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I grew up buying clothes, toys, books, and household items at second hand stores and garage sales.  There were times when I complained about that, since I thought my clothes were “not cool” and I wanted to be like the other kids (wearing skin tight Wranglers and Roper boots instead of “bell bottoms” in the 4th grade.  Funny how times change, eh?).  But as I grew up I really got to appreciate them.  Now that I’m in Europe, it’s harder to find second-hand stores.  Germany doesn’t have any to speak of.  They do flea markets, though, which are fantastic, like 30 family mega-garage sales.  France has a great second hand store / charity shop called Emmaus that is well-organized and quite popular.  There are flea markets here, too, but I haven’t been able to get to any yet.

Buying used items is sometimes a pain, but there are lots of added benefits.  When you buy second hand, you save a lot of money, of course!  Children learn quickly that they can take their $5.00 to Toys R Us or Wal-mart and buy one cheap thing.  Or they can go to Goodwill and buy a whole bag of toys (or two) for the same price.  You can buy name brand clothes (sometimes brand new with price tags!) at any charity shop, and books end up being a dollar or less rather than 10 or 15 dollars!  I’ve never understood how people buy books new all the time.  I’ve discovered bands, authors, and movies I’d never heard of and have been able to enjoy them solely because I browsed through the CDs, DVDs, books, and tapes at the Salvation Army.  When you buy used goods, you keep them from ending up in landfills and becoming total waste when they could be reused.  Goodwill in the states is great about recycling items they can’t sell.  Lastly, many second hand stores support charities of one kind or another: the homeless or poor, churches, the disabled, or job training for single mothers.

Second hand and used items aren’t just limited to charity shops. You can also buy used items on Amazon.com, eBay.com and Craigslist.  The savings aren’t as big, but you can search for specific items you’re interested in, which is a big benefit.

Things I buy second-hand:

1. Books: Why pay $15 for a new best-seller when you can read all kinds of books from the second-hand store for under a dollar?  I buy a lot of used books on Amazon now that it’s harder for me to find English-language books.  You can even see what condition they’re in.  Some have barely been read.

2. CDs and tapes:  I haven’t bought a new CD since about 1998.  I download a lot of free music, and listen to the radio.  When I do buy music, I do it secondhand.

3. DVDs and VCR tapes:  It’s getting harder to find VCR tapes, and if you have kids these are preferable to DVDs to avoid scratching.  But I also refuse to pay $30 for new DVDs.  I occasionally would buy $5.00 bargain DVDs at Wal-mart, but when I can’t get those, I buy used.  Places like Hastings, Barnes and Noble, and GameStop also sell used videos/DVDs when they get off the new release list.

4. Clothes: I prefer to not buy everything used when it comes to my clothes.  But for everyday items like jeans and tshirts, the secondhand stores are a great bargain.  Kids outgrow clothes so quickly (and tear them up so fast), I rarely buy kids clothes new.  The exception is in an area like here in France, where the secondhand stores have more girl clothes and I can’t find boy clothes in my son’s size.

5. Software and Video Games: I do a lot of stuff for free (and virus-free!).  Open Office instead of Microsoft Office, Gmail for my e-mail, and so on.  But I do love to play games, and I like to get old computer games when they’re cheap.  Even on Vista a lot of the old stuff works.  We have a Nintendo Wii, and it sucks that games for it and most (all?) newer consoles are on disk.  They get scratched up much easier.  But we had a NES and Nintendo 64 in Arkansas, and I bought a lot of really cool games for low, low prices at garage sales, pawn shops, and specialty game shops.  Again, you can find ex-rental video games at bookstores for quite a discount after they’ve cooled off a bit.

6. Toys: Most of the $15+ toys out there are big wads of plastic.  I refuse to pay $15 for a piece of plastic!  I will occasionally buy a new Lego set, games, or something educational, but just random toys and things like action figures and plastic dinosaurs are better from the secondhand store.  Many of them bag up a bunch of related toys and sell them for $5.00 or even less.  When Jeffery was little, I scored a huge box of play food and utensils on eBay for about $20.00 US. He and his cousins played with that all summer.  I really like creative toys like Legos, Connex and Tinker Toys, because they can be used in so many ways and its so easy to add to them because you know one Lego set fits with another.

7. Shoes: For some things, like a good pair of walking shoes, or warm comfy house shoes, I want to buy them new.  But if I’m looking for garden shoes, gum boots, or dressy shoes that I won’t wear that often, I want to go with used.  No point in spending $30 or more for a ratty pair of shoes you use to dig in compost.

8. Household items: blankets, towels, rugs, dishes, some appliances, baskets, candle holders, luggage, and decorative items.  Here in France we can buy nice blankets at Emmaus for 2 Euros, and awesome deal.  I’ve bought several huge bedsheets to cover up the couch and other items to protect them from the plaster/dust/spiderwebs constantly falling from overhead.  Dishes end up getting chipped, and it’s more interesting to have pieces that don’t match exactly.  You can use dishes that are all the same color or palette to make them seem more together.  A great gift idea is to buy beautiful serving platters at Goodwill for around $1.00, then fill them with homemade cookies for Christmas.  You can also use these secondhand fancy dishes for potlucks: If you don’t get back your dish at the end of the event, you won’t mind so much.  Any Christmas or other holiday decorations I buy have to be secondhand, although I often make our own with my son.  We travel way to much to buy collector Hallmark ornaments and drag them all over the world.

9. Lotions, fragrance, soap: You can often find these at garage sales, and some secondhand stores.  I wear a lot of different fragrances and I love smelly stuff. But I hate to pay a lot for it.

Things I wouldn’t buy used:

1. Underwear.  Goes without saying.  Usually not socks, either, although I have bought some fuzzy, fluffy winter house socks in good condition.  Bathing suits, same as underwear.

2. Computers: I need a decent computer for my online projects, and I like to play a lot of games.  So I can’t be too outdated.  I never buy the latest thing, though.  I have Vista at the moment because my hubby got me a much-needed laptop in Canada.  I was running on an old, old one from 2003!

3. Some baby things: Clothes and toys are fine (sterilize the toys first for your little one).  But some things like car seats, strollers and cribs you should skip or have checked out to make sure they’re not on a recall list.  Faulty equipment can injure your little one, or keep them from not being injured, in the case of the car seat. It’s not worth the risk.

4. Plastic dishes and containers: Plastic gets scratches that collect dirt, mold and leftover food (ew) which is impossible to wash out.  Also, people microwave their plastic, which warps lids.  I like the convenience of plastic containers, and their reusability, but I prefer to buy them new (or use yogurt buckets!)

5. Coffee Makers: You never know how long these sat in someone’s garage with calcium deposits and old water sitting in them.  Basic ones are not expensive at Wal-mart, and I’d rather have my own.

6. Some cosmetics, hair accessories: I don’t wear make-up anymore, but my Momma always told me to not share mascara.  And other makeup that touches your face directly, like lipstick, is kind of gross.  Powder, blush and eye shadow would be OK, if they’re your color and fairly fresh – make-up gets yucky over time.  Hair accessories like brushes and pony tail holders, are hard to clean and I don’t want someone else’s lice.

What’s your favorite destination for used goods?  What do you always buy second-hand, and what would you never?