Shop for free at a swap meet!
Yesterday, I went to my very first swap meet. My good friend Michelle’s housemate organizes it every year. The idea is that you bring whatever clothing, shoes, bags, accessories and stuff you don’t want, and so does everyone else. Then, you get to go “shopping” for free. Whatever is left over at the end is donated to charity. This year, the organizer chose a battered women’s shelter.
The idea of a swap meet struck my fancy for a number of reasons. To begin with, it was SUCH a fun afternoon. I met a lot of really neat women, and hanging out in a backyard having snacks and beers is ALWAYS a good time. But I also liked that really, it’s a form of recycling. One man’s (or in this case, woman’s) trash is another’s treasure, right? Some of this stuff might otherwise have ended up in a landfill. Also, the charity the organizer chose was really thoughtful. Sometimes it’s so easy to just drop stuff off at Value Village, but that’s a for-profit store that doesn’t reinvest its profits into the community or help people in need. I like feeling that my actions, small though they may be, are in some way a benefit to someone else.
<3 is a free Coach purse
By the end of the swap meet, I’d had beer and snacks with really cool women, sampled some delicious local pizza from a shop in The Junction, and scored a red leather Coach bag, some funky silver jewellery, two brand-new dresses, a pair of blue Coach sandals and some fuzzy raver headphones for my daughter.
It was my funnest shopping trip in months.
