July 16, 2024 • 47 mins
If you consider yourself bad at thrifting, think again, because you might have missed important tips for buying secondhand items online, or maybe you don’t know where to. In this episode, Jen and Jill give advice on how to make the most of buying secondhand items online and where to find the best online thrift stores for everything!
🎙️ Get full show notes here!
https://bit.ly/3xuBPDD
💌 Want to save money and spend better in just 5 minutes? Get The Friendletter! Our FREE 3x weekly newsletter with freebies, deals, and savings hacks.
https://www.frugalfriendspodcast.com/friendletter
📣 Submit your bill of the week and get a shoutout from us
https://www.frugalfriendspodcast.com/bill-of-the-week/
💸 Check out our monthly challenge community
http://www.frugalfriendspodcast.com/club
👉🏼 Subscribe for more on YouTube
https://www.youtube.com/frugalfriends
💃🏼 Hang out with us on Instagram!
https://www.instagram.com/frugalfriendspodcast/
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Episode four twenty four, How to shop secondhand Online.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
Welcome to the Frugal Friends podcast, where you'll learn to
save money, embrace simplicity, and live a life here your
hosts Jen and Jill.
Speaker 1 (00:24):
Welcome to the Frugal Friends podcast. My name is Jen,
my name is Jill, and I am so stoked on
this episode because I am obsessed with shopping second hand
but only online. This is your baby. I hate thrifting, yard, sailing, estate, sailing,
all and all the things Jill loves like in her core.
(00:48):
I hate, but.
Speaker 3 (00:52):
And yet we do love each opping.
Speaker 1 (00:53):
We do.
Speaker 3 (00:54):
Don't get it twisted.
Speaker 1 (00:55):
I but I love and am passion about buying second
hand as much as possible. And so if you are
like me, then this is a gen episode. Jill has
a ton to say. I'm still here, But if you're
a gen then this is for you. But this episode
(01:15):
first is brought to you by trash. It's not so
bad when it's actually treasure, like your stale bread that
you don't want anymore, but I'll gladly make into creu
toons or that painting that's about to be thrown away.
But it's perfectly gaudy and you just need it for
your house, or the plant clippings on the ground at
home depot that you're definitely gonna propagate and turn into
(01:38):
larger plants.
Speaker 4 (01:39):
Trash. It's not always junk, and you can claim that
second hand treasure more easily with Benny. It's a free
browser extension that allows you to find clothing and accessories
on second hand sites and buy that thing instead of
the brand new thing. Frugal friendspodcast dot com slash Benny.
B E and I Frugal friendspodcast dot com slash Benny.
(02:03):
Jenn and I both have hats that say Benny on
them and they are great hats, and anytime people are like,
what's Benny, we just say Frugal Friends podcast dot com
slash Benny because we actually.
Speaker 1 (02:14):
Really love it. We will say it at the same time.
But you can't find gaudy paintings through Benny. It's clothes.
It's men and women's clothing that you can go like
to Lululemon and look at that have zip pull out,
pull over, and then Benny pops up and be like,
don't buy it new buys. Buy the exact same thing
(02:34):
and the exact size you want from like here, and
then It just shows you all the options on the
side and you're like, thank you, Benny, I will buy it.
Speaker 3 (02:45):
Brilliant.
Speaker 1 (02:45):
Yeah again, get and your laptop. They don't pay us
to say this, but if you sign up through Frugal
Friends podcast dot com slash b E n I, we
do get a dollar, so maybe they do pay us.
Speaker 3 (03:02):
This is what we're relying on for groceries.
Speaker 1 (03:05):
Next, how did Jen and Jill make money every time
you listen to us in the in our This episode
is brought to you by we make a little money,
just a little every time you listen to the ads
in our show. Bless you. Thank you for your support.
(03:27):
That actually that's how we ourselves.
Speaker 5 (03:31):
Not gonna lie.
Speaker 1 (03:32):
That is how we support ourselves. But we would rather
take money from from those companies than from you. So
thank you. We love you. We do it because we
love you. So if you want to buy more second
hand clothing products whatever, we and maybe you love to
(03:52):
buy a second hand in person, so we have a lot.
We have a lot for you. Episode four oh three
how to make the most of yards sales and then
episode three forty one Why you Shouldn't Sleep on estate sales.
So those are two favorite ways. We'll definitely need to
get in a thrift store episode soon, so that's like
our next second hand episode, but I had to I
(04:17):
had to fit in the online one before we put
in thrift stores. Uh so this is this is our
online and we're covering everything, not just close. But our
first headline is and it's our primary headline. It's from CNN,
and it's how to secondhand shop online according to experts.
(04:40):
We love experts, right, they didn't. They didn't consult us though,
so I love this. So this They start off with
a Instagram post from thread up, which we will talk
about later. But it's kind of like a scale like
annual car been savings on how to reduce your fashion footprint.
(05:05):
And so if you were to buy, the biggest impact
you can have is buying half of your clothes secondhand,
not even all of them. Just buy half of your
clothes secondhand. You can save six hundred and fifty six
pounds of carbon emissions following by reselling or donated unwanted clothes.
(05:31):
And then next one is not returning online purchases, which
I'm not about but and then the next one is
air drying clothes. But it is a it's like a
small portion versus just buying half of your clothes secondhand.
The following ones are mending one garment each season, washing
(05:52):
clothes on cold, and choosing standard shipping. But those are
all like super small. By the way you consume products
is going to make a much larger environmental impact than
what you do with them after you consume them. Just
keep that in mind. The consumption is always going to
(06:13):
make a bigger impact than how you dispose or get
rid of or whatever. Manage your consumption.
Speaker 3 (06:23):
Mmmm, that's a really helpful takeaway. Wow.
Speaker 4 (06:28):
Okay, So the first thing to be aware of when
we're shopping secondhand online is making sure that the photos
you're looking at are of the actual items that you're buying.
And this might sound really silly, like why wouldn't it be,
but there are plenty of people who will try to
resell preused, pre owned items using the pictures from the
(06:51):
website when they are brand new. Like I talk a
lot with furniture. Yeah, like here's the bed how it
looks in the stock phote, But it's like, but what
does it look like actually the one I'm going to
get from you? So making sure that what you're looking
at is the actual thing, and that that can be
pretty obvious whether or not it's a stock photo. And
(07:12):
if there's only stock photos, then that should be a
red flag to you. Yeah, should be obvious that this
is the person's item being they're taking pictures in their home.
Still nice pictures, but not the stock photos.
Speaker 3 (07:27):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (07:28):
And another thing that some people will try to do
is use other people's photos of their resale items. So
something you can do is so one of the experts
in this is Emily Stokel who's one of our Internet friends.
She hosts the pre Loved podcast. If you are into
vintage fashion amazing podcast pre Loved podcast, and so she says,
(07:52):
don't hesitate to ask for additional photos of something, whether
it's poshmark eBay, you can always ask for an additional photo.
But I think even easier would just be to Google
image search the image in question. If you're not one
hundred percent sure if that is the actual photo of
the thing, drag it to Google and you can see
if there is another identical photo from somebody else's eBay
(08:19):
or poshmark post. Now, knowing that sellers will cross post,
so if you see the exact same one, on a
different platform. Just check to make sure if it's a
similar seller name, because that's usually the tell that it's
it is the same item, just on a different platform.
But you can also save money by doing doing that.
Sometimes people will post things more expensive on poshmark than
(08:41):
they will eBay, but it's the same seller, same item.
But yeah, you can see if the seller is using
somebody else's totally different seller name that's already been sold,
you know, a year ago or something. So next is
start with what you know. So it can be overwhelming
(09:03):
to buy secondhand online.
Speaker 3 (09:04):
It's much.
Speaker 1 (09:06):
You know, there's usually not free returns, or you know
you do have to pay for shipping both ways, and
it can be a little overwhelming. So start with brands
you're familiar with. Start with items you're familiar with. And
I would say I have gone into stores like Anieman,
(09:28):
Marcus or high end stores to try on items and
brands so that I know my size in each of
the brands. Because when I'm buying secondhand, I'm not just
buying cheap stuff. I'm buying high quality because I can
because I'm buying secondhand, so I want it to like
if I'm buying a secondhand fast fashion. Well, that thing
(09:50):
was on its way out of you know, your home
before it even got to your home, right like with
all the people that have tried it on and stuff,
So when it gets to your home, it hasn't even
shorter life band. So when we're buying secondhand, we still
want to buy sustainable fabrics and well made garments. So
definitely familiarize yourself with the nice stuff. You might think, Oh,
(10:15):
I'm not like a good American girl or a mother
Jeans or like all these brands you probably may not
have even heard of, like the nice fancy brands. Become
that girl. You are that girl now I have just
dubbed you that girl. So become familiar with your sizing
and stuff with well made quality products so that you
(10:38):
can start knowing your sizes and fits. And then also
don't be afraid to get it tailored either. We'll talk
about that a little later, but just because it's not
perfect in the store, you can still buy it secondhand
and then get it tailored.
