With the rise in prices for gas and food I will do nearly anything to save money for my family.

My daughter is quickly growing out of her clothes and needs summer clothes. When my daughter was a baby, we bought most of her clothes brand new from retail stores and the rest of her needs were met by gifts from the baby shower and from her grandparents. Nowadays, we focus on living frugally and buy most of her clothes from Goodwill or yard sales since she will outgrow her clothes long before she would wear them out. When she’s done with them they’ll still be in good enough shape to survive as hand-me-downs. My husband and I only resort to buying clothes new only if we have had absolutely no luck finding good toddler clothes by other means. And when we do buy new, we search the sale and clearance racks first.

I encourage all parents to take advantage of yard sales and thrift stores such as Goodwill. You can find little-worn and even brand new clothes for a low price. Why spend $8 on a shirt, when you can buy 4 for the same amount? You don’t have to spend a fortune on brand name clothing for your kids; your children don’t realize what they are wearing anyway. I’ve never seen one baby criticizing another just because he wasn’t wearing the latest fashions. Our local Goodwill store actually carries new brand-name clothing (e.g. Baby Gap, Osh Kosh, Old Navy) for kids at a pennies on the dollar. You just have to search through racks to find the bargains. It’s hit and miss, but still well worth the time.

To give you an idea of how little you can spend at Goodwill (or thrift store), here is what I spent on my latest trip:

That’s just a dollar a piece for each item!

Whether you shop at Goodwill, Salvation Army or your local thrift store, you are bound to find some great bargains. You may not find them all the time, but don’t give up and keep searching. But don’t forget about also looking at those yard sales.

Yard sales are great, especially the subdivision-wide yard sales. Our neighborhood has one every year and we take the time to check it out. For new parents these yard sales can save tons of money. Why spend hundreds upon hundreds of dollars outfitting a nursery with all new items when you can get away with spending much less? Most of our daughter’s things came from yard sales, which saved us enough that we could afford to fully equip her nursery and still have money left for paint, decorations, and a huge stack of children’s books. We definitely plan on using everything again for the next baby since most of it is still in great condition.

Yard sales are also good if you are looking for home decor items or furniture. My husband and I have been in our current home for almost two years and we still have bare walls and unfinished rooms. We just couldn’t find the time to make it a home since we were expecting when we moved into this house. But our home will be more home-like in the next couple of months with all the changes and reorganization. In the meantime, I’ll be searching yet more yard sales for creative ideas for our home.

Here are my great finds at our subdivision yard sale a few weeks ago:

As you can plainly see, there are some amazing bargains to be found at yard sales – you just have to look and sometimes negotiate for better prices. I’m pretty conservative when it comes to negotiating, but I still did pretty good. Get out your local paper and see what deals you can find in your area.

There are bargains out there to be found; you can’t be afraid to go looking. Happy hunting!