Nifty Thrifty

Many months ago, when I was newly pregnant, James and I went to the local thrift store (St. Vincent DePaul) looking for something to use as a microwave stand. We found a fabulous little cupboard that nicely supplements the limited storage space in our kitchen. Best of all, for only $15, we were finally able to take the microwave off the fridge and put it at a much handier level. While we were at good old St. Vinny's, I noticed that they had a wide selection of chairs, including some rocking chairs that looked promising for new parents on a budget. But, I wasn't buying baby stuff yet, so I made a mental note and went home with my cupboard.



Eventually, the time came to start thinking about new furniture, and we stopped by St. Vincent's again to scope out the chairs. No luck. There were only a few extremely rickety rocking chairs that just wouldn't work. Even though they only cost $25-40, I just couldn't bring myself to commit to one of them. Never fear, thrift store inventories are always changing. We went back, several times; it's on the way to a lot of things. And while we did find several great games for $2 or less (Uno and Battleship are among the latest acquisitions), we never found a chair we were excited about.

I started to worry that we wouldn't find anything before the baby makes her appearance. I have been diligently searching Craig's list as well, but there are no rocking chairs and gliders usually run about $100 (more than I wanted to spend). What's more, even gliders are few and far between. I began to think we would need to bite the bullet and pay retail (which we basically don't do for furniture, cheapskates that we are). And I really wasn't looking forward to buying a brand new rocker at this already expensive time in our lives.

Then, today, we had a little time and stopped by St. Vincent's on our way to the grocery store. I figured my baby luck was spent for the day, as I'd already picked up a free Boppy, a bunch of clothes, some books and a sling from a generous friend this morning. But no! While it looked hopeless at first glance, no rocking chairs at all, we found a promising glider tucked away at the end of the last row. It was buried underneath its ottoman and another item, but the price tag said $18. Now that's worth at least sitting in to try it out! Though, at $18, there must be something wrong with it. Nope, perfection. In fact, it worked better than the $34 glider down the row that didn't even have an ottoman. Okay, it didn't look quite as nice as the more expensive one, but I want to rock my baby in it, not look at it. And the ottoman had an $18 price tag too, so it might have turned out to be a little more in the end. But I could handle $36! And I don't think it looks half bad....

James went to get the salesman and put it on hold so we could find a truck and come back. It turns out the ottoman was included in the price of the chair. But, that's not even the best part. They were having a buy-one-get-one sale on chairs. So we got to pick out another! And we found this gem, which even matches the couches we didn't pay for:
James has already taken a liking to the free chair. Notice, he's also modeling the new Teevas he got this week, because his old ones disappeared. They were a bargain too, but not as cheap as the chairs! Two chairs, for less than $20. I just had to share the joy!