Speaker 4 (10:54):
I think that's one of the benefits of something like
Benny is you can look up these different brands that
you know and love or you've heard great things about
and it'll automatically feed you the secondhand sites that have them.
So yeah, starting with what you know, I think is
perfect because really, especially with pants and anything, really every
(11:20):
brand is going to have different types of sizing, so
that's going to make it really hard to find something
that then gets shipped to your door and you've got
to ven try on. So whether you've been to the
store in person and you know what works on you
and then you can look for it secondhand or this
next one is important is paying attention to measurements and specifications.
(11:42):
So along the lines of every retailer kind of having
different types of sizing, oftentimes you'll actually be able to
get down to the minutia of the measurements rather than
just saying, oh, a size six, a size eight. Instead
we can look at what's the end seam, what's the pantle,
what's the waste on this dress, and you can take
(12:05):
your own measurements. I mean, simple YouTube search on how
to take your own measurements would be really really helpful
when buying clothing online to actually know that it's going
to fit you. And this is particularly important because the
one and I'll say probably only downside of buying secondhand
is you can't return it, So really being sure that
(12:28):
this is what you want. You're pretty positive it's going
to fit you, or you have a solution for if
it doesn't fit you someone you'll give it to a
plan to resell it if you're fine donating it and
calling it a wash. But these are the things you're
going to really need to know about. Is the brand themselves,
your own measurements to be sure that what you're buying
you're going to stick with.
Speaker 1 (12:50):
Yeah, and don't be afraid again to go a little
bit higher in your measurements so that you can get
it tailored, so if you already know. For me, like,
it's hard to find genes, that's my biggest thing because
I have a very pear shaped body type and genes
(13:10):
do just just do not like a big booty and
a small waist, like they just don't. And so it
is hard for me to find genes even in nice brands.
And in my head, I don't want to go up besides,
because that number is a block for me, Like it's
such a mental thing, right, Like what the solution might
(13:34):
just be going up a size, right, and I can
always tailor it tighter, but it's a lot harder to
let out. There's only so much fabric that you can
let out. So be you know, if you're with me,
if you're a gen, let's get over the mental block
together and go up in size if we need to.
(13:58):
So next is to keep a thrift list. And we
always talk about this, whether it's online or in person.
We look at the things we need in our home.
So right now, for me, that is art, that's wall art.
I am so so bad at decorating, but there are
(14:19):
some now open walls where I want to put some things.
So that is like, that's on my list, barstools, rugs,
and then I'll just go and instead of browsing, I
try to keep myself from browsing just willy nilly, but
I'll just do those specific searches and I'll look every
(14:42):
couple days to see what's out there. But that is
my actual thrift list right now. It's no clothes, just
home things.
Speaker 4 (14:52):
I'm looking at my thrift list as well. I keep it, yeah,
just on my phone, and I'm looking for a console
table and I have them measurements of the table written
in here too, so that if I am out and
I see something, I can get the measurements and know
whether or not it's going to fit the space.
Speaker 3 (15:09):
So pro tip for you.
Speaker 4 (15:11):
There, black boots and a slotted spoon. These are my
current thrift loveeah and they've been on there for a
long time. Like okay without them, Yep, you have to
be fine.
Speaker 1 (15:24):
Yeah, it's something where you have to have the patience.
I have needed those bar those barstools. It's hard. You
had a hard time finding barstools because I don't want
to settle.
Speaker 3 (15:37):
Well, and they're so expensive.
Speaker 1 (15:39):
So expensive and so ugly.
Speaker 4 (15:41):
So many are three hundred dollars, so oddly, and it's
also not worth that to me, right, So if you
come across good barstools, just just get them.
Speaker 3 (15:52):
Someday you'll need them.
Speaker 1 (15:53):
Yeah, Okay.
Speaker 4 (15:56):
The next is to read reviews and do your research.
We all know that this is what we're already talking about.
First of all, on the brand that you're looking at,
make sure that you know what kind of quality it
is and how durable and sustainable it is. But also
you can do your research on the seller. What type
(16:16):
of reviews do they have, what are people saying about
how they handle exchanges, and that can really help to
guard the experience keep it a good experience and not
be just super bummed.
Speaker 1 (16:32):
The next one is don't expect perfection, And I think
this one is very important to highlight. We have gotten
really used to perfect reels, perfect pictures, this social media
idea of perfection. All these influencers are getting sent all
(16:54):
these free products, right, and they're making up parts of
their house to be to look really good for social media.
It's their job. But it's not your job to have
a picture perfect home or a picture perfect closet or
new clothes for every season. So it's the same in
(17:15):
our thrifting, right, Like when you get something, you'll want
to make sure you'll you'll appreciate that if the seller
points out if there are any imperfections in the in
the product, right, and hopefully we can usually nine times
out of ten you get an almost new product. But
(17:37):
we gotta we have to embrace imperfections right in our sofas,
in our rugs, in our clothes, Like we have to
embrace imperfection because a big barrier to buying second hand
are those imperfections. We want to buy it shiny, brand new.
(17:58):
But if we just get over that at like then
then we can like really have the things that we
want for half of the price. So and this is
also a red flag in listings like specifically luxury, so
we don't really buy luxury products. We do buy well made,
(18:22):
quality brands, but we don't buy brand names. But a
lot of people will post fakes. So if it looks
too good to be true, it is too good to
be true. So that's why we'd like, I would be
very hesitant to purchase like any luxury items from an
(18:43):
eBay or a poshmark or Willy Nilly. I would stay
specifically to second hand reing sailors that are just luxury,
that have that put every product through a vetting process.
But that's that's not me. If you love luxury, then
you'll pay a premium for that of course over eBay,
(19:05):
but you'll be sure you're getting your money's worth. It's
it's worth it. But even even still in there, if
you want to be luxury girl, I'm gonna tell you
you can be luxury girl. Now, I'm gonna I'm gonna
tell you. I'm gonna give you that permission today. If
you want to be luxury girl, you can be luxury girl.
And uh, it is worth is worth your time to
(19:28):
d money to a buy from places that vet their
luxury products and not expect perfection. Be okay, with a
little imperfection.
Speaker 4 (19:38):
You can have champagne tastes on a PBR budget. It
is possible you can get the second hand. They also
are referencing the fact that most of the secondhand shopping
platforms will have some sort of customer support and protection
in the event that the ad was misleading or you
(19:59):
end up receiving defective product or of other issues that
weren't disclosed in the listing, So keep that in mind.
Also know that you can always resell some of these
pieces too. I think one of the benefits is there's
not a ton loss because they are a fraction of
the price, not saying oh, money's throwaway, but it's not
(20:21):
as if you're buying brand new with a zero return policy.
Speaker 1 (20:25):
Yeah, and especially if you spend the extra money to
make sure you're getting verified luxury items, then it's going
to be easier to resell because you can have the
receipts from that verification.
Speaker 6 (20:36):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (20:37):
Okay. The final thing here is to be aware of greenwashing.
So right now there are so many big businesses doing this.
Giants like H and M and Lululemon are apparently some
of the worst in this space of really trying to
make it seem as though they are offering sustainable, eco
(21:00):
friendly options, kind of this circularity that just in reality
is not true. They're citing that there are some second
hand components or reusing components to their business model, but
it is not equating to cutting production whatsoever.
Speaker 1 (21:21):
So this is something to be aware of happening. Yeah,
they're just they're adding it up, producing more every year,
year over year.
Speaker 4 (21:28):
So there are of course then a lot of these
companies who even on their site you can buy secondhand,
and that's something to be aware of. I think we
would recommend that you go to more of these peer
to peer sites like the thread of the Poshmark others
that we're going to be mentioning, rather than being misled
by large companies saying that you're buying secondhand from them.
(21:52):
It's not actually helping the situation. It's just a marketing point.
Speaker 3 (21:56):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (21:57):
I will say that maybe one uh company that that
does have a good resales package, Yeah, yeah, say, but
they're probably the only ones. So Emily points out the
twenty twenty two remake Fashion Accountability Report, so remake, they're
(22:17):
on social media as well, on the on the internet,
but they have a Fashion Accountability Report where they every
year they will research and interview uh like maybe fifty
companies to see what their year over year sustainability. And
these are specifically companies that have reported want like they
(22:41):
use sustainability in their marketing, they have put forward plans
to become more sustainable. So it's really just holding accountable
these companies that are marketing to people who want to
stay eco conscious. So and they're they're finding again not
a single brand demonstrated that it's resale initiatives meant to
(23:03):
slow down in new production. So this grainwashing is super
evident in a lot of spaces, but especially clothing. And
I think that clothing is just something that we buy
much more frequently than rugs and sofas and all of
these things. So it's a lot and usually when we
(23:23):
buy it, we buy it quickly, we buy it impulsively.
So if we can again just cut our clothing consumption
just half of it to secondhand, we can still buy
brand new underwear, brand new socks, brand new bathing suits.
Like we're not saying go extreme, just half of your
(23:47):
stuff to be secondhand, Like go in your closet and
kind of take a read on what did I buy
secondhand and what did I buy new?
