JWR;
This week I bought at a charity resale shop some silk and Merino wool sweaters, as recommended by a contributor. I also bought a La Crueset pan for a buck, blankets and a backpacking frame. Every single piece of my quality camping equipment came from garage sales. Americans buy a lot of stuff and just don’t use it and dump it at garage sales or charity resale shops. Debt-addled Americans so over-bought clothes that they are so cheap at resale shops and garage sales (as low as 25-to-50 cents apiece) that you could buy a lifetime of outfits for next to nothing. Just buy and package good clothes and store in a cool, dry, non-dusty, non-buggy place. I’ve found so many low priced items, such as quality American-made kitchenware, that I am storing some for my kids for when they start up housekeeping in several years.
My dad talks about when he was a boy in the Great Depression, of traveling down from Chicago to rural Tennessee to visit his “poor relations.” He recalls the soles on their shoes were gone and they used rags to wrap together what was left of their shoe. I mention this as I was at a church garage sale the other day. Good boots (Cabela’s, L.L. Bean) were selling for a dollar which I bought and disinfected. You could stock up on a lifetime supply of boots for the cost of a restaurant dinner! Take advantage of Americans’ wastefulness. – McB.