When we found out we were moving across the country, and had three weeks to do it-I sprung into action. It was the best move ever, because I only had to endure three weeks of horrible packing craziness. I knew right away that we would get rid of everything we could and take as little as possible with us to Seattle. We sold/gave away everything we didn’t need and planned on starting fresh in our new home – it was awesome.

We saved the money we had from our sales and set it aside for new stuff. Just in case you’re curious, like I would be, we had about $2,500.00 after selling everything – except that about $1,000.00 was specifically from Bryan’s instrument sales, with which he promptly bought a new banjo and bass amp. So $1,500.00 – not bad, eh? That’s how much we made and the exciting thing to me is that we probably saved twice that by not renting and driving a moving truck to Seattle. I think we made the right choice.

It’s been fun to replace our stuff with new with our little savings, so I thought I’d share some of our sweet thrifty finds in a little mini-series.

I mean seriously, look at this sweet briefcase. We found this on one of our first thrifting adventures – at a huge Goodwill by Bryan’s parents house.  It was just sittin’ there, all nonchalantly next to the super beat -up duffle bags and was all, “Hey, I’m only $5.99.”  And we were all, “OMG, get your burgundy self into my proverbial shopping cart NOW.”  [Side note: I’ve never used a shopping cart at Goodwill, it’s more of a grab and go store, and when my arms are full, I probably don’t need any more crap]

Okay, so this couch has a slight cat pee odor, but that makes it more charming, right? What if I told you it was only $50?! Yeah, that’s what I thought, you love this couch and so do I.  We found an awesome website that showed us all of the garage sales going on in our area, and this lady had furniture listed at rock bottom prices.  It sounded too good to be true, but we went first thing in the morning just in case.  When we saw how good the condition was and felt how ridiculously comfortable it was, we quickly pulled out our cash and asked the lady to hold it for us while we went to get a truck.  (We smartly joined a community group with two trucks and two very generous owners)

I don’t think I can accurately describe how excited Bryan was about this couch.  Despite the fact that we picked it up from sweet older lady in a trailer park, he’s convinced that it’s true former life was to provide comfort to a Widowed WWII Veteran hunter and his hunting dog.  This (fictional) man would come home from a long day of hunting and join his tired dog on the couch and smoke his pipe while he reflected on his hard past.  I will point out that this back story provides no explanation of the cat pee.

Where Bryan comes up with this stuff, I’ll never know.

Have you found any good thrifty finds lately?