Speaker 4 (23:56):
Okay, I want to do a quick rundown of the
best online thing rift stores that you can be keeping
in mind when you do now go and try to
buy secondhand. So this list comes from readers Digest. It's
twelve best online thrift stores for every style and budget.
And I like the categories that they put out there,
so I'll do the first sex you can do the
last six. The best for wish list items they list
(24:20):
as poshmark. You've heard us talk about them already. They
say best for gen Z must be the types of
clothing that they have on there. For gen Z style
is d Pop Dpop. Best for anything and everything is eBay.
I will second that. So we've talked a lot about clothing.
But eBay is excellent for electronics.
Speaker 3 (24:44):
Car parts, vintage, yes.
Speaker 4 (24:48):
Kitchen items, you name it, and clothing if you're looking
for anything eBay. Best for women and kids is thread Up.
Best for handmaid and vintage is Etsy. Best affordable options
is Swap.
Speaker 1 (25:04):
Yeah, SWAP's been around for a while. I've never used it,
but it does. I would love to hear from somebody
who has, because I've always looked at it and uh yeah,
it's uh it's not as big as the other ones.
I don't I don't know if it would be my
first go to. I would definitely use the Poshmark, even
(25:26):
the d Pop. The eBay. Thread Up is life like
we and so thread up has so much stuff and
Poshmark has so much stuff and that's why we use Benny.
Frugal Friends podcast dot com slash Benny. You're gonna think
that this whole episode is an ad for it, but
I yeah, I can just go to the Old Navy,
(25:50):
for instance, and look at the shirt and then Benny
will pop up on the side and it will show
all the similar or identical listings on Poshmark, threat.
Speaker 4 (26:00):
Up, eBay, probably d Pop, like yeah, if it's on
the internet, it'll show up.
Speaker 1 (26:06):
And then another so another one that's similar since we
already went through the vintage one. Another similar site to
Benny is gem g e M and that is kind
of like Benny for vintage so much much more of
the fashion side, maybe more of the luxury side. Uh So,
(26:27):
I I've like I've collaborated with them and they're great,
So using gem for vintage stuff or if you're more
like into fashion and you can't find what you want
through Benny. But so, best for authenticated luxury is the
real real uh. Best for men is men's wear market.
(26:48):
Best for luxury accessories is fashion file. That's fashion p
h I L E. The best user experience is Newly three.
So I don't know if you've heard of Newly n
U U L Y well, actually, okay, Newly Thrift is closed,
(27:09):
but I will say that Newly is like a I
think it's it's kind of like a a rent the
runway sort of thing. It's subscription clothing rental, so if
that's also something if you're look a lot of influencers
will would do this, So I don't know if what
other or or speakers. People that take a lot of
(27:32):
pictures of themselves or video have have their lives documented
quite frequently, and for some reason want to have different clothes,
a lot of different clothes. So these subs, these clothing
rental options could be good versus the buying, donating, buying, reselling.
(27:52):
It's not our favorite option. I don't think you should
feel like you need to have a different outfit in
every picture or every speaking, you know, gig whatever. But
if that's where you are and that's what you want,
the rental things are good.
Speaker 4 (28:07):
I'm just realizing they have a maternity section. And for
that reason I could understand renting, because who knows depending
on how many kids you have, but you usually don't
need you quickly grow out of the clothes, you don't
need them potentially ever again, And so I could understand
for that reason.
Speaker 1 (28:25):
Maternity absolutely, because also you feel so gross when you're pregnant,
and if you're going to have beautiful clothing to make
you feel beautiful, rent it, rent it. So so that
best for designer handbags rebag. And then this one I love,
best for high end brands is the Stare Collective. I
(28:49):
don't know if I'm saying that right. V E S
T I A R E. I love this site. I've
never bought anything from the Stair, but I do. I
do love looking at it because it is just like
high end. I am not the high end girly. This
is so like if you're if if you've accepted the
(29:11):
permission to become luxury girl, the real real fashion file.
Rebag vestare these are going to be your faves.
Speaker 5 (29:21):
Uh.
Speaker 1 (29:21):
If you've said no, I'm just high quality girl, I'm not.
I'm not luxury girl. Uh Poshmark Deep Pop thread Up.
These are Etsy if you're vintage girl, Etsy using gem Yeah.
So these are these are your your sites for whatever
(29:42):
girl you want to be or man, whatever man or
woman you want to be. These are the sites for you.
Do you know what else is? For me? Always? And
this is for everyone, whether you're a luxury girl or
you're just a high quality girl.
Speaker 4 (30:01):
The bill of the week.
Speaker 5 (30:13):
That's right, it's time for the best minute of your
entire week. Maybe a baby was born and his name
is Williams. Maybe you paid off your mortgage. Maybe your
car died and you're happy to not have to pay
that bill anymore. Duff bills, Buffalo bills, Bill clion. This
is the bill of the week.
Speaker 6 (30:33):
Hi, this is Jill in Virginia. My bill of the
week is my composting bill. I am just so thrilled
to be part of this composting service, which is run
by kind of an industrial level composting company that provides
service for the whole area, including my condo, neighborhood. Period
(30:55):
as someone who lives in a den's urban airheah, I
can't guard on myself. However, it feels really good to
be composting my food scraps. And because it's an industrial service,
I can also compost meat waste and napkins and things
like that. I also save money because I share the
(31:19):
service with two of my neighbors, so I pay six
dollars a month for a huge reduction in my trash
and not having to deal with food scraps in the
trash either. Now I put out one small bag a
week of trash and the rest is compost and recycling.
(31:39):
The compost company comes and picks up the plastic container
of compost once a week. It's absolutely delightful and worth
every penny.
Speaker 1 (31:50):
Oh my gosh, fantastic jol. That is money well spent,
because yes, even if you can't guard it. And this
was my big hang up to not composting. It's like,
I don't garden, and even after that episode with Nicole
from Garden Area, it's just not It's just not the
right time for me yet, So I'm like, why would
I compost? But it's so good for the environment, it's
(32:14):
good for the smell of your home. Honestly, like it
keeps uh food waste out of the bin and it's
the food scraps. Yes, they can decompose, but it's so
compact in like landfills that they don't compose or it
takes much decomposed and they or it takes much longer.
(32:35):
And so if you can, if you can compost it
at your home, you're giving that food a chance to
do what it naturally was meant to do. And it's
just it's just good for the environment.
Speaker 4 (32:49):
This is so great. I love that your city has
an option for people who don't have a garden. And
it sounds like even though you're paying for this service,
it's still reducing your just overall waste and the amount
that you're paying for garbage. So win, win, win across
the board. Thank you Jill for sharing your bill. If
you all listening have a bill that you want to submit,
(33:11):
if it's about reducing waste or buying second hand or
just living life in the world as a bill for
friendspodcast dot com slash bill, leave it for us. We
can't wait, and now it's time for the light being around.
Speaker 1 (33:32):
All right, So what types of second hand items? Oh,
I'm gonna I'm gonna amend it slightly. What kind of
secondhand items do you typically purchase online? And then what
would you never Yeah, I'm adding it, Okay, so online,
I am including Facebook Marketplace in this. I think it's uh.
(33:55):
Facebook Marketplace was not in the list that we gave,
but I'm going to include it. So I will. I
will buy almost anything, so our couch, our, the bunk bed,
(34:16):
our mattress, rugs, because rugs are obscenely overpriced and they're
all ugly. All rugs are ugly. It's just finding the
least ugly rug is the is, the mission, lamps, tables,
clothes I will buy. I there's very little that I
(34:42):
wouldn't buy secondhand online. But what I wouldn't I think
I think my three might like trifecta of like my
brand new trifecta. Well, there's four things I don't buy underwear, socks,
(35:03):
bathing suits, or running shoes secondhand.
Speaker 4 (35:09):
Right, I mean, I think that's just like across the yard.
But I'm trying to think of would you not buy
anything specifically because it's online secondhand? Would you be then
open to buying it in person secondhand? Well?
Speaker 1 (35:21):
Facebook Marketplace is kind of like that hybrid, right, You're like, look,
you're buying it online, but you get to see it
before you actually hand over the money. So that's like
what I really prefer. Gosh, So I know, I personally
wouldn't buy luxury brands like online a because I don't
know a lot about them. So it is hard to
(35:47):
identify fakes if you don't know a lot about it.
So that's why if you want to be a luxury girly,
you have to be a luxury girly. You got to
know what you're looking at. And so I would just
be too nervous to buy it because I would think
it would be a fake. Yeah, but when you have
(36:09):
things like the Real Real where they have on staff authenticators,
I would feel better about it. But I also just
don't value it enough to be that girly.
Speaker 4 (36:24):
I don't think I have ever purchased clothing secondhand online,
and it's not something that I would think I'm not
ever going.
Speaker 1 (36:34):
To do it.
Speaker 4 (36:35):
Just is I have such success getting clothing secondhand at
these in person sites that I'm just not the person
to do it online. And I have that barrier of
what if it doesn't fit it looks decent here, but
I really gotta try stuff on So that's a personal
barrier for me. But I do we Eric and I
(36:58):
get a lot of things secondhand online line like electronics.
