Thrift Store Tales

Confessions of a thrift store employee

[shiftythrifting]

A pair of home-made Bee Movie tablecloths.

These were in the St Luke’s hospice charity shop in Tavistock, UK.

[museumoflittledelights]

value village finds

@shiftythrifting

[thrift-store-tales]

[docholligay]

Doc, what are the top five items food banks LOVE to receive? I'm doing a collection soon and want to ask for specifics.

MONEY. WE WANT MONEY. MONEY MONEY MONEY MONEY MONEY. WE CAN DO SO MUCH WITH IT. WE HAVE ACCESS TO DEALS YOU COULD NEVER. MONEY

That aside.

 I’m only going to talk about food items but if your food bank takes personal items, a lot of times diapers, feminine hygiene products, etc, are very very welcome. 

1) Canned chicken and beef 

looooooove this stuff. It’s expensive, it lasts forever, it tastes good and it can be used a variety of ways. This stuff is fucking catnip to food banks, it’s so hard for us to provide proteins. 

2) Fancy nut butters

Peanut butter is a standby for food banks as a shelf-stable inexpensive protein, but if we have a family with a kid with a peanut allergy that’s not going to work. Non-peanut butters are expensive and it’s something we hardly ever see donated. (we also like peanut butter, but that’s easier for us to buy ourselves than non-peanut butters)

3) Canned or packaged tuna

You may notice a trend here in shelf-stable proteins. And yeah. That’s basically it, so I’m not going to keep harping on it. But this stuff is a godsend. 

4) Easy breakfast things for kids (Granola bars, instant oatmeal, and the like) 

Whatever Donald Trump tells you, most people who get food from food banks are actually working their asses off and so they have to leave Obama to raise their baby or whatever, and they don’t have a lot of time in the morning. Things like this that kids can make for themselves are expensive. (Another trend you may be noticing–donate shit that costs a lot of money. That helps us more than all the shitty green bean cans in the world) But they are so helpful for busy working families where the parents may not have a set schedule and sometimes little Amanda is making her own breakfast before she runs off to school. Don’t let kids go to school hungry. 

5) Shelf-stable juice

This is one people never think of! But if you show up with a bunch of (preferably reduced sugar stuff) bottles of juice at my door, oh man, you are gonna get so many check mark and okay hand emoticons. This stuff is great for kids, and it doesn’t require refrigeration until it’s opened, so it works great for food drives. 

[kesonafyren]

But seriously, give money

And it’s way better food, too, anything you get prepackaged has A TON of sugar and/or salt in it…collecting cans may be more exciting than writing a check, but if the point is to help people, the check is going to get a lot more done

[pennie-dreadful]

Yoooooo heads up for those of you with kids, I know this time of year schools start holding canned food drives so keep this in mind if you’re able to give.

[kyraneko]

collecting cans may be more exciting than writing a check, but if the point is to help people, the check is going to get a lot more done .

hint: the point should be to help people.

[thrift-store-tales]

[thrift-store-tales]

Me, every time I see a bad review for a place, where the main complaint is that the staff was rude:

What did you do to them?? Did you walk into their break room (which is off limits to customers) and demand that they give you XYZ thing?? Did you yell at the minor working the counter because they didn’t put enough ice cubes in your drink? WHAT DID YOU DO TO GET A RUDE RECEPTION!? I want to know.

[vaporize-employers]

im losing my mind

[brinconvenient]

I feel like this is based on this string of posts, but there’s also a handy-dandy chart from the USDA (page four) in that thread that discusses what foods this is true for and which it is not. Honestly, I feel like people who say this stuff have never been food insecure or poor as shit and not in a position to throw out food that can be saved. 

So yeah, don’t eat mold. But if you are not in a position to just throw away food if it can be safely eaten, check this chart. 

Basically, it looks like the moisture content is the biggest determinant. Just. Be careful. OK? And don’t get your science only from tumblr. 

[thrift-store-tales]

50% off sale at the thrift store be like:

[mysharona1987]

[dancinbutterfly]

Yo, this might be a joke but speaking to you as a social worker who has worked in housing and homelessness services and food banks?

ALWAYS CHOOSE YOUR RENT.

Food pantries are a punch in the nuts to your pride but they require WAY less hoops to jump through to get than the financial side of housing assistance. Also, there is often going to be MORE RESOURCES AVAILABLE for you when it comes to food assistance of MULTIPLE TYPES (food stamps/ebt, places that double said EBT, food pantries, places that just give away free food like soup kitchens, places that give away their leftovers from the day before etc) rather than housing assistance which are neither numerous nor are people likely to apply for.

I personally have used food pantries. I may have to use them again. They are there to help you for that reason, okay? Please fucking choose to pay your rent until we can abolish landlords and live on mutual aid.

Stay housed. Do you hear me, if this choice happens, seek mutual aid or charity for food and STAY HOUSED. Statistically, it is better to take the hit to your pride, go ask for food assistance, and sleep in your bed and eat that food in your home because coming back from losing said home is going to be so much harder that recovering from food insecurity is.

