The Salvation Army

This Salvation Army is great. I always come here to raid the shelves. It’s a bit different than thrift-​store shopping in the Bay Area, because people wear higher end labels there, but there’s a lot of interesting stuff in this Chittenango store.
First off, this store is huge and easy to navigate. It’s laid out in a way that’s easy to get around, and usually isn’t crowded. There are three changing rooms, so there’s often a wait but never too long.
The clothing really varies in quality. There’s a lot of older, oversized stuff, but there’s also a lot of teenage-​appropriate clothing, like AE, Aerie, Abercrombie, Old Navy, GAP. I had more luck here with clothes when I was younger and wore stuff like that. You have to look items over carefully – a lot of things have stains on them or are pilling, so I find that I have to put back a lot of things that look interesting on first glance. On my most recent trip, I didn’t find much good stuff in the clothing section. I did find a red cotton knit sweater that had clearly never been worn before and had that great oversized-​in-​a-​fitted-​hipster-​kind-​of-​way. I also found two nice button-​up shirts… a brown Banana Republic one for work and a beautiful linen camp-​style shirt. Plus I got a fair isle sweater. In the sweater section, the selection here is better than in the Bay Area, because there actually is a winter in upstate New York!
There’s also usually some really good stuff in the athletic clothing section, like fleeces and brand name workout hoodies/​jackets. My friend got a Tommy Hilfiger fleece jacket in the same style as those North Face ones, as well as an unused Tommy Hilfiger gym bag. On a previous trip there, I got a barely-​used Helle Hansen snowboarding jacket for $ 10… That’s usually $ 300-​$ 500! I also got Burton snowboarding pants, and my friend got snowboarding boots for $ 20 (as opposed to $ 100+ retail price). This time around, I got a two-​layer Columbia jacket with an outer shell and a zip-​out fleece inner layer, that’s in perfect condition.
For the most part, I haven’t had much luck in the shoes/​accessories section, but this time I made out like a bandit. Both my friend and I got LLBean-​style boots, which I sorely needed for the New York winter. I also got a pair of Sorel boots for $ 5! In addition, I got a wool scarf made in West Germany (vintage, woot) for 50 cents, plus a 1980 Winter Olympics hat that was in terribly condition but turned pure white again after a wash in warm water at home (again, 50 cents). And best of all, for $ 2.50, I got a pair of hand-​made leather shoes made in the USA (no label) that fit like a glove and look like they could have been purchased from a high-​end boutique in Brooklyn.
And best of all, my entire set of purchases was 50% off, since it was Wednesdays, when pretty much everything in the store is 50% off.