20 Thrifty Things

Our house is pieced together with things we've bought new and things we've gotten second-hand - some given to us and some purchased. We don't have a lot of fancy stuff, but we have a lot of great stuff. 

Today I was looking around at our eclectic possessions, and I wondered how quickly I could find 20 things in my house that I bought from the thrift store (specifically, Deseret Industries). 

As you might have guessed, it wasn't hard at all! Here are some of the things I found:

1. Puzzles - I've found a lot of awesome puzzles for just a couple of bucks, and most of the time, all the pieces are there! 

(This one was so much harder that I thought it would be).

2. Tumbling mat - this is one of my more recent finds. I got it this summer for $20. I remember wondering if it was a waste of money that would just end up going straight back to DI, but then I thought, even if it only entertains my kids for three days, it will be worth the $20 (justifications of a "tired of summer" mom). 

It has ended up being worth every penny. My girls and their friends use it all the time, and Nicky used it to master his back flips. 

3. Games - we have a few games from DI. This one is one of my favorite game finds - it's Super Scrabble, so it has a larger board than regular Scrabble and additional bonuses (quadruple letter/word scores)! It was $2!

4. Puzzle table - I got this table for our basement, deemed the "puzzle table," for $25. The sides fold up and down, so it can easily slide up against a wall. It also has shelves under it that are fantastic for storing puzzles and bowls of pieces we're not currently building with. 

5. Bookshelves - these shelves in Zoe and Eva's room (stacked one on top of the other because "pieced together" is how we live) came from the DI. 

6. Bathroom vanity - I found this vanity for our bathroom for $5 over the summer. I was really excited because I had been shopping for one but hadn't been able to bring myself to fork over $100-200. We had a flat mirror there and really needed something with storage. This vanity was new and still had the price tags on it.

7. Decorative jars - I love swapping out home decor and changing things around, so shopping at the thrift store is a good way to do that without overspending. I just found these three jars at DI last week. 

8. Vintage Pyrex - these are some of my earliest thrift store finds from before I had kids. Vintage Pyrex goes quick at thrift stores! This was a lucky find. I got these dishes for $1 each when Scotty and I were first married, and I use them all the time!

9. Dry erase calendar - I found this weekly calendar for $1. I don't use it regularly, but it comes in handy when the kids need to know the schedule.

10. Ribbon - there's a particular location of DI where I tend to find a lot of fun craft stuff. Recently I found a grab bag of ribbon - almost all brand new - for $12. I counted over 60 spools of ribbon. I will be tying bows on EVERYTHING for the rest of my days.  

11. Game shelf - I found this shelf for $10 to store some of our games (only some... I need you to know that this is only a partial glimpse of our collection). 

12. Pill organizer - this is one of my newest DI purchases ($1 thankyouverymuch).  In fact, I found it just a few short days after I complained about how much I hate putting my pills in my pill container. I don't take meds four times a day, so I'm using this sorter to store an entire month's worth of pills so I don't have to refill it every week. 

13. Halloween wreath - I'm obsessed with wreaths. I don't know if I'll always be this way, but I'm going several years strong. This one is making its debut this season after costing me $2. 

14. Plates - along with my wreath obsession, I have a plate obsession. A lot of the plates I put on my plate rack come from DI (or a clearance rack). 

(I don't love this Hallowen configuration - it's a work in progress - but I adore my little Frankenstein plates).

15 & 16: Books and blue tray - Despite being a big reader, I don't actually care to own a lot of books. Marie Kondo got to me, and I keep my bookshelf minimally stocked. However, I do enjoy having a few thrift store books on my shelf at all times solely for the purpose of giving away or lending them out. If at any time you need a book, hit me up. I'll give you one. And it will still have the DI price tag on it because, for some reason, it sparks joy to keep the stickers on my DI books. 

For this photo, I strategically placed my DI books in my DI tray as to kill two birds with one stone. The blue tray came saran wrapped with the decorative jars I talked about above. I paid $4 for all of it. 

(One thing to note is that I almost always remember the price of everything I buy at DI. Clearly I use my brain space for the most important things). 

17, 18, & 19: Chair, pillow, & end table - I had been shopping for a good deal on a chair for the corner of our family room over a year when I saw this delightful specimen at DI. The manager at DI marked it down to $15, and I didn't even ask! Additionally, it was super clean and didn't even smell bad (that didn't keep me from shampooing the heck out of it anyway). 

I adorned it with a thrift store pillow and repainted a thrift store end table to go next to it. Hot diggity dog. 

20. Clothes - I got lazy at this point and didn't take a photo, but we have lots and lots of clothes from DI. When I was growing up, I never would have worn clothes from a thrift store. That would have been so mortifying! Now I'm like, "Look at this shirt I got from DI!" 

I've changed.