It started out innocently. Just a fun mother-child ritual: grab a raisin bun, hop on our bike and go treasure hunting at the thrift store. It was either that or ripping out each other’s hair over yet another impossible role-play plot twist (if you know, you know) and at least wasn’t a screen, which we’re heroically trying to keep out of the household. So there we went: just two detectives sniffing out clues between chipped mugs and wooden puzzles. A wholesome outing, if I do say so myself.

And it really is our thing. My daughter gets to try on every tricycle in the store and I get to enjoy the thrill of spotting a €3 designer candle holder that looks like it belongs in a fancy art-deco house that I definitely do not own. 

Win-win. Or so I thought.

Because somewhere between the terrible twos and the – honestly – terrifying threes, I discovered something dangerous: a perfectly valid excuse to escape the chaos.

The post-nap grumps? Let’s ‘quickly check the thrift store.’ A rainy afternoon with zero patience left in my tank? Thrift store it is. That one Tuesday at 09:30 when nothing was actually wrong but I still needed dopamine? You can probably guess where I went.

At first I felt really clever. I wasn’t avoiding the chaos at home, I was ‘engaging in circular consumption.’ I wasn’t impulse-buying, I was ‘supporting the secondhand economy.’ It wasn’t retail therapy, it was sustainable leisure. Obviously. 

Until I looked around my living room and realized: I may have prevented textile waste, but I was absolutely contributing to structural shelf-space waste. My home was slowly turning into a curated museum of other people’s abandoned things. At one point my husband even asked if I was planning to open a thrift store myself.

So this year, new rule: I can still hunt, browse, and investigate… but purchases must now officially qualify as an A+ find.

An A+ find is officially something that:
- we genuinely need
- makes our life easier or better
- sparks joy for longer than 48 hours
- preferably does not weigh more than my child (important rule ever since I dragged home a bitchin’ 60s organ)
- and fits in our house without requiring a full reorganization of my storage closet

But most importantly: has that ARE YOU KIDDING ME thrift-store magic (think: Armani blazer for €1, still with the tag on)

Shockingly, many items do not pass this test. Turns out I didn’t actually need a ceramic whale-shaped butter dish. Or a second fondue set ‘or guests’ (we don’t even entertain).

But the best part? The ritual survived. The detectives are still doing their thang, the joy is still there, and we now thrift smarter, not harder. The child still tries every bike-thing, I still scan for hidden treasures, but the living room has finally stopped begging for mercy.

Case closed,  for now.

Next week I’ll report back on whether I resisted the vintage teapot with ducks on it. Spoiler: it scored a B- at best but omg ducks?!

Love, Florine