Reply #20: Same

[SteelPenguin]

Though I wouldn't classify myself as well-off yet, plenty of people have it worse.

We rarely buy new clothes for us or our kids, in comparrison to friends who constantly go to Gymboree or Children's Place etc. We look in those places but very rarely spend anything. It's wasteful, in our opinion. We go to Once Upon a Child or other thrift stores and get perfectly good children's clothes at half off, or more. You can't tell when looking at our kids or our friends kids any difference between us. We just consider it wastefull spending.

Same for groceries. We go to friends houses and are always amused by how many 'fancy' or 'expensive' things people have. Fancy italian capers in the fridge, different microbrews, fancy top shelf spaghetti sauces. Then they complain about their money situations and how the budget is tight, while I look around the room at all their waste. it's a microcosm of america in some ways. For a while there we were very very tight budget wise. We got rid of everythign we didn't need from cable television, to fancy foods. Now we cook nearly everything from scratch, from bottom shelf stuff (with a few exceptions) and really it's fine. We treat ourselves occasionally, but for the most part we spend alot less than anyone we know with groceries too.

Anyway good on people for using Thrift Stores, even if they do have money. Just because you can afford a 50 dollar shirt for a toddler, doesn't mean it's sane to waste money that way.