When you have a very limited clothes budget but you still want good quality clothes and you need to satisfy your inner fashionista, then the best place to go is the thrift store. I get 95% of our family's clothes at thrift stores, consignment shops, or yard sales. I usually generate the money to buy the next season's clothes for my girls by selling some of the clothes that they've outgrown and things I no longer want at a yard sale. At my last yard sale, I made $300 just selling a lot of little stuff that was hanging out in the garage or the back of my closet.
Tonight I stopped by the thrift store in search of a red shirt for my daughter to wear for a dress up day she has coming up at school. I found her a brand new red shirt by Faded Glory with tiny silver hearts on it for $3.25. It's perfect and it fills the need.
For me, I found this Ann Taylor Loft sweater...it retails for $39.50. I found it brand new/never worn for $4.25!
I also found a pair of Old Navy Dream cut jeans for $7.25 (Retail for $34.50) and a brand new fall purse...black faux leather with cream trim similar to this one...
that retails for $26.99 and I bought it for $5.00.
So for a total of $16.50 I have a very stylish "mommy on the go" outfit to add to my fall/winter wardrobe. If I bought these three items at retail it would have cost me $100.99...wow! See why I like thrift shopping?!
I hope to share some more of my bargain finds in future posts. For now I hope this inspires you to just say no to "full price." Those words just aren't in my vocabulary anymore! Your budget will thank you.
I just finished reading "Crazy Love" by Francis Chan for a class I was taking at my church. I've been curious about the book ever since it came out...there's been a lot of buzz about it among Christian circles. The premise of the book is that we as Christians should be so overwhelmed in our love for God that we would be willing to really and truly live our lives every day the way God commands us. In other words, if we want to love God and love our neighbors as ourselves, then we must abandon ourselves and dedicate our lives to giving to others and studying who God is and living to please Him.
When Chan starts breaking apart what it really means to be lukewarm in our modern terms, it really gets a little uncomfortable. He questions whether or not the term "lukewarm Christian" is even a legitimate term. His belief from his study of the Bible is that being lukewarm and being a Christian is an oxymoron...it just does not work! He gives examples of what he has changed in his own life and what others have done to start literally taking up their cross daily and following Christ. It is convicting and inspiring to say the least. This book will definitely make you take a good, hard look at how you live your life every day and most importantly, it will point you to the Bible to search out these things yourself.
I did not agree with everything Chan said but I found tremendous value in just thinking about my life as a Christian and I was defintiely prompted to make some changes. I think this book is a great read and definitely worth the time.