We've gotten refurbished phones, computers, cables. He gets all of
his music equipment secondhand online. If you're a musician, you
probably know this already, but reverb dot com you can
sell your stuff. Also, eBay is the spot for all
that car parts, anything that a dishwasher parts. When something
(37:21):
needs a fix, but it's so expensive to go straight
to the manufacturer, you can usually find it on eBay.
People will part stuff out all the time.
Speaker 1 (37:30):
Well even Amazon Warehouse. Yeah, used like new, like I
just put a new page.
Speaker 4 (37:36):
Dig through Oh you mean online Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 (37:40):
Used like new, same product on the same page, save
with Amazon Warehouse. I put my phone my phone case,
I just put it in my cart is used like new. Yeah,
so that's another you know it's not you know, super used,
but it's also not probably super fantastic quality.
Speaker 4 (38:04):
Yeah. And I think big like big stuff is a
preventative thing for me, Like you could potentially get pre
owned furniture or larger items, but then you don't have
the benefit of not needing to pay shipping or have
minimal shipping costs. So that just is it really can
price you out of it making sense. So those big
(38:25):
things I will also just look for in person.
Speaker 1 (38:28):
Yeah, it's definitely a big things are a Facebook marketplace
thing because you're just going to get better quality because
anything that has to ship is either not going to
be it's going to be ike equality, or it's just
going to be you have to really love the product.
Speaker 4 (38:44):
Except for bigger things like we've gotten cars, our fees
and boats technically online. I mean we did eventually we
were able to see them, but we've driven a distance
for some of them. So yeah, some big stuff, no,
some big yes.
Speaker 1 (39:00):
Yeah, it is. I think that like sites like that
where they're local, it's a hybrid, right, you're shopping online
but you're buying in person. Yeah, so yeah, that's love that,
that's that. Thanks everyone so much for listening. We hope
that we at least help to encourage you to reduce
the amount that you buy new and even if you're
(39:23):
not a dig at the thrift store kind of person,
there is a way forward for you where you can
get the things that you want at a really reasonable
price and secondhand and we love that trifecta.
Speaker 4 (39:35):
Well. We also love are your reviews that so many
of you have left. There is a room for so
many more reviews. Please, please, please do leave us a
review like this one from Erica thirty one, who says fun, fun, fun,
Who knew financial advice could be so fun?
Speaker 1 (39:53):
Love the Bill of the week?
Speaker 3 (39:55):
Yes, she picked her favorite part.
Speaker 1 (39:57):
And there it is named it, and it's it's cryptic, right.
People who'd never listen are like Bill of the Week?
What they're going to listen to find out what the
Bill of the Week is. Leave a cryptic review and
we would love to hear, and we would love to
see it. You know more, Just leave an inside joke
like that we wouldn't even get honestly, you make it
(40:20):
up and we'll read it and we'll be confused and
we'll love it.
Speaker 4 (40:26):
We love being confused. Yes, well, thanks everyone for listening. Again,
please do leave us that review. We've got a goal
to get to one thousand reviews and beyond.
Speaker 1 (40:35):
It's an arbitrary goal, but by golly, we're working.
Speaker 3 (40:37):
Towards it so badly, and see you next time.
Speaker 1 (40:43):
Frugal Friends is produced by Eric Siriani. I buy a
lot of clothes online, yeah, because I don't love to
physically shop, and I do encounter every once in a
(41:07):
while the piece of clothing that doesn't fit. And so
some of these stores like thread up will let you
return for store credit, which is great for me.
Speaker 3 (41:22):
Oh that is great.
Speaker 4 (41:23):
Yeah, but well, and I didn't say this. Many many
areas anywhere I've ever lived, there are consignment type thrift
stores where you can take in season gently used clothing
and they'll pay you for it. So even if you
don't want the hassle of I don't want to have
(41:46):
to make my own thread up Poshmark account as a seller,
don't feel like doing that, then go into one of
these other spots. Chances are if it was being sold
on Poshmark or thread Up, you'd be able to get
some money for it at like my sister's closet or
any other kind of more locally owned consignment.
Speaker 1 (42:04):
Well, thread up, you don't sell it yourself. Threadup is
like you send it to them and they tell you like, oh,
we'll give you this much for it, and then you're done.
Poshmark mercari. Uh, those are the ones where you're like
keeping your own inventory and selling. If you're selling clothes,
you get a lot more money doing it that way.
Thread up will give you virtually nothing. It's really just
(42:25):
if you've got a lot of clothes and you don't
care because they have such a large inventory and now
they partner with Rent the Runway to resell their clothes
that are no longer in circulation.
Speaker 4 (42:40):
Okay, here's so you rent the Runway. This has always
been intriguing to me, Like there have been times where
I just find myself scrolling through Rent the Runway and
then I'm never what am I going to do with that?
Would there ever be a circumstance where you do rent
just some sort of beautiful dress, skirt, shirt, comp What
(43:00):
would be the reason?
Speaker 1 (43:01):
Well, like what I was saying with Newly, if you're
an if you're in media or an influencer, and you're
your outfit, your life, you are documented more frequently. That
is a that's really a way. Like if you're a
public speaker, and I would say just documentation or out
in the spotlight, like that's an that's a place where
(43:23):
maybe you would get more Like I know a bunch
of people for their author photos or for their headshots specifically,
will do rent the runway for those photos because you
want to have like hot, like very designer clothes like
in photos that are not street clothes.
Speaker 3 (43:40):
Would that be the circumstances in which you would do it?
Speaker 1 (43:44):
Possibly because I own very mostly a f leisure I'm
very casual clothing. But if I was going to take
a do a photo shoot that was higher end, then
I would want to take pictures in some thing that
just the structure of the clothing, like clothing that has structure,
(44:05):
And I don't own clothing like.
Speaker 3 (44:06):
That has structure.
Speaker 1 (44:08):
No, this is things that I really hard, No, like
I don't know, just like something that.
Speaker 3 (44:15):
Is visually like we're styled or something.
Speaker 1 (44:18):
Yeah, the things I see people go on TV shows
and you don't notice this unless like people have told you, right,
that are in media. But like the stuff people wear
on TV and in photo shoots, those things look good
on camera, but if you saw somebody walking down the
street in it, it'd be weird. Right, And so all
(44:41):
my clothes are street clothes. I don't own media clothes. Ye,
So if I had a reason to be be in media,
I might rent something that's more media appropriate, and I
don't think that's one hundred percent necessary, but I like
having it as an option. Yeah, so that would be it.
Speaker 4 (45:00):
Yeah, we just would show up in our Benny Hats
Frugal Friends podcast dot com slash Benny.
Speaker 1 (45:09):
Yeah, I would. I would, or I mean, it would
always be fun to be in something like Designer, right.
It just doesn't feel.
Speaker 3 (45:20):
Like me though. Yeah.
Speaker 4 (45:21):
If I got invited to some fancy gala, well obviously
someone would make me address.
Speaker 1 (45:30):
You've skipped a lot of You've skipped a lot of
steps on the ladder, like they close them the thrift store.
Speaker 3 (45:39):
Make me something, make me custom clothing.
Speaker 1 (45:43):
I think our friend Jen on a jet plane, Jen Ruise,
she's going to I think Thailand or Taiwan or somewhere
to get a custom wardrobe made. Like that's one of
her birthday gifts to herself.
Speaker 3 (45:58):
That's right.
Speaker 1 (45:59):
She did tell us about the custom wardrobe, and I
was like, based on your measurement, that could be you know,
you could be custom wardrobe girly, Like you don't have
to be high quality or luxury girly. You could be
custom girly.
Speaker 3 (46:12):
I like that.
Speaker 1 (46:14):
Yeah, I'm a flea sure gurly. I literally an at
fleisure all the time.
Speaker 3 (46:21):
I just like it stretchy, we like it comfy. Yeah,
I just I like elevated comfort. That's my style.
Speaker 1 (46:30):
Yeah that is you. I maybe I do need Rent
the one Runway because I have no elevation.
Speaker 4 (46:37):
I think something to be able to try. I don't
think like I think Rent the Runway is out of
our price point, but something to be able to try.
Do styles nos on you. And there's the subscription boxes too,
where they like send you clothing, but that's too that's.
Speaker 1 (46:57):
You don't have copy is doing. You can just get
one box that you quote unquote subscribe and then you cancel.
Speaker 4 (47:04):
I guess I still wouldn't even trust myself to know
does this work. I like our coloring. I just want
someone else.
Speaker 1 (47:14):
Do it for me.
Speaker 4 (47:15):
Black and yeah, neither one of us should be wearing black,
and we are both currently wearing black.
Speaker 3 (47:20):
Well that's because everything is packed away. This is like
what I rarely wear.
Speaker 4 (47:24):
But Eric and I are leaving tomorrow and I don't
want to I don't want to get dirty the things
that I'm gonna wear next week.
Speaker 3 (47:31):
Anyway.
Speaker 4 (47:31):
Anyways, I need someone else to dress me, and I
need it to not cost me.
