do this today: salvation army shopping

there’s a salvation army near my and edgar’s favorite restaurant in woodside, and we occasionally wander in there after lunch on a saturday afternoon and peruse the racks, hoping to find some hidden gem. and we often succeed: it’s where we got our kitchen table and most of our records. their books are dirt cheap (and today were half-off), good furniture can be found if you look hard enough and you can feel like your money is going to people who need it rather than some giant corporation. i’ve heard that the salvation army is a kind of wacko organization, but they help people in need more than, say, walmart does. so anyway, edgar and i went in today and scored some of the best finds of my life.

1. a souvenir bell from florida ($1) which i intend to use to beckon edgar.

2. a set of silver coasters ($2) with what edgar calls a “coaster parking spot” (it’s a coaster holder). we don’t have a nice table to which we want to prevent damage, we just like coasters.

3. the last harry potter book (HP and the deathly hallows) in hardcover ($5, marked down to $2.50). i bought it because (a) it’s good, light, summer vacay sort of reading and (b) it’s the only movie that hasn’t come out yet. i can read a book and then see the movie, but i cannot do it in the reverse direction.

4. a typewriter ($10)! i have no idea what i want to do with it but i just adore typewriters. i love the clicky-clang of the keys, i love their weight, i love that it has a “cents” key which has been removed from modern keyboards, i love that when you press “shift,” the roll actually shifts.

5. last but certainly not least, edgar bought a kitty treat holder which he has whimsically (and quickly) dubbed “mistah whiskahs” ($5). edgar is a huge creep for our cats. edgar is also just a general creep, having nothing to do with our cats. this means that he walked around the store petting the kitty-cookie jar and making meowing sounds, mostly to humiliate me, but partially for his own entertainment. mistah whiskahs was undoubtedly our most expensive purchase proportionate to the item’s original cost (mistah whiskahs couldn’t have retailed for more than $12) but the joy he brings edgar is priceless.

sample sale.

before i lived in new york, i watched a lot of “sex and the city” (poor kevin moss can attest to this).  often the writers would make some meager attempt to justify how carrie writes a weekly column for a piddly little paper (modeled after candace bushnell’s former employer, the new york observer in its pre-jared kushner days) and yet rents a 1,500 square foot apartment at 72nd and madison and has a closet that would shame imelda marcos.  they do a remarkably awful job of doing this, suggesting carrie’s apartment is rent controlled (ok, but it still ain’t $750 a month, unless she rented it in like, 1908) and that she gets a lot of stuff at sample sales.  like i said, the rent control bit is nonsense (even rent controlled apartments can go up between 2-4% annually), but sample sales can be truly amazing.

“but,” you might be thinking to yourself, “i live in nebraska/portland/michigan, we don’t have sample sales!”  and that’s where you’re wrong.

two websites, gilt groupe and ruelala offer truly amazing deals on everything from marc jacobs and missoni to cuisinart and mario batali cookware.  edgar has threatened to block ruelala in particular from my computer.  but they’re such good deals!  i got four–count them, four–pairs of havaianas on gilt for like, $13 total, including shipping. now, that was in part because i had a credit from a previous purchase, but still!  a few years ago, kevin (my ex bf) wanted a new lamp for his living room and so jenny (one of my bffs and kevin’s younger sister) and i found one at z. gallerie for like $300.  kevin had authorized us to spend $150, if memory serves (but he wanted a really nice lamp, so…) so we bought the lamp and told him it was $175.  the problem came when he was like “man, i really like that lamp.  where’d you get it?  z. gallerie?  i think i’m gonna go get another one.”  and jenny and i had to fumble through, “oh, um, it was a sample sale!  floor sample…yeah.  if you go back and buy one now, it’ll probably be like, $300 or something.  special floor sample pricing.  yeah.”  anyway, kev, if you’re reading, that’s the story with your lamp.  it was kind of pricey, but we were right that you’d love it, no?

anyway, this lamp.  i really loved it too and edgar and i have been needing one for our living room, specifically a floor lamp.  but even the junko ones from target (pronounced “tar-zhay”) are like $80.  and i’m 26 years old and kind of working at acquiring some nice furnishings.  i really don’t want to be like 30 years old with a houseful of stuff i bought off craigslist.  using ruelala, i bought the above pictured lamp–5 feet tall and gorgeous–for $79.  again, i had a $100 credit from some jeans i returned (hello, courtney, you’re like 3 feet tall with stumps for legs.  you cannot buy jeans sight-unseen) so really the lamp was $179 but tell me it’s not beautiful!  and it retails for more than $300.

another helpful hint for those with discerning taste and slim wallets: groupon, which is site specific (meaning the deals are tailored to where you live, so if you live in boofoo, i can’t really help you).  groupon is available in about 75 different cities, ranging in size from lincoln, ne to new york city.  groupon works like so:  each day they offer a deal, for instance $50 worth of tapas at poco for $25 or $100 worth of spa services for $50.  if a set number of people go for it (say 100), the deal is on (this almost always happens in new york, unless the deal is for like, a colonoscopy).  then you print out your groupon and bring it to the business whenever you want to use it.  groupons work on the premise of collective buying power, meaning that it’s a good deal for business owners because they’re getting hundreds of clients who might otherwise not have known about their businesses and consumers are getting heavily discounted products and discovering what might be their new favorite restaurant, salon, etc.

please note: anyone can sign up for groupon, but you have to be “invited” or request membership to gilt and ruelala.  the good news?  if a member invites you, you’re in.  and then said member gets either a $25 (gilt) or $10 (ruelala) credit.  if you’d like to get in on the action, email me at hooper.courtney@gmail.com and i’ll send you an invite.  if not, well, some people just like paying full price.