Tripod Home | New | TriTeca | Work/Money | Politics/Community | Living/Travel | Planet T | Daily Scoop
 
The Thriftseekers by bernadette noll
Also on Tripod: Read Yvonne Jones' review of Living Cheaply With Style, Ernest Callenbach's manifesto on simplifying (and cost-cutting) in your everyday life.
Online Resources for Thriftseekers: Betty's Thrift -- They're nuns, they're online, and they'll ship overnight on request. Easter Seals Thrift Store -- Books, art, toys -- hey, even music on old-fashioned vinyl.
|
A couple of months ago I went back East for a family reunion. I saw a cousin of mine who had recently decided on a little personal downsizing. She had quit her corporate job in Manhattan to make an attempt at a more artistic life. She'd had enough of the New York City rat race and was going to rely on her savings to start a little business making stained glass, which had been just a hobby until then.
As a work-at-home writer/cartoonist, I applauded her decision. This particular cousin was a childhood pal, and I was pleased at the prospect of new-found common ground. Not that we had drifted apart completely in her corporate days, but the experiences we shared certainly became more scarce. Our concepts of lifestyle were worlds apart, as were our paychecks. She held upscale dinner parties, providing far-out feasts and umbrella-ed beverages; I hosted bring-your-own-food parties. She vacationed on beaches around the world while I fought for position at the neighborhood pool. She threw dollars to the wind while I fantasized about a windfall. As we chatted at the reunion, the subject of thrift stores came up. "Great dress," she said. I replied, "St. Vincent de Paul's Thrift Store. Two bucks!" This is a habit I've noticed among all thriftseekers. First the store, then the price. We don't always talk; we only divulge if it was a stupendous score. Retail shoppers don't shop and tell. That would be equivalent to a hunter boasting about lion hunting in a zoo. At the close of the reunion my cousin and I made plans for lunch. As we hugged and kissed goodbye, she whispered in my ear, "Can you take me to the thrift store?" I laughed, not only at her request, but at the fact that it was asked in such a hushed tone. I nodded yes. When I picked her up later that week, I sat in the living room marveling at her place. I had seen it before, but now I was in it with new eyes. Before it was just your typical yuppie place, now it was the ritzed-out house of somebody considering downscaling. My cousin predicted, when she quit her job, that she had enough savings for six months of living. I looked around and decided that if she sold everything in her place she could probably live nicely for a few years. I estimated her leather couch alone would garner more than I made in a month. Maybe two. When she was ready to go she looked divine. She was decked in a fine woolen pants suit with perfectly complimenting jewelry and scarf. An outfit once purchased for casual day at the office was now donned for a thrift store excursion. I envisioned her in the fitting room of the thrift store, searching for a nail or splintered piece of wood on which to hang her scarf. I imagined the line outside the one fitting room as she struggled to remove all that paraphernalia. I glanced down, pleased at my easy-off overalls and slip-on sneakers. We stopped for lunch at a diner and discussed our plan. I reeled off a list of thrift stores we would try to hit. I knew them all and so had weeded out the ones which had crossed the line into vintage clothing. It was then she confessed that she wanted more than my company at the thrift stores. She wanted me to teach her how to thrift shop. My jaw dropped. "Teach you how to shop at them?! What do you mean?" I implored. "It's just like a store," I barked. "You go in. You look around. You find something you like. You try it on. Just like Macy's, with more selection." "But you know how to do this thing," she said. "What thing?" I snapped. "You know, the thing about finding bargain stuff and living cheaply. These are the things I need to know if I'm going to survive in my newly-chosen career field. I want to not just work like an artist but look and live like one too. You can show me the way." I wanted to be insulted at her suggestion of me being "cheap," but I was not. I was enjoying the fact that she envied my lifestyle, tickled that she sought my tutelage and my secrets. I felt a musical in the works, sort of a reverse "My Fair Lady." The Thriftseekers: A woman is led from her privileged class into the world of the thrifty by a poor-but-happy writer. At home that night I related the day to my sister-in-law Gwen. She lives a similar existence to mine, money-wise, and we often share ideas on money-saving practices. Some we share in jest, poking fun at ourselves and our pathetic financial existence, some we share for survival. We stayed up into the wee hours of that night, laughing about starting a school for ex-yuppies. We would teach them all sorts of money-saving ideas. We would take field trips to the thrift stores. We would show them how to wait around the post office lobby, gathering the three cent stamps left in the stamp vending machines. We would have entire days devoted to learning the public transportation systems, including a short seminar on obtaining the free reading material left behind by fellow passengers. We would distribute calendars listing which days were big garbage pick-up days. On the appointed days we would sell bus tickets and take them around the city to pick through the junk. While on the bus we would give lectures on distinguishing the good pickings from the bad. Lectures with titles such as: Is That Chair Beyond Repair?; Their Toss, Their Loss; and 101 Uses for a Wooden Spool. By the time we were through compiling the list we were in pain from laughing. Suddenly Gwen's face turned serious. "Hey," she said. "Why not? They're willing to pay money for lots of other lessons in common sense, why not this? All the yuppies are leaning towards getting by with less. We could start a correspondence school!" Now her excited tone frightened me. Not so much that she was out of control, but that I was starting to think she was on to something. I told her I'd think about it. By the next week the idea had lodged itself into a small corner of my brain and refused to vacate. I found myself formulating actual lesson plans and seminar titles. My mind was already at work putting together our first newsletter. Gwen and I kept in close contact throughout the week. For sure it would be the only such school in existence. For sure there were enough folks out there willing to put out good money for such simplicity. We would be the founding mothers of the thrift revolution! A few days later our hopes for a place in history were dashed. I sat reading a magazine and there, in full color splendor, was a two-page spread on the various zines and newsletters available to those "seeking to pursue the pleasures of simplicity." I called Gwen with the discovery that our joke-turned-serious scheme was by no means cutting-edge. While we resolved to the fact that we were not renegades in our new field, we vowed to go on spreading the word, one soul at a time. We may be a day late but never again a dollar short.
Read Yvonne Jones' Tripod review of Living Cheaply With Style, Ernest Callenbach's manifesto on simplifying (and cost-cutting) in your everyday life.
Bernadette Noll is a freelance writer based in Austin, Texas. On being a full-time writer, she says, "My life is forever colored by ten years in the restaurant business. It's always in the back of my mind that there is only one letter difference between writer and waiter." © 1996 Tripod, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
|
Map | Search | Help | Send Us Comments