Speaker 1 (47:36):
A lot of money, and it needs to be custom.
Speaker 3 (47:39):
And it needs to be comforting.
Speaker 1 (47:41):
So if we could make that happen, that'd be great
for Jill.
Speaker 3 (47:44):
Thank you bye,
Episode four twenty four, How to shop secondhand Online.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
Welcome to the Frugal Friends podcast, where you'll learn to
save money, embrace simplicity, and live a life here your
hosts Jen and Jill.
Speaker 1 (00:24):
Welcome to the Frugal Friends podcast. My name is Jen,
my name is Jill, and I am so stoked on
this episode because I am obsessed with shopping second hand
but only online. This is your baby. I hate thrifting, yard, sailing, estate, sailing,
all and all the things Jill loves like in her core.
(00:48):
I hate, but.
Speaker 3 (00:52):
And yet we do love each opping.
Speaker 1 (00:53):
We do.
Speaker 3 (00:54):
Don't get it twisted.
Speaker 1 (00:55):
I but I love and am passion about buying second
hand as much as possible. And so if you are
like me, then this is a gen episode. Jill has
a ton to say. I'm still here, But if you're
a gen then this is for you. But this episode
(01:15):
first is brought to you by trash. It's not so
bad when it's actually treasure, like your stale bread that
you don't want anymore, but I'll gladly make into creu
toons or that painting that's about to be thrown away.
But it's perfectly gaudy and you just need it for
your house, or the plant clippings on the ground at
home depot that you're definitely gonna propagate and turn into
(01:38):
larger plants.
Speaker 4 (01:39):
Trash. It's not always junk, and you can claim that
second hand treasure more easily with Benny. It's a free
browser extension that allows you to find clothing and accessories
on second hand sites and buy that thing instead of
the brand new thing. Frugal friendspodcast dot com slash Benny.
B E and I Frugal friendspodcast dot com slash Benny.
(02:03):
Jenn and I both have hats that say Benny on
them and they are great hats, and anytime people are like,
what's Benny, we just say Frugal Friends podcast dot com
slash Benny because we actually.
Speaker 1 (02:14):
Really love it. We will say it at the same time.
But you can't find gaudy paintings through Benny. It's clothes.
It's men and women's clothing that you can go like
to Lululemon and look at that have zip pull out,
pull over, and then Benny pops up and be like,
don't buy it new buys. Buy the exact same thing
(02:34):
and the exact size you want from like here, and
then It just shows you all the options on the
side and you're like, thank you, Benny, I will buy it.
Speaker 3 (02:45):
Brilliant.
Speaker 1 (02:45):
Yeah again, get and your laptop. They don't pay us
to say this, but if you sign up through Frugal
Friends podcast dot com slash b E n I, we
do get a dollar, so maybe they do pay us.
Speaker 3 (03:02):
This is what we're relying on for groceries.
Speaker 1 (03:05):
Next, how did Jen and Jill make money every time
you listen to us in the in our This episode
is brought to you by we make a little money,
just a little every time you listen to the ads
in our show. Bless you. Thank you for your support.
(03:27):
That actually that's how we ourselves.
Speaker 5 (03:31):
Not gonna lie.
Speaker 1 (03:32):
That is how we support ourselves. But we would rather
take money from from those companies than from you. So
thank you. We love you. We do it because we
love you. So if you want to buy more second
hand clothing products whatever, we and maybe you love to
(03:52):
buy a second hand in person, so we have a lot.
We have a lot for you. Episode four oh three
how to make the most of yards sales and then
episode three forty one Why you Shouldn't Sleep on estate sales.
So those are two favorite ways. We'll definitely need to
get in a thrift store episode soon, so that's like
our next second hand episode, but I had to I
(04:17):
had to fit in the online one before we put
in thrift stores. Uh so this is this is our
online and we're covering everything, not just close. But our
first headline is and it's our primary headline. It's from CNN,
and it's how to secondhand shop online according to experts.
(04:40):
We love experts, right, they didn't. They didn't consult us though,
so I love this. So this They start off with
a Instagram post from thread up, which we will talk
about later. But it's kind of like a scale like
annual car been savings on how to reduce your fashion footprint.
(05:05):
And so if you were to buy, the biggest impact
you can have is buying half of your clothes secondhand,
not even all of them. Just buy half of your
clothes secondhand. You can save six hundred and fifty six
pounds of carbon emissions following by reselling or donated unwanted clothes.
(05:31):
And then next one is not returning online purchases, which
I'm not about but and then the next one is
air drying clothes. But it is a it's like a
small portion versus just buying half of your clothes secondhand.
The following ones are mending one garment each season, washing
(05:52):
clothes on cold, and choosing standard shipping. But those are
all like super small. By the way you consume products
is going to make a much larger environmental impact than
what you do with them after you consume them. Just
keep that in mind. The consumption is always going to
(06:13):
make a bigger impact than how you dispose or get
rid of or whatever. Manage your consumption.
Speaker 3 (06:23):
Mmmm, that's a really helpful takeaway. Wow.
Speaker 4 (06:28):
Okay, So the first thing to be aware of when
we're shopping secondhand online is making sure that the photos
you're looking at are of the actual items that you're buying.
And this might sound really silly, like why wouldn't it be,
but there are plenty of people who will try to
resell preused, pre owned items using the pictures from the
(06:51):
website when they are brand new. Like I talk a
lot with furniture. Yeah, like here's the bed how it
looks in the stock phote, But it's like, but what
does it look like actually the one I'm going to
get from you? So making sure that what you're looking
at is the actual thing, and that that can be
pretty obvious whether or not it's a stock photo. And
(07:12):
if there's only stock photos, then that should be a
red flag to you. Yeah, should be obvious that this
is the person's item being they're taking pictures in their home.
Still nice pictures, but not the stock photos.
Speaker 3 (07:27):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (07:28):
And another thing that some people will try to do
is use other people's photos of their resale items. So
something you can do is so one of the experts
in this is Emily Stokel who's one of our Internet friends.
She hosts the pre Loved podcast. If you are into
vintage fashion amazing podcast pre Loved podcast, and so she says,
(07:52):
don't hesitate to ask for additional photos of something, whether
it's poshmark eBay, you can always ask for an additional photo.
But I think even easier would just be to Google
image search the image in question. If you're not one
hundred percent sure if that is the actual photo of
the thing, drag it to Google and you can see
if there is another identical photo from somebody else's eBay
(08:19):
or poshmark post. Now, knowing that sellers will cross post,
so if you see the exact same one, on a
different platform. Just check to make sure if it's a
similar seller name, because that's usually the tell that it's
it is the same item, just on a different platform.
But you can also save money by doing doing that.
Sometimes people will post things more expensive on poshmark than
(08:41):
they will eBay, but it's the same seller, same item.
But yeah, you can see if the seller is using
somebody else's totally different seller name that's already been sold,
you know, a year ago or something. So next is
start with what you know. So it can be overwhelming
(09:03):
to buy secondhand online.
Speaker 3 (09:04):
It's much.
Speaker 1 (09:06):
You know, there's usually not free returns, or you know
you do have to pay for shipping both ways, and
it can be a little overwhelming. So start with brands
you're familiar with. Start with items you're familiar with. And
I would say I have gone into stores like Anieman,
(09:28):
Marcus or high end stores to try on items and
brands so that I know my size in each of
the brands. Because when I'm buying secondhand, I'm not just
buying cheap stuff. I'm buying high quality because I can
because I'm buying secondhand, so I want it to like
if I'm buying a secondhand fast fashion. Well, that thing
(09:50):
was on its way out of you know, your home
before it even got to your home, right like with
all the people that have tried it on and stuff,
So when it gets to your home, it hasn't even
shorter life band. So when we're buying secondhand, we still
want to buy sustainable fabrics and well made garments. So
definitely familiarize yourself with the nice stuff. You might think, Oh,
(10:15):
I'm not like a good American girl or a mother
Jeans or like all these brands you probably may not
have even heard of, like the nice fancy brands. Become
that girl. You are that girl now I have just
dubbed you that girl. So become familiar with your sizing
and stuff with well made quality products so that you
(10:38):
can start knowing your sizes and fits. And then also
don't be afraid to get it tailored either. We'll talk
about that a little later, but just because it's not
perfect in the store, you can still buy it secondhand
and then get it tailored.
Speaker 4 (10:54):
I think that's one of the benefits of something like
Benny is you can look up these different brands that
you know and love or you've heard great things about
and it'll automatically feed you the secondhand sites that have them.
So yeah, starting with what you know, I think is
perfect because really, especially with pants and anything, really every
(11:20):
brand is going to have different types of sizing, so
that's going to make it really hard to find something
that then gets shipped to your door and you've got
to ven try on. So whether you've been to the
store in person and you know what works on you
and then you can look for it secondhand or this
next one is important is paying attention to measurements and specifications.
