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Goodwill Goodness :: Back to School

I hate shopping. Maybe I should clarify. I hate shopping when I need to shop. Grocery shopping, holiday shopping, or back-to-school shopping - any kind of specific type of shopping when the list is long and the deadline is looming. The expectations are too high! The goal is to find exactly what you need, when you need it and for what you need to spend. That never happens...ever. It can happen if you are willing to store hop, return items, max out cards or spend endless hours in the mall. These are things I'm not willing to do. So I avoid shopping in general which to people who see me on a regular basis falls into the 'We could tell by looking at you, Slob!' category.

Most of you know I love Goodwill. Because you have to go there with no expectations and most of the time you find something great for crazy cheap. You can't plan for anything too specific, but if you go in with an open mind you can usually come out pleasantly surprised.

This year I took Sophia back-to-school shopping at Goodwill. Like I mentioned before about expectations: Sophia didn't need back-to-school clothes. She has plenty of clothes to start and probably finish 2nd grade so I didn't NEED to find one single thing. My only hope was to get Sophia something new. She had been forced to sit front row at her cousin Michaela's "back-to-school fashion debut" for the last couple of weeks & Owen had just been given a pile of hand-me-downs from an older kid and was excited when he found his 1st day of school t-shirt in the heap... Anyway, Sophia was wanting something new to wear to make her first day great so I told her we'd "take some time before school and go to Goodwill." To which she responded, "No, I want to go to Justice." I countered with, "I don't want to go 1st day of school shopping at all so here's what I'm negotiating - Goodwill or NOTHING."

Off to Goodwill we went. She found 2 complete outfits. 1 dress that required a quick stop at neighboring Wal-mart to pick up matching leggings, and a pair of shirts to wear with a t-shirt she already has. For dresses to fit around her tiny middle, they are often WAY too short so we have to find leggings to match. For under $25 we got her an entire first week of school wardrobe. We were gone less than 2 hours and she was totally delighted! She loves her outfits, and having something "new" made her first day a little more special.
And for real - could she look any cuter?