Not too long ago, my niece Emma (The Girl Who Loves Hats and Sweaters, September 22, 2010) bragged to me about the great deals she found at Gurnee Mills, the mega mega mega outlet mall near the Wisconsin border. Apparently, she talked my sister into escorting her and a friend up there for some serious credit card activity.

“Look at these Juicy sweats,” she sighed, proud of her less than retail priced purchase. “Only twenty-five dollars!” (I seemed to remember when her sister Liz was the same age, ten years ago, the IT brand was Abercrombie & Fitch.)

‘You think that’s a deal?” I roared rhetorically, feigning competition and extending my forearm for her to examine the leisurewear I was sporting.

“One hundred percent cotton hoodie from the GAP purchased at Village Discount a couple blocks from me. Dollar-fifty.”

I don’t know if she was not into pre-owned clothing or if she simply realized that she was not going to out-thrift her aunt, but she dropped the subject.

I had to laugh thinking about the many different levels of thrift shopping there are. My concept of thrifting has changed many times over the years. When I was in grammar school, my mother used to buy my sister Ronna and me a special new school outfit each September. For the most part, after that, we would look for super sales at the stores. We really didn’t want for anything, but we were conscious that we couldn’t spend money on new outfits frivolously. Dad worked too hard. It wasn’t until I was out of college and a poor working girl, in a fashion, still too conscious about not having surplus cash to buy clothes “in season,” that I discovered second-hand stores.

My friend Lin made going to second-hand stores fun. She was quite the discriminating shopper. Sometimes, we went to consignment stores where they had pretty high-end pieces that wealthy women apparently discarded when they were bored, and sometimes we went to Howard Brown or to The Village. Lin had a knack for finding the cashmere sweater without snags amid the rack of acrylic castaways. Going to The Village was like going on a treasure hunt. Once I found a short, black wool dress jacket with 3” diameter buttons. When I reached into the pockets, I discovered black stretchy gloves that nearly went up to my elbows. For $3.50, I felt like Audrey Hepburn. I wore that damn jacket until it practically disintegrated.

When I got older, I realized that thrifting went both ways; that second hand-stores were not just places to find bargains but were places where I could take what I wanted to give away. When I lost weight and when I moved to Wisconsin, I got to clean my closets in good conscience. Cleaning my personal space of things I didn’t need or use anymore was such a great feeling. It literally made me feel lighter. This was good to recognize, and still, my concept of thrifting was to evolve more. Even though I was giving things away, I was mostly thinking about how it made me feel. By giving things away, I was unburdening myself.

When my mom died a few months ago, my sister Barb and I gave away most of her clothes. We talked about it first. “I don’t want to simply give away things to some thrift store,” I told her, “not somewhere people like me shop looking for bargains. I want to give her clothes away to people who really need the clothes.” We ended up giving several boxes to The Salvation Army and several more to an organization that helped down on their luck women dress to get back into the working world. I found an organization that accepted donations of bras which they distributed on the west side of Chicago and also in third world countries. I had reached a whole new understanding of thrifting.

There is a sort of hierarchy to thrifting, I think. First, you set out to find good deals on quality pre-owned items. Then you seek out the freedom that comes from letting go of things you don’t need any more. The final stage is imagining the most consciously appreciative person taking pleasure in the transaction. Now, I like to think about a working mom wearing a formerly favorite sweater I once owned. I like to think of her looking good in the color or maybe enjoying how the fabric feels on her skin. And when I go to The Village to buy a mismatching set of champagne glasses because my best girlfriends are coming over for dinner, I don’t just think about the 99 cent piece price. I think about how great it’s going to feel when we’re around my dining room table clinking them in a toast.

Making good use of someone else’s old treasures and consciously relishing a second life in a garment or knick knack is no small thing.