(11:42):
So along the lines of every retailer kind of having
different types of sizing, oftentimes you'll actually be able to
get down to the minutia of the measurements rather than
just saying, oh, a size six, a size eight. Instead
we can look at what's the end seam, what's the pantle,
what's the waste on this dress, and you can take
(12:05):
your own measurements. I mean, simple YouTube search on how
to take your own measurements would be really really helpful
when buying clothing online to actually know that it's going
to fit you. And this is particularly important because the
one and I'll say probably only downside of buying secondhand
is you can't return it, So really being sure that
(12:28):
this is what you want. You're pretty positive it's going
to fit you, or you have a solution for if
it doesn't fit you someone you'll give it to a
plan to resell it if you're fine donating it and
calling it a wash. But these are the things you're
going to really need to know about. Is the brand themselves,
your own measurements to be sure that what you're buying
you're going to stick with.
Speaker 1 (12:50):
Yeah, and don't be afraid again to go a little
bit higher in your measurements so that you can get
it tailored, so if you already know. For me, like,
it's hard to find genes, that's my biggest thing because
I have a very pear shaped body type and genes
(13:10):
do just just do not like a big booty and
a small waist, like they just don't. And so it
is hard for me to find genes even in nice brands.
And in my head, I don't want to go up besides,
because that number is a block for me, Like it's
such a mental thing, right, Like what the solution might
(13:34):
just be going up a size, right, and I can
always tailor it tighter, but it's a lot harder to
let out. There's only so much fabric that you can
let out. So be you know, if you're with me,
if you're a gen, let's get over the mental block
together and go up in size if we need to.
(13:58):
So next is to keep a thrift list. And we
always talk about this, whether it's online or in person.
We look at the things we need in our home.
So right now, for me, that is art, that's wall art.
I am so so bad at decorating, but there are
(14:19):
some now open walls where I want to put some things.
So that is like, that's on my list, barstools, rugs,
and then I'll just go and instead of browsing, I
try to keep myself from browsing just willy nilly, but
I'll just do those specific searches and I'll look every
(14:42):
couple days to see what's out there. But that is
my actual thrift list right now. It's no clothes, just
home things.
Speaker 4 (14:52):
I'm looking at my thrift list as well. I keep it, yeah,
just on my phone, and I'm looking for a console
table and I have them measurements of the table written
in here too, so that if I am out and
I see something, I can get the measurements and know
whether or not it's going to fit the space.
Speaker 3 (15:09):
So pro tip for you.
Speaker 4 (15:11):
There, black boots and a slotted spoon. These are my
current thrift loveeah and they've been on there for a
long time. Like okay without them, Yep, you have to
be fine.
Speaker 1 (15:24):
Yeah, it's something where you have to have the patience.
I have needed those bar those barstools. It's hard. You
had a hard time finding barstools because I don't want
to settle.
Speaker 3 (15:37):
Well, and they're so expensive.
Speaker 1 (15:39):
So expensive and so ugly.
Speaker 4 (15:41):
So many are three hundred dollars, so oddly, and it's
also not worth that to me, right, So if you
come across good barstools, just just get them.
Speaker 3 (15:52):
Someday you'll need them.
Speaker 1 (15:53):
Yeah, Okay.
Speaker 4 (15:56):
The next is to read reviews and do your research.
We all know that this is what we're already talking about.
First of all, on the brand that you're looking at,
make sure that you know what kind of quality it
is and how durable and sustainable it is. But also
you can do your research on the seller. What type
(16:16):
of reviews do they have, what are people saying about
how they handle exchanges, and that can really help to
guard the experience keep it a good experience and not
be just super bummed.
Speaker 1 (16:32):
The next one is don't expect perfection, And I think
this one is very important to highlight. We have gotten
really used to perfect reels, perfect pictures, this social media
idea of perfection. All these influencers are getting sent all
(16:54):
these free products, right, and they're making up parts of
their house to be to look really good for social media.
It's their job. But it's not your job to have
a picture perfect home or a picture perfect closet or
new clothes for every season. So it's the same in
(17:15):
our thrifting, right, Like when you get something, you'll want
to make sure you'll you'll appreciate that if the seller
points out if there are any imperfections in the in
the product, right, and hopefully we can usually nine times
out of ten you get an almost new product. But
(17:37):
we gotta we have to embrace imperfections right in our sofas,
in our rugs, in our clothes, Like we have to
embrace imperfection because a big barrier to buying second hand
are those imperfections. We want to buy it shiny, brand new.
(17:58):
But if we just get over that at like then
then we can like really have the things that we
want for half of the price. So and this is
also a red flag in listings like specifically luxury, so
we don't really buy luxury products. We do buy well made,
(18:22):
quality brands, but we don't buy brand names. But a
lot of people will post fakes. So if it looks
too good to be true, it is too good to
be true. So that's why we'd like, I would be
very hesitant to purchase like any luxury items from an
(18:43):
eBay or a poshmark or Willy Nilly. I would stay
specifically to second hand reing sailors that are just luxury,
that have that put every product through a vetting process.
But that's that's not me. If you love luxury, then
you'll pay a premium for that of course over eBay,
(19:05):
but you'll be sure you're getting your money's worth. It's
it's worth it. But even even still in there, if
you want to be luxury girl, I'm gonna tell you
you can be luxury girl. Now, I'm gonna I'm gonna
tell you. I'm gonna give you that permission today. If
you want to be luxury girl, you can be luxury girl.
And uh, it is worth is worth your time to
(19:28):
d money to a buy from places that vet their
luxury products and not expect perfection. Be okay, with a
little imperfection.
Speaker 4 (19:38):
You can have champagne tastes on a PBR budget. It
is possible you can get the second hand. They also
are referencing the fact that most of the secondhand shopping
platforms will have some sort of customer support and protection
in the event that the ad was misleading or you
(19:59):
end up receiving defective product or of other issues that
weren't disclosed in the listing, So keep that in mind.
Also know that you can always resell some of these
pieces too. I think one of the benefits is there's
not a ton loss because they are a fraction of
the price, not saying oh, money's throwaway, but it's not
(20:21):
as if you're buying brand new with a zero return policy.
Speaker 1 (20:25):
Yeah, and especially if you spend the extra money to
make sure you're getting verified luxury items, then it's going
to be easier to resell because you can have the
receipts from that verification.
Speaker 6 (20:36):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (20:37):
Okay. The final thing here is to be aware of greenwashing.
So right now there are so many big businesses doing this.
Giants like H and M and Lululemon are apparently some
of the worst in this space of really trying to
make it seem as though they are offering sustainable, eco
(21:00):
friendly options, kind of this circularity that just in reality
is not true. They're citing that there are some second
hand components or reusing components to their business model, but
it is not equating to cutting production whatsoever.
Speaker 1 (21:21):
So this is something to be aware of happening. Yeah,
they're just they're adding it up, producing more every year,
year over year.
Speaker 4 (21:28):
So there are of course then a lot of these
companies who even on their site you can buy secondhand,
and that's something to be aware of. I think we
would recommend that you go to more of these peer
to peer sites like the thread of the Poshmark others
that we're going to be mentioning, rather than being misled
by large companies saying that you're buying secondhand from them.
(21:52):
It's not actually helping the situation. It's just a marketing point.
Speaker 3 (21:56):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (21:57):
I will say that maybe one uh company that that
does have a good resales package, Yeah, yeah, say, but
they're probably the only ones. So Emily points out the
twenty twenty two remake Fashion Accountability Report, so remake, they're
(22:17):
on social media as well, on the on the internet,
but they have a Fashion Accountability Report where they every
year they will research and interview uh like maybe fifty
companies to see what their year over year sustainability. And
these are specifically companies that have reported want like they
(22:41):
use sustainability in their marketing, they have put forward plans
to become more sustainable. So it's really just holding accountable
these companies that are marketing to people who want to
stay eco conscious. So and they're they're finding again not
a single brand demonstrated that it's resale initiatives meant to
(23:03):
slow down in new production. So this grainwashing is super
evident in a lot of spaces, but especially clothing. And
I think that clothing is just something that we buy
much more frequently than rugs and sofas and all of
these things. So it's a lot and usually when we
(23:23):
buy it, we buy it quickly, we buy it impulsively.
So if we can again just cut our clothing consumption
just half of it to secondhand, we can still buy
brand new underwear, brand new socks, brand new bathing suits.
Like we're not saying go extreme, just half of your
(23:47):
stuff to be secondhand, Like go in your closet and
kind of take a read on what did I buy
secondhand and what did I buy new?
Speaker 4 (23:56):
Okay, I want to do a quick rundown of the
best online thing rift stores that you can be keeping
in mind when you do now go and try to
buy secondhand. So this list comes from readers Digest. It's
twelve best online thrift stores for every style and budget.
And I like the categories that they put out there,
so I'll do the first sex you can do the
last six. The best for wish list items they list
(24:20):
as poshmark. You've heard us talk about them already. They
say best for gen Z must be the types of
clothing that they have on there. For gen Z style
is d Pop Dpop. Best for anything and everything is eBay.
I will second that. So we've talked a lot about clothing.
But eBay is excellent for electronics.
Speaker 3 (24:44):
Car parts, vintage, yes.
