I have to say, I really enjoyed my trip to Unique. I will admit that I am new to thrift store shopping. It really just hasn't appealed to me much in the past. I tend to do most of my shopping online around 11pm when my house is quiet. But as I move my way into the world of upcycling items and saving money, it seems to be a great fit for me. Unique sells just about everything that you can think of, excluding mattresses and certain baby items like car seats and cribs. I'm not much of a clothes shopper in general, but I was pretty blown away by the selection of barely worn children's clothes. With my boys growing like weeds, I anticipate a future shopping trip down here when they need new pants. I did, however, purchase a nice fleece jacket that I could use as a throw away item (clothing that you discard at the starting line and is donated to homeless shelters) for my Richmond Half Marathon this week - which is going to be freezing!
We were given a tour of the store and an explanation of how they operate. One of the neatest things I learned was about how they remove items from the shelves after a certain amount of time, compact them and then ship them off to third world countries. That idea alone makes me want to support a store like this.
Unique is all about reducing waste, reusing, and helping others. This is a world-wide chain of stores, each supporting different charities. This particular store gives their profits to support Vietnam Vets. They collect donations from the community in a variety of ways and pride themselves in putting out good quality items for sale.
A very interesting concept that they presented to us is their fundraising program. Organizations such as Scouts, PTAs, etc. can collect items for donation. A truck will then come to pick up these items and the organization is paid based on the number of pounds of items donated. This is such a brilliant concept that encourages people to donate unused items while fundraising for different organizations. I personally am very anti-selling fundraisers. I've been doing it with our kids for the past few years and I can't stand the poor quality and overpriced items we buy. I love the idea of doing something like this instead and getting to teach our children some great lessons in the process. I have already set the ball rolling to start a fundraiser with our Cub Scout Pack.
We were each given a budget of $25 and asked to purchase things that we could use for a project of some sort. I, of course, could not contain myself and ended up with way more:) Luckily we were also given a 30% off discount. They quite frequently have discount shopping days and offer a special program where you can earn greater discounts when you donate items.
So here are my goodies that I collected. I can't wait to get started on my transformations. With my credit and discount, this entire lot (including the table!) only cost me $18!
To top off this fun day, we were treated to lunch at Matchbox. Phenomenal pizza and dessert. And I so enjoyed a meal free of children and in the company to some pretty amazing Mommy Bloggers. I was just in awe at everything they know and felt like such a newbie. And, of course, I used the excuse of "carb-loading" for my race to overindulge:)
I want to thank Joy and Unique for inviting me on this day out. I learned so much and am definitely excited to shop more at this store. I actually had my eye on a piano (yes, a piano!) to restore, but it was a little over my head in terms of restoration. Hoping another one pops up in the future for me. Stay tuned in the coming few weeks as I post the before and afters of the items I purchased.
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