Frugalista Kelly Seim showed our Jennifer Stagg around a thrift store, and they came back with bags full of designer duds at a fraction of full price.
Kelly Seim knows how to work a thrift store. From the moment she walks in the door at Deseret Industries, she is on a mission– find the best deals for the highest quality name brand items in a sea of hand-me-downs. Something I thought was “Mission Impossible.”
“You have to go through every single rack, every single piece and really look at it and really look for the quality pieces,” she said.
Kelly says it can take a few hours, but the payoff is worth it.
“I have found items from Trina Turk, from Gwen Stephani lamb, from Anthropology, and then obviously Banana Republic, Ann Taylor, all of those as well, so you just have to have some time to spend,” Kelly said.
We split up and started sorting through the dozens of racks, searching for those designer duds among just… the duds.
“If I don’t see anything right away, I just move on,” she said.
Kelly says there are diamonds in the rough., and then there’s just the rough. But she knows every time she goes thrifting, she will come home with a new—or new to her—item.
“It never fails,” she said. “There’s always at least one really special item at every store.”
Soon we were filling our cart with dozens of brand name clothing items in great condition– and I started to notice a pattern.
By the end of our trip, we actually had to put items back because we had found so much.
“Get creative– just come out and see what’s out here because you’ll be shocked at the amazing pieces you’ll find and instead of filling your closet for a thousand dollars, you’ll fill it for 30 or 40,” she said.
High-end brands at rock bottom prices equal Mission Accomplished.
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