Charity Shops: the good, the bad and the ugly

There has recently been a boom in the amount of young people looking around charity shops. More and more people from the younger generations are now going charity shopping, and i'll admit it, i'm one of them! Charity shops can be full of vintagey clothing at amazing prices just waiting to be snapped up.

OXFAM and British Heart Foundation - image from fundraising.co.uk

However, a lot of the charity shops nowadays are hit and miss: and i'll tell you why.

Firstly, they know what we're up to! Some charity shops are now hand-picking through their items and making a 'vintage' section in their shops. This may seem a good idea at first, but to my horror they are actually charging extremely HIGH prices for such items! To me, that defies the whole idea of going to a charity shop. I do not like it. At all.

My nearest city is Leeds, and as every other big city, it is full to the brim of charity shops. Unfortunately, these shops are also full of young girls such as myself looking for vintage buys. By the time I get chance to mooch around the city charity shops, all the unique items have been bought and everything tends to start looking the same.

So i'll provide you a solution for this problem: go to charity shops in small villages. Okay, lets be realistic, not every shop is going to have amazing clothes or retro bags, but every so often you can stumble upon an item which you instantly fall in love with.

And now, to prove to you that you CAN find amazing bargains in charity shops, here are two photos of my favourite bags. Whats more, the brown satchel was only 50p! 50P!!!!!!!!!!!!!! ahhhhhh bargains do make me happy! 

Satchel - 50p at Salvation Army

Retro Chiltern bought by my friend!

So, do you go charity shopping? If so, where do you go? And which charity shops do you like going to? xxxxxx