Speaker 4 (24:48):
Kitchen items, you name it, and clothing if you're looking
for anything eBay. Best for women and kids is thread Up.
Best for handmaid and vintage is Etsy. Best affordable options
is Swap.
Speaker 1 (25:04):
Yeah, SWAP's been around for a while. I've never used it,
but it does. I would love to hear from somebody
who has, because I've always looked at it and uh yeah,
it's uh it's not as big as the other ones.
I don't I don't know if it would be my
first go to. I would definitely use the Poshmark, even
(25:26):
the d Pop. The eBay. Thread Up is life like
we and so thread up has so much stuff and
Poshmark has so much stuff and that's why we use Benny.
Frugal Friends podcast dot com slash Benny. You're gonna think
that this whole episode is an ad for it, but
I yeah, I can just go to the Old Navy,
(25:50):
for instance, and look at the shirt and then Benny
will pop up on the side and it will show
all the similar or identical listings on Poshmark, threat.
Speaker 4 (26:00):
Up, eBay, probably d Pop, like yeah, if it's on
the internet, it'll show up.
Speaker 1 (26:06):
And then another so another one that's similar since we
already went through the vintage one. Another similar site to
Benny is gem g e M and that is kind
of like Benny for vintage so much much more of
the fashion side, maybe more of the luxury side. Uh So,
(26:27):
I I've like I've collaborated with them and they're great,
So using gem for vintage stuff or if you're more
like into fashion and you can't find what you want
through Benny. But so, best for authenticated luxury is the
real real uh. Best for men is men's wear market.
(26:48):
Best for luxury accessories is fashion file. That's fashion p
h I L E. The best user experience is Newly three.
So I don't know if you've heard of Newly n
U U L Y well, actually, okay, Newly Thrift is closed,
(27:09):
but I will say that Newly is like a I
think it's it's kind of like a a rent the
runway sort of thing. It's subscription clothing rental, so if
that's also something if you're look a lot of influencers
will would do this, So I don't know if what
other or or speakers. People that take a lot of
(27:32):
pictures of themselves or video have have their lives documented
quite frequently, and for some reason want to have different clothes,
a lot of different clothes. So these subs, these clothing
rental options could be good versus the buying, donating, buying, reselling.
(27:52):
It's not our favorite option. I don't think you should
feel like you need to have a different outfit in
every picture or every speaking, you know, gig whatever. But
if that's where you are and that's what you want,
the rental things are good.
Speaker 4 (28:07):
I'm just realizing they have a maternity section. And for
that reason I could understand renting, because who knows depending
on how many kids you have, but you usually don't
need you quickly grow out of the clothes, you don't
need them potentially ever again, And so I could understand
for that reason.
Speaker 1 (28:25):
Maternity absolutely, because also you feel so gross when you're pregnant,
and if you're going to have beautiful clothing to make
you feel beautiful, rent it, rent it. So so that
best for designer handbags rebag. And then this one I love,
best for high end brands is the Stare Collective. I
(28:49):
don't know if I'm saying that right. V E S
T I A R E. I love this site. I've
never bought anything from the Stair, but I do. I
do love looking at it because it is just like
high end. I am not the high end girly. This
is so like if you're if if you've accepted the
(29:11):
permission to become luxury girl, the real real fashion file.
Rebag vestare these are going to be your faves.
Speaker 5 (29:21):
Uh.
Speaker 1 (29:21):
If you've said no, I'm just high quality girl, I'm not.
I'm not luxury girl. Uh Poshmark Deep Pop thread Up.
These are Etsy if you're vintage girl, Etsy using gem Yeah.
So these are these are your your sites for whatever
(29:42):
girl you want to be or man, whatever man or
woman you want to be. These are the sites for you.
Do you know what else is? For me? Always? And
this is for everyone, whether you're a luxury girl or
you're just a high quality girl.
Speaker 4 (30:01):
The bill of the week.
Speaker 5 (30:13):
That's right, it's time for the best minute of your
entire week. Maybe a baby was born and his name
is Williams. Maybe you paid off your mortgage. Maybe your
car died and you're happy to not have to pay
that bill anymore. Duff bills, Buffalo bills, Bill clion. This
is the bill of the week.
Speaker 6 (30:33):
Hi, this is Jill in Virginia. My bill of the
week is my composting bill. I am just so thrilled
to be part of this composting service, which is run
by kind of an industrial level composting company that provides
service for the whole area, including my condo, neighborhood. Period
(30:55):
as someone who lives in a den's urban airheah, I
can't guard on myself. However, it feels really good to
be composting my food scraps. And because it's an industrial service,
I can also compost meat waste and napkins and things
like that. I also save money because I share the
(31:19):
service with two of my neighbors, so I pay six
dollars a month for a huge reduction in my trash
and not having to deal with food scraps in the
trash either. Now I put out one small bag a
week of trash and the rest is compost and recycling.
(31:39):
The compost company comes and picks up the plastic container
of compost once a week. It's absolutely delightful and worth
every penny.
Speaker 1 (31:50):
Oh my gosh, fantastic jol. That is money well spent,
because yes, even if you can't guard it. And this
was my big hang up to not composting. It's like,
I don't garden, and even after that episode with Nicole
from Garden Area, it's just not It's just not the
right time for me yet, So I'm like, why would
I compost? But it's so good for the environment, it's
(32:14):
good for the smell of your home. Honestly, like it
keeps uh food waste out of the bin and it's
the food scraps. Yes, they can decompose, but it's so
compact in like landfills that they don't compose or it
takes much decomposed and they or it takes much longer.
(32:35):
And so if you can, if you can compost it
at your home, you're giving that food a chance to
do what it naturally was meant to do. And it's
just it's just good for the environment.
Speaker 4 (32:49):
This is so great. I love that your city has
an option for people who don't have a garden. And
it sounds like even though you're paying for this service,
it's still reducing your just overall waste and the amount
that you're paying for garbage. So win, win, win across
the board. Thank you Jill for sharing your bill. If
you all listening have a bill that you want to submit,
(33:11):
if it's about reducing waste or buying second hand or
just living life in the world as a bill for
friendspodcast dot com slash bill, leave it for us. We
can't wait, and now it's time for the light being around.
Speaker 1 (33:32):
All right, So what types of second hand items? Oh,
I'm gonna I'm gonna amend it slightly. What kind of
secondhand items do you typically purchase online? And then what
would you never Yeah, I'm adding it, Okay, so online,
I am including Facebook Marketplace in this. I think it's uh.
(33:55):
Facebook Marketplace was not in the list that we gave,
but I'm going to include it. So I will. I
will buy almost anything, so our couch, our, the bunk bed,
(34:16):
our mattress, rugs, because rugs are obscenely overpriced and they're
all ugly. All rugs are ugly. It's just finding the
least ugly rug is the is, the mission, lamps, tables,
clothes I will buy. I there's very little that I
(34:42):
wouldn't buy secondhand online. But what I wouldn't I think
I think my three might like trifecta of like my
brand new trifecta. Well, there's four things I don't buy underwear, socks,
(35:03):
bathing suits, or running shoes secondhand.
Speaker 4 (35:09):
Right, I mean, I think that's just like across the yard.
But I'm trying to think of would you not buy
anything specifically because it's online secondhand? Would you be then
open to buying it in person secondhand? Well?
Speaker 1 (35:21):
Facebook Marketplace is kind of like that hybrid, right, You're like, look,
you're buying it online, but you get to see it
before you actually hand over the money. So that's like
what I really prefer. Gosh, So I know, I personally
wouldn't buy luxury brands like online a because I don't
know a lot about them. So it is hard to
(35:47):
identify fakes if you don't know a lot about it.
So that's why if you want to be a luxury girly,
you have to be a luxury girly. You got to
know what you're looking at. And so I would just
be too nervous to buy it because I would think
it would be a fake. Yeah, but when you have
(36:09):
things like the Real Real where they have on staff authenticators,
I would feel better about it. But I also just
don't value it enough to be that girly.
Speaker 4 (36:24):
I don't think I have ever purchased clothing secondhand online,
and it's not something that I would think I'm not
ever going.
Speaker 1 (36:34):
To do it.
Speaker 4 (36:35):
Just is I have such success getting clothing secondhand at
these in person sites that I'm just not the person
to do it online. And I have that barrier of
what if it doesn't fit it looks decent here, but
I really gotta try stuff on So that's a personal
barrier for me. But I do we Eric and I
(36:58):
get a lot of things secondhand online line like electronics.
We've gotten refurbished phones, computers, cables. He gets all of
his music equipment secondhand online. If you're a musician, you
probably know this already, but reverb dot com you can
sell your stuff. Also, eBay is the spot for all
that car parts, anything that a dishwasher parts. When something
(37:21):
needs a fix, but it's so expensive to go straight
to the manufacturer, you can usually find it on eBay.
People will part stuff out all the time.
Speaker 1 (37:30):
Well even Amazon Warehouse. Yeah, used like new, like I
just put a new page.
