My retirement from thrift store shopping

  Well today it finally happened. I finally found the jacket that I have been looking to find in a thrift store for years now. What special kind of jacket is this you ask? The answer is the elusive Snap-On Tools jacket. I see tons of people wearing these jackets where I live. They are kind of like a Carhartt jacket in a way. They are super cool and, you usually have to buy thousands of dollars worth of Snap-on Tools to get this jacket.
  So today I happened to stop by the Salvation Army to look around for anything of interest. I looked at the hat selection which was super barren today. The hat selection is kind of crappy nowadays. I then detoured over to the toy section that happened to have 2 huge bags of toy cars. I looked over the bags of toy cars to see if there was anything in there that was worth buying. Sadly there wasn't any car that I needed out of those 2 bags. Some old lady in a wheelchair asked me to get her down a K'nex Faris Wheel that was on a top shelf. I said I would get if down for her and I did.

A jacket similar to the one I bought

  After I helped the old woman I decided I would look at the jackets just for the heck of it and it paid off. As I sifted through all of the jackets, I spotted a grey jacket with an American flag patch on the left sleeve, I thought to myself that this has to be a Snap-on Tools jacket. I picked up the jacket off the rack and saw that it said Snap-on on it. I froze up upon seeing a Snap-on Tools jacket. I saw the price which was $14.99 green tag. Pink tags were on sale today.
  I didn't want to take any chances on passing up this jacket since I always wanted one. My dad used to buy Snap-on Tools when he had his business, he never got a jacket though. I looked at the size tag of the jacket and it was a Large. Great, it's just my size. Just to be sure, I went to the fitting room and tried it on. The jacket fit like a glove. Great my wish came true. So I decided against buying those 2 bags full of toy cars for the Snap-on jacket. It never occurred to me to look at the price of the 2 bags of cars.
  When I arrived home from the Salvation Army, I told my mom of my final purchase and she didn't believe me since she knows that I will be there next week. As of this jacket find I can finally retire from shopping at thrift stores for the time being. I found the jacket that I've always wanted today. It was a dream come true. In the past I have found several different Snap-on Tools items at thrift stores, a red hoodie with the Snap-on S logo on it and a Snap-on camouflage hat with a tool camouflage pattern on it.
  So as of today I am official retiring from shopping at thrift stores. It's been an exciting run. I've had the wonderful opportunity to buy a plethora of good stuff. From an antique Tonka Jeep to obscure NASCAR hat's, to lots of wonderful CD's. and even a NIN Hat, and even some truck banks. Now it's time to say goodbye to the Salvation Army for the time being. It was a fun run.
  Will this be the last thrift store purchase in my lifetime? Probably not. I'm retiring from buying jackets. It won't stop me from buying CDs though. That's another post.

An Official Thrift Store Find

  I had a dermatologist appointment today, and it was close by the Salvation Army Thrift Store. . It was not even a block away. Anyway. I looked around and first found a vintage die cast Air Products tanker truck. It caught my eye immediately but upon further inspection the cab was missing a tire. I looked around for it and couldn't find the tire anywhere. A major let down there. The truck would have looked great in my Pennsylvania tribute. Anyway I happened to stumble across a brand new without tags, Sunoco The Official Fuel of NASCAR hat for $2.99. I used to have a hat like that a few years ago, but the brim wasn't bent correctly and looked funny. So they had two new ones. I purchased it and was happy.

Today's Thrift Store Find

  After lunch today, I walked to the Salvation Army Thrift Store to look around. I happened to be checking out the CDs that were there and came across these 2 classic 1990s albums for $1.99 each. It just so happened that I recently found out what the title of this one song from the 1990s was the other day on the Music Choice 90s channel. It was Be My Lover by La Bouche. The disc has a minor scratch on it, not a problem since my speakers for my CD player are all static and choppy sound, I just ripped it to my Laptop.

  The second CD I found was This Fire by Paula Cole. another artist who had a few 1990s hits. I also recently found out what that song title is that Family Guy parodied for the Quahog Creek theme song, titled I Don't Want To Wait. So I only spent $4.24 due to Pennsylvania's 6% sales tax. So the Salvation Army isn't that expensive after all.

Salvation Army Thrift Stores are Expensive

  Yesterday I walked to the Salvation Army Thrift Store to kill some time, while my mom was having a meeting for her birthday party. While I was looking around the store, I noticed things aren't too thrifty. For instance they had an obsolete Zenith floor model TV for $19.99. Yes an old fullscreen CRT TV that would give you a hernia when you would pick it up. $19.99 for an obsolete TV set is ridiculous. I mean who in their right mind would pay $19.99 for a obsolete piece of junk? I guess someone who really needs a TV set would pay that.
  Also I took a look at the used furniture and almost had a heart attack when I saw the prices. There I saw an old couch for $164.  Really $164 for a used couch? You ought to be kidding me. That's too much for a piece of used furniture. If I was on a fixed income and I needed a used couch, I could never afford $164 for a lousy pre-owned couch.
  This leads me to the next part of my rant, the used hats. Now I love hats. I have way too many hats. I took a good look at the 3 used hats and I can tell you that the $3.99 price tag for a scummy beat up baseball hat is way too much for a used hat. I shop at another thrift store to buy my vintage trucker hats that are new or are in like new condition and I pay $0.98 for them each. That's a big difference in price at a savings of $3.01.
   Now comes the toy rant. I also collect old action figures, and I usually look at the toys in any thrift store. The Salvation Army had 3 Hasbro Batmobiles and they were all broken in some way. One was missing a wheel, another one was missing a roof. and another was missing something that skipped my mind. Now why would a thrift store take broken toys? It baffles me. It's like that they want the kids who have to buy the broken one to suffer because they can only afford a broken used one. Another thing is I saw a 12 inch GI Joe with half of his arm missing. I was beginning to think why would they take a broken toy. I guess it comes down to you get what you pay for.
   The next part of my rant is the VHS Tapes. Now VHS has been obsolete ever since the DVD came out. The Salvation Army wants $3.99 for a dead format VHS Tape.  Seriously $3.99 for an obsolete media format? This is insanity. Why would they even charge somebody $3.99 for a VHS tape? I rarely use my VCR anymore, although I do have an old Panasonic Omnimovie full size VHS Camcorder. I don't think anyone still uses VHS anymore, its all DVD and Blu-Ray nowadays.
    Finally the Salvation Army thrift store is more of a heft store if you ask me. I say this because none of their prices are thrifty at all in my opinion. So go support an independent thrift store instead.