Having fun at Value Village

by Brie One weekday morning I headed to the Value Village on Clyde with both kids. I thought it would be a fun outing on a cold day. And it was!

I don't particularly like going shopping with the kids. They want to touch everything. They want to buy everything. Most shopping trips leave me exhausted from saying "no". Shopping at Value Village was a much nicer experience because, given the prices, I am more likely to say "yes, we can buy that".

I told the kids they could each spend $5 on our Value Village shopping trip. The amount didn't mean much to my two and half year old but the idea that he got to leave the store with something did. My four year old, though, was checking with me to find out how much all the items she wanted to buy cost. And she wanted to buy a lot.

It was neat watching the different shopping styles of the kids. The girl picked up and put down at least half a dozen items: shoes, toys, jewelry, dresses. She was interested in everything. Every time she picked up something new I reminded her that she only had $5 to spend. Finally she narrowed it down to a fancy white dress that will eventually be added to our dress up clothes. She wore it straight for two days after she bought it, so it was money well spent.

The boy wasn't really interested in anything until he found the badminton rackets. He got excited about using them to play tennis at the park in the summer. The three rackets cost under $5 and he has already been trying to enlist us in playing tennis in the hallway.

I had a great time at Value Village too. I did have to watch the kids around the more delicate and breakable items but I didn't feel the need to hover around them like I would in a more expensive store.

Our last stop in the store was the book section. The kids spent a good 20 minutes reading books while I rifled through the shelves looking for anything of interest to add to our collection. At $1 a book for kids' books it was hard to resist. Needless to say we walked out with a pile.

Do you go second-hand shopping with your kids? And who loves it best: you or the kids?

Brie is the mom of a 4 year old daughter “the girl” and 2 old son “the boy”. You can read her blog at Capital Mom.