Speaker 4 (37:36):
Dig through Oh you mean online Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 (37:40):
Used like new, same product on the same page, save
with Amazon Warehouse. I put my phone my phone case,
I just put it in my cart is used like new. Yeah,
so that's another you know it's not you know, super used,
but it's also not probably super fantastic quality.
Speaker 4 (38:04):
Yeah. And I think big like big stuff is a
preventative thing for me, Like you could potentially get pre
owned furniture or larger items, but then you don't have
the benefit of not needing to pay shipping or have
minimal shipping costs. So that just is it really can
price you out of it making sense. So those big
(38:25):
things I will also just look for in person.
Speaker 1 (38:28):
Yeah, it's definitely a big things are a Facebook marketplace
thing because you're just going to get better quality because
anything that has to ship is either not going to
be it's going to be ike equality, or it's just
going to be you have to really love the product.
Speaker 4 (38:44):
Except for bigger things like we've gotten cars, our fees
and boats technically online. I mean we did eventually we
were able to see them, but we've driven a distance
for some of them. So yeah, some big stuff, no,
some big yes.
Speaker 1 (39:00):
Yeah, it is. I think that like sites like that
where they're local, it's a hybrid, right, you're shopping online
but you're buying in person. Yeah, so yeah, that's love that,
that's that. Thanks everyone so much for listening. We hope
that we at least help to encourage you to reduce
the amount that you buy new and even if you're
(39:23):
not a dig at the thrift store kind of person,
there is a way forward for you where you can
get the things that you want at a really reasonable
price and secondhand and we love that trifecta.
Speaker 4 (39:35):
Well. We also love are your reviews that so many
of you have left. There is a room for so
many more reviews. Please, please, please do leave us a
review like this one from Erica thirty one, who says fun, fun, fun,
Who knew financial advice could be so fun?
Speaker 1 (39:53):
Love the Bill of the week?
Speaker 3 (39:55):
Yes, she picked her favorite part.
Speaker 1 (39:57):
And there it is named it, and it's it's cryptic, right.
People who'd never listen are like Bill of the Week?
What they're going to listen to find out what the
Bill of the Week is. Leave a cryptic review and
we would love to hear, and we would love to
see it. You know more, Just leave an inside joke
like that we wouldn't even get honestly, you make it
(40:20):
up and we'll read it and we'll be confused and
we'll love it.
Speaker 4 (40:26):
We love being confused. Yes, well, thanks everyone for listening. Again,
please do leave us that review. We've got a goal
to get to one thousand reviews and beyond.
Speaker 1 (40:35):
It's an arbitrary goal, but by golly, we're working.
Speaker 3 (40:37):
Towards it so badly, and see you next time.
Speaker 1 (40:43):
Frugal Friends is produced by Eric Siriani. I buy a
lot of clothes online, yeah, because I don't love to
physically shop, and I do encounter every once in a
(41:07):
while the piece of clothing that doesn't fit. And so
some of these stores like thread up will let you
return for store credit, which is great for me.
Speaker 3 (41:22):
Oh that is great.
Speaker 4 (41:23):
Yeah, but well, and I didn't say this. Many many
areas anywhere I've ever lived, there are consignment type thrift
stores where you can take in season gently used clothing
and they'll pay you for it. So even if you
don't want the hassle of I don't want to have
(41:46):
to make my own thread up Poshmark account as a seller,
don't feel like doing that, then go into one of
these other spots. Chances are if it was being sold
on Poshmark or thread Up, you'd be able to get
some money for it at like my sister's closet or
any other kind of more locally owned consignment.
Speaker 1 (42:04):
Well, thread up, you don't sell it yourself. Threadup is
like you send it to them and they tell you like, oh,
we'll give you this much for it, and then you're done.
Poshmark mercari. Uh, those are the ones where you're like
keeping your own inventory and selling. If you're selling clothes,
you get a lot more money doing it that way.
Thread up will give you virtually nothing. It's really just
(42:25):
if you've got a lot of clothes and you don't
care because they have such a large inventory and now
they partner with Rent the Runway to resell their clothes
that are no longer in circulation.
Speaker 4 (42:40):
Okay, here's so you rent the Runway. This has always
been intriguing to me, Like there have been times where
I just find myself scrolling through Rent the Runway and
then I'm never what am I going to do with that?
Would there ever be a circumstance where you do rent
just some sort of beautiful dress, skirt, shirt, comp What
(43:00):
would be the reason?
Speaker 1 (43:01):
Well, like what I was saying with Newly, if you're
an if you're in media or an influencer, and you're
your outfit, your life, you are documented more frequently. That
is a that's really a way. Like if you're a
public speaker, and I would say just documentation or out
in the spotlight, like that's an that's a place where
(43:23):
maybe you would get more Like I know a bunch
of people for their author photos or for their headshots specifically,
will do rent the runway for those photos because you
want to have like hot, like very designer clothes like
in photos that are not street clothes.
Speaker 3 (43:40):
Would that be the circumstances in which you would do it?
Speaker 1 (43:44):
Possibly because I own very mostly a f leisure I'm
very casual clothing. But if I was going to take
a do a photo shoot that was higher end, then
I would want to take pictures in some thing that
just the structure of the clothing, like clothing that has structure,
(44:05):
And I don't own clothing like.
Speaker 3 (44:06):
That has structure.
Speaker 1 (44:08):
No, this is things that I really hard, No, like
I don't know, just like something that.
Speaker 3 (44:15):
Is visually like we're styled or something.
Speaker 1 (44:18):
Yeah, the things I see people go on TV shows
and you don't notice this unless like people have told you, right,
that are in media. But like the stuff people wear
on TV and in photo shoots, those things look good
on camera, but if you saw somebody walking down the
street in it, it'd be weird. Right, And so all
(44:41):
my clothes are street clothes. I don't own media clothes. Ye,
So if I had a reason to be be in media,
I might rent something that's more media appropriate, and I
don't think that's one hundred percent necessary, but I like
having it as an option. Yeah, so that would be it.
Speaker 4 (45:00):
Yeah, we just would show up in our Benny Hats
Frugal Friends podcast dot com slash Benny.
Speaker 1 (45:09):
Yeah, I would. I would, or I mean, it would
always be fun to be in something like Designer, right.
It just doesn't feel.
Speaker 3 (45:20):
Like me though. Yeah.
Speaker 4 (45:21):
If I got invited to some fancy gala, well obviously
someone would make me address.
Speaker 1 (45:30):
You've skipped a lot of You've skipped a lot of
steps on the ladder, like they close them the thrift store.
Speaker 3 (45:39):
Make me something, make me custom clothing.
Speaker 1 (45:43):
I think our friend Jen on a jet plane, Jen Ruise,
she's going to I think Thailand or Taiwan or somewhere
to get a custom wardrobe made. Like that's one of
her birthday gifts to herself.
Speaker 3 (45:58):
That's right.
Speaker 1 (45:59):
She did tell us about the custom wardrobe, and I
was like, based on your measurement, that could be you know,
you could be custom wardrobe girly, Like you don't have
to be high quality or luxury girly. You could be
custom girly.
Speaker 3 (46:12):
I like that.
Speaker 1 (46:14):
Yeah, I'm a flea sure gurly. I literally an at
fleisure all the time.
Speaker 3 (46:21):
I just like it stretchy, we like it comfy. Yeah,
I just I like elevated comfort. That's my style.
Speaker 1 (46:30):
Yeah that is you. I maybe I do need Rent
the one Runway because I have no elevation.
Speaker 4 (46:37):
I think something to be able to try. I don't
think like I think Rent the Runway is out of
our price point, but something to be able to try.
Do styles nos on you. And there's the subscription boxes too,
where they like send you clothing, but that's too that's.
Speaker 1 (46:57):
You don't have copy is doing. You can just get
one box that you quote unquote subscribe and then you cancel.
Speaker 4 (47:04):
I guess I still wouldn't even trust myself to know
does this work. I like our coloring. I just want
someone else.
Speaker 1 (47:14):
Do it for me.
Speaker 4 (47:15):
Black and yeah, neither one of us should be wearing black,
and we are both currently wearing black.
Speaker 3 (47:20):
Well that's because everything is packed away. This is like
what I rarely wear.
Speaker 4 (47:24):
But Eric and I are leaving tomorrow and I don't
want to I don't want to get dirty the things
that I'm gonna wear next week.
Speaker 3 (47:31):
Anyway.
Speaker 4 (47:31):
Anyways, I need someone else to dress me, and I
need it to not cost me.
Speaker 1 (47:36):
A lot of money, and it needs to be custom.
Speaker 3 (47:39):
And it needs to be comforting.
Speaker 1 (47:41):
So if we could make that happen, that'd be great
for Jill.
Speaker 3 (47:44):
Thank you bye,
Popular Podcasts
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.
Therapy Gecko
An unlicensed lizard psychologist travels the universe talking to strangers about absolutely nothing. TO CALL THE GECKO: follow me on https://www.twitch.tv/lyleforever to get a notification for when I am taking calls. I am usually live Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays but lately a lot of other times too. I am a gecko.
The Joe Rogan Experience
The official podcast of comedian Joe Rogan.