ITS FUCKED UP THAT WE HAVE TO CHOOSE BUT PLEASE TRUST ME ON THIS ONE OK? JUST TRUST ME.

[findingfeather]

(Also your friends are more likely to be able to help you with food than they are with rent. Just truth.)

[copperbadge]

Okay guys, I’m going to say this once and then I’m going to go back to ignoring the people I’m saying it to, which is a small but insanely irritating minority of readers:

When you try to come up in my comments or asks and say anything about how nonprofits are funded or operated I need you to understand that you are talking with someone who works for a nonprofit and has for longer than many of you have been alive. When you talk about theft of donation, the perfidious villainous “staff” you’re talking about are me. I am Staff. 

I have worked in the nonprofit space in some form or other my literal entire adult life, from the age of 18 onward, almost 25 years. Libraries, higher education, arts and medical organizations, I have worked either as service staff or fundraising staff or both for all of the above. Studying wealth and the donation of wealth is literally my job. So when I say something it has the weight of twenty five years of experience behind it. 

You couldn’t know that, of course, but you know how I know you’re just repeating ignorant cant you’ve seen in tumblr posts? Because it’s very easy to discover what a nonprofit is doing for the public. We have websites, annual reports, public 990 filings, all of which demonstrate very plainly how much we spend and on what. It’s so easy that if you want to enter into a conversation on philanthropy it’s pretty much step #1. And yet none of you solipsistic chucklefucks have done it. You just look at one of those “big three” everyone can name as “bad charities” and assume all charities are that size or that malevolence because those are the only ones you’ve heard about, because you won’t stir yourself to learn more.

You’re not fact checking and I’m not sure what insults me more, what you say about the work I do or that you didn’t even bother to do the most basic level research first. Not one of you assholes talking about big charities stealing money has ever come up with any kind of alternative to the ones you’re mad about; none of you ever has recommendations, just the same tired old party line. Which means either you want to lecture me to feel superior or you want to justify not giving, and I’m not here for it.  

You want to know why the government promised to pay off my student loans tax-free if I worked for a nonprofit for 10 years? Because burnout in the nonprofit space due to low pay, grueling hours, and assholes like you is super common. The only other people who get that promise from the US government are soldiers. 

If you don’t want to give to charity just don’t give. You don’t have to, and nobody will think less of you, because most people a) don’t talk about their giving and b) don’t care about yours. I didn’t give regularly for many years because I was working for nonprofits who didn’t pay me very much. But if you’re not going to give you need to shut the fuck up about it. The industry in which I have spent my career is not the newest purity stick for you to use on people you want to bully, especially if you’re just going to repeat bullshit you heard from someone who’s internalized some real evangelical-level guilt over not giving. 

And most especially you need to shut the fuck up about it to me. 

[thrift-store-tales]

PSA: If you’re donating things to a nonprofit, please ask yourself:

Do any of the things I’m dropping off belong in the trash?

Contrary to popular belief, people whose houses have burned to the ground deserve to have nice things too and it’s kinda shitty to say things like “if they have nothing, they’ll appreciate anything.” It’s super dehumanizing to receive a stained shirt with holes in it when you’ve just lost all your possessions. So please get rid of that harmful mentality if that’s something you’ve been led to believe. Homeless people are not animals, they’re people. Treat them with respect and dignity.

If your old things you want to get rid of are stained or ripped, do not donate them unless it’s to a recycling center.

[nayters]

[bubblegum-sullivan-13]

I also like it when they're like hey what's up or something personal/natural instead of the welcome to wherever how can I serve you bit.

[lastoneout]

I also like it when they are sitting down or listening to music they clearly enjoy

[fieldbears]

There is something so nourishing about walking into a place of business and immediately thinking "huh, I wouldn't have guessed this place would be playing this kind of music" only to see an employee absolutely head-banging along because today is their day to pick the CD and they are living

[somethingmissingthiswaycomes]

Despite what capitalists might think, I do not want to roleplay being royalty in the presence of slaves when I seek professional assistance in obtaining my basic human needs.

[teaboot]

as a human being who enjoys having a good time, I enjoy seeing other human beings having a good time, and will actively choose options where I can enable good times to happen

[thriftstoreoddities]

found in huntsville, al

[thrift-store-tales]

I wonder how many people talk to her on a daily basis and then complain to the manager that she needs to be fired because she’s really rude

[ampervadasz]

[finndeservesbetter]

[unseelie]

​i wish this was in my cart and not someone else’s

[iam0to3yearsold]

you can just take it from their cart. its not their possession if they haven't bought it yet

[unseelie]

if i were thrift shopping and you put your hands into my cart to take a unique handpicked item i was intending to purchase i would break your legs

[thrift-store-tales]

People really do fight over items in thrift stores. I once witnessed a fight over a little figurine.

[thrift-store-tales]

You know it’s been a 💩 day when:

[important-animal-images]