My parents go thrift store shopping every Monday. It’s mostly a hobby for them; they enjoy the scavenger hunt that ensues in a thrift store. And Savers stores – in our state anyway – have 99 cent sales every Monday. Items with particular color tags are 99 cents on Monday. So the goal is to see what they can find with that color tag. My father likes to work on old clocks, and has found several treasures (his most recent is an old-fashioned alarm clock made of mahogany and brass). My mother likes pretty china, and has found several complete sets of Pfaltzgraff and Lenox that retail for hundreds of dollars. Yesterday they got a walnut table and matching china cabinet for 99 cents each. They found my sister a couch for 99 cents a few months ago. I think they’ve furnished half a house for about $20 over the last six months or so. They’re remodeling two houses at the moment, so they have a place to store all the stuff they find, and they’ll have plenty of furniture for the houses once they’re remodeled.
One of the clocks my father found is a beautiful pendulum clock, but it was missing its pendulum. Ever resourceful, he bought it anyway and made a pendulum for it. He used a piece of metal out of the back of an old computer as the part that hangs down, and then used a flat jar lid (the kind that fits into a canning jar style ring) as the bob on the pendulum. It looks fantastic, and when we complimented him on how good it looked, he gave it to us!! He was planning to use some gold paint on the jar lid, but I told him I like it the way it is. It has a “use by” date stamped on it, so if you look closely you can tell that it’s a lid – I love it!! You can’t cover up that sort of creativity. So now we have a beautiful clock in our living room, thanks to my parents’ thrift store outings and my dad’s creativity.
I’m not sure if all the Savers stores around the country have the 99 cent Mondays – all the ones in our state do. If you live near a Savers, check it out and see what you can find for a buck.
