Yard sale scores

Thrift stores.

They are just too pricey.

Because if you're good (or at least, persistent) at yard sale-ing, you can wind up with weekends like this.  I spent a total of $5.50 at Saturday's yard sales, and I got

• 2 pairs of boy's shoes
• 1 pair of school shorts
• 2 pairs of boys' pants
• 4 shirts
• 2 jackets
• 3 DVDs
• a kitchen scale
• a metal canning funnel
• salad tongs
• an alarm clock for J-son
• 30 new wooden pencils
• a flip-flip toy (my favorite score of the weekend)

Of course, the difficulty with yard sales is, they're erratic.   This weekend was awesome; last weekend the yard sales were basically non-existent (although I did find a complete set of the Laura Ingalls Wilder books for just $1.  That was a total SCORE!).

Yard sale clothes are gender biased.   I've had my eyes peeled oh-so-carefully for long-sleeved shirts that the boys can wear to school.  No luck.  Girl's clothes, on the other hand, are everywhere.

Yard sales are also age biased.  If you're looking for infant or toddler clothes, yard sales abound in good merchandise.  If you're searching for teenager clothes . . .  well, you and Diogenes (who wandered around Greece searching for an honest man) can wander a little while longer yet.

This is to say, I'm probably going to have to go to those expensive so-called-thrift stores sometime this fall to round out my boys' wardrobes.  Drat.