Consignment Sale Loot

After my excitement in my last post about the possibilities of what I might find at this consignment sale, I thought I'd follow up with what I got!  You all, it's crazy. We went Thursday at 3pm to get line numbers. I was 88 and we were in the front part of the line of volunteers. Thankfully they give out numbers so we can leave and come back when the sale starts. We got there around 6 and they put us in number order and you could feel the excitement building. You all. It's a different kind of special. All these women excited for deals.  OK, and for those 2 ladies pushing strollers... DON'T. And don't bring your kids. Seriously. It's worth hiring a baby sitter. The clothes racks are so packed that there is literally not enough space to push a stroller down the aisle so you're just in everyone's way!!! Learn Consignment Sale Etiquette.

Anyway, J and I were on a mission. I fast-walked (in order to not be a crazed runner) to the area where the car seats were. (This is where I should add that committee members get to shop before volunteers.) ALL of the Britax convertible seats were gone. I wasn't surprised. I grabbed the last convertible seat that was there. It was a FP Sport that said made by Britax. It was dirty but it was $25 so I reserved it. Then I eyed the infant car seat base that we NEEDED and I about tripped over a bunch of other car seats and bases to get to the one and only Chicco base left before someone else. $20 score! Graco bases are always piled up at sales but you can never find Chicco bases. I know I'm biased but I think it's because Chicco is such a better car seat that no one ever gets rid of them. While I was at the car seats, J was at the strollers. I found him across the room and we quickly decided which of the strollers to reserve. It's a sit/stand deluxe so it will fit a car seat, then it will fit two small children and then at some point we can take the back seat out and Adalyn can stand in it. It was in really good condition.  From there, we stayed in the big items room, and found a brand new outdoor swing  and we looked for an outside riding toy but didn't find any that we liked.

I then made a brisk walk to the clothing room while Jonathan went to look for other odds and ends. I found some great deals on clothes for Adalyn! The way this goes down is that you go through the racks of clothes and put anything in your (laundry) basket that you might want. Then you take your entire basket to a corner with your girlfriends and husband and go through everything to look at the clothes closer to make sure there aren't stains and are in good condition and worth the price listed.  And get second opinions on whether it's worth the price listed from your friends:)  I loaded up (and even put back a good amount). Then I went to the newborn boy rack. Newborn clothes are mostly onesie type of clothes so I'm not willing to drop much money on them. I got a few cutie outfits though. I was planning to go back to the half off sale to load up on newborn clothes but we had the tornado warning so we were home in our basement. They rescheduled the volunteer early half off sale for Saturday morning at 6:30 and I could not bring myself to get up for that! There are more sales coming up so I'll be looking for baby clothes at those.

Here is a pic of all of the clothes we got. Boy clothes are on the bottom row. Jonathan also found 2 pairs of shoes for A and 3 pairs Robeez for baby boy. Each pair of Robeez was only $4 and they look unused! So excited about that!  You can also see at the top of the pic that Jonathan picked out a couple Wiggles DVDs for $3. Adalyn is captivated by the Wiggles so he figured we should have a couple for her to watch on trips in the car:)

I got 1 pair of pjs (I usually don't buy pjs second hand but these had the tags still on), 2 jackets, 6 dresses, 5 bubble outfits, a bathing suit cover up, 4 pants/capri outfits, a skirt outfit, and a shorts outfit for A. I got overalls, 4 one piece outfits and a swimsuit and shirt for baby boy. I ended up getting 5 items with the tags still on them... brand new!! I got mostly brand name clothes: Bailey Boys, Gymboree, Gap, Carter's, Polo, Tommy, Janie and Jack, Talbots Kids.

I usually stay at the $5 price range for clothes, but sometimes I have to be reasonable. I splurged on a couple full outfits. See the 3 outfits on the left side of this pic? The first is a 3 piece Gymboree set that will go into fall with a sweater for $14. The second was a 5 piece (including the hat and glasses) Gymboree set that still had tags on it for $17. The third outfit is a skirt, shirt and shrug that is Janie and Jack for $12. (I looked on the Janie and Jack website and the shrug alone retails for $52!!)  Sometimes I just have to step back and ask myself if I would pay $14-$17 in the store for this outfit (when it looks new). So I got them!

Here is a pic of a few of the dresses. The two in the center are front runners for an Easter dress. Because of this, I went ahead and did pay a little extra for them than the $5 that the other dresses were.  The pink, green and white dress with the pink sweater is Carter's and I usually don't pay extra for Carter's brand but I loved the dress so much that I paid $13 for it.  The green dress with the pink flowers is absolutely gorgeous in person. I love it.  It's smocked on the top and the flowers on the skirt are all very delicate.  It was $15 and originally I was going to put one of these two dresses back and only get one "expensive" one but Jonathan said to get them both:) I love when he shops with me:) The green dress is Talbots Kids. I didn't even know they made kid clothes. I looked online and I guess they no longer make them. When I got it home and took it off the hanger I found that it had original tags on it and it was $78!! So I got a $78 brand new dress for $15. I'd call that a score!

Here is a pick of our gear. Double stroller $65 (retail $200), convertible car seat $25 (no clue what retail would be... $100+ish), car seat base $20 (retail $85), brand new swing $10 (retail $29) and a Fisher Price booster seat that was in pristine condition for $14 (retail $28). We figured that we needed to get A to start using a booster because soon and very soon baby brother will need the high chair. So far I think she loves sitting up to the table to eat!  Jonathan already took all fabric and belts off of the stroller and car seat (with Lindsy's help while we were all home bound during the tornado warning) and washed, sanitized and put them all back together. They look great!

Here is our receipt and total... With tax we spent $342.14 which seems like a lot. It's a lot more than we have ever spent at a consignment sale! But when we realize all the gear we got, I think we did well!  Jonathan is a stickler about spending money and had his calculator out on his phone adding things up while we were shopping and he admitted later that he thought with the big items we were buying that we were going to spend a whole lot more than we did!

Lindsy was a seller for this sale and actually needed a few more items to sell (sellers have to have a minimum of 75 pieces) and last weekend while we were cleaning out the basement we came across a large bin of clothes that I had forgotten about. They were items I had bought on clearance while I was pregnant and some items had been hand me downs from people (who didn't want them back). I wasn't emotionally tied to them since A hadn't worn them and they were all too small for A at this point so I sold 28 pieces/outfits in the sale. I sold most for $5 each and also listed them for the half off sale so many sold for $2.50.  Out of those 28 pieces, 24 sold and I made $52 (even with the 30% fee that the sale takes). So that $52 will go toward what we spent and then it feels even better!

Can you tell I love consignment sales? There are 3 different sales this coming weekend! They are small sales but I'll be there! The next "big" sale is in a couple weeks and I can't wait for it!