it´s nifty to be thrifty

It´s neat to think sometimes about how God was forming and shaping Elvis and i over the years, in separate countries, to be a perfect match for each other. He carefully aligned our dreams, interests, likes and dislikes even before we met each other and didn´t leave out a single detail, including a hobby/way of life that is so dear to my heart...that´s right...thrift store shopping. Many of you know how i love to look for a bargain, but man i have met my match...elvis can outshop me when it comes to bargains!! we try to not buy clothes during all year until our trips home to the US, where we visit with my folks between trips to Ross, Rugged, etc. =) Our only shopping that we do here in El Salvador is at the amazing thrift stores that we have here downtown. There are tons of them, and since they are all in the historical downtown area, they have converted these old historical buildings, like old banks and other fancy buildings into 4 story thrift stores. Downtown is the place to go to get anything, absolutely anything cheap and that´s where the huge craft and food markets are. Since it´s definitely not safe to take a camera downtown, i found some pics online so you can get an idea of what downtown looks like (the San Salvador volcano is in the background). The tiles on the front of the cathedral were painted by our local artist, Fernando Llort, and downstairs in the cathedral is the tomb of the famous priest Oscar Romero.

So, when we go downtown, we park beside the cathedral and walk around, hitting up all the thrift stores we can physically handle in one day. All the clothes are shipped down in bulk from the US, so it´s practically all name-brand stuff. We also like to shop for household items and decorations there, and we always find coffee cups and other random stuff from NC. I got this platter this summer for $2:

And these cute coffee cups for 30 cents each!
My all-time favorite find downtown was my new Dr Martens shoes for $2.50:And our best sale ever was over August vacation, when we went with a car-full of friends from church. That day we found the 10 cent sale, where there were mountains of clothes on sale, all for 10 cents each, and you just had to climb up the mountain of clothes and start digging. It was so great!

This past weekend we went with our newlywed friends, Aldo and Belen, to help them find stuff for their new house. To our great joy, we came across a 3-items-for-a-dollar-sale. Here's just a dollar's worth of the stuff we got:

So, keep donating your old clothes and household items to Goodwill. We appreciate it!!