Consignment Victory

I'm quickly learning some of the strategies pregnant women and parents of young children utilize to keep from spending a fortune on a new generation of consumers. They're unabashed supporters of garage sale hunting, Goodwill buying, Craig's List scouring and children's consignment shop splurging. They've clued me in to their favorite stores for shopping for barely used items - those things your kids grow out of in just a few months - and have me religiously checking Craig's List ads each day.

One mom told me about Munchkin Markets, which amounts to a consignment garage sale held twice a year and at the convenient location of the Washington County Fairgrounds. Because I had volunteered to help with set-up, I was able to attend the pre-sale on Friday afternoon. As I helped consignors unload their stuff, I knew I had made a good move in getting myself into the pre-sale. Women drove up in Lexuses, Volvo wagons and Suburbans, and carted over Rubbermaid bins and laundry baskets full of designer kiddie clothes, toys in near-perfect condition, (or brand new and never out of the box) and items I didn't know what to make of yet (Boppy pillows?) and sorted them out on tables in the exhibition barn-turned-consignment warehouse.

Those same women, and a few fathers, were back again on Friday afternoon hoping to upgrade to the next size of clothing for their growing children, or whatever else was on their lists. While there were parents from all walks of life in line with me, and the clientele wasn't dominated exclusively by the country club set, it did make me realize that just because you have money, you can still think it's ridiculous to spend a good portion of that money on things that will be spit up on, outgrown or broken. And while I had half anticipated a scene like those in front of a Wal-Mart or Best Buy at 5:00 a.m. on Black Friday, the line was calm and orderly.

Forever my mother's daughter, I headed straight for the book table. Most people tell me their favorite part of shopping for babies is the cute outfits, but really, what gets me excited is the books. I picked up a collection of Eric Carle stories (without The Very Hungry Caterpillar though), a book of poetry for children, Shel Silverstein's The Giving Tree, and the six-book series of Kirsten, the American Girl. Nothing I bought is appropriate for a baby, but I guess I'm just banking on the idea that my children will love to read. In the meantime, I'll continue to enjoy shopping for books.

I picked up a few other odds and ends at the sale, including a Baby Bjorn and a maternity dress I'll be able to wear to a wedding at the end of May. The biggest score was a crib and mattress. The baby's room still looks much like an office, because we had yet to buy any furniture, and therefore, hadn't bothered to move anything out or try to redecorate. In the process of carting the crib out to the lawn by the parking lot, disassembling it and waiting for Chris to pick me up, about five peopled oohed and ahhed over what a nice crib it was, so based on those reactions, I started to feel confident, that I who knows nothing about baby gear, must have made a decent choice. And for an estimated 1/3 of the price we would have spent had we bought the crib and mattress new, I was pretty proud of myself.