Thrift Stores Are NOT Your Friend—Until They Are

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At the risk of sounding like a Scrooge, I’m going to make a bold statement, but don’t write me off just yet. Read on before you decide. It’s not always a sound financial practice to give your old stuff to charity thrift stores. I can’t believe I just said that in print. But let’s be real here.

Charities often run thrift stores that sell our old clothes, shoes, household goods, and misc—items we no longer need or use. Let me be clear here. I’m all for charity. And I love to help when we can but sometimes, giving those items away to thrift stores is not the best choice for your season in life, and you may not even realize it.

Sometimes we are helping others but hurting our family’s financial situation when we forego the money we could have earned by selling those items ourselves. Long term, this will inhibit our ability to help a charity in even greater ways.

For those families who have ANY debt, I do not recommend giving away items in a good, usable, re-saleable condition which, to be clear, are the only items you should be giving to charity. They don’t want your “junk,” and I say that as lovely as possible! It costs them more to go through authentic “junk” and dispose of them than it is worth, so do them a favor and only donate items in good repair to charities and thrift stores.

Every dollar you could have gotten from the sale of your items (think Craigslist, online Facebook yard sale groups, yard sales, etc.) was an unallocated dollar in your budget that could have gone towards your debt and getting out from under the bondage of living in debt.

Sure, debt is manageable for some, and they don’t feel the crunch. But think of all the good they could do with no debt payments! Think of all the charity gifts they could make if they had no debt at all.

I do recommend that you give a % of your income to charity. Donate 10% of that income you made from selling those said items to charity, yes, by all means.

Note: Dave Ramsey and many other financial coaches advise the same. Dave advocates giving 10% (a tithe) to your local church, synagogue, or charity, no matter your financial situation. The idea behind this is the economic principle of reaping and sowing.

Whatever your thoughts on this, it is a widely accepted financial practice. I am not advocating complete abstinence from all charitable giving when you have debt, but rather than donating the 100%, you should sell your items, give 10% (or your choice) to charity, and 90% apply to your debt.

If you’re anything like most of America, you have plenty of items to get rid of. Declutter the house, go through the clothes, and grab items you haven’t used in the last three months, as well as gifts that you plan to re-gift and put up for sale. Use that money to apply to your debt and free yourself up to do even better things for your favorite charity or church.

In the meantime, while working on paying off your debt, frequent those thrift stores first. When you are in the market for shoes, clothes, household appliances, etc., make sure to check the local thrift stores first for any items they may have. In this way, you are not only helping their charity, but you are helping your family’s financial state as well with the money you saved on those items rather than shopping new.

Take the difference and apply it to your debt. While it may not seem like much independently, these little things can add up in a big way. If you sold just $25 of items each month and saved $25 on purchases, you could apply $47.50 (assuming you gave $2.50 to charity, as mentioned) a month to your debt. In 12 short months, you would have reduced your debt by $570.00 by this a straightforward task.

So, thrift stores are not your friend. Well, until they are…