Hey All!
We’re Nicole and Weston; a thrifty couple living in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. I’m a graphic designer for a local radio station and my husband (Weston) is an IT guy for a small company. In our spare time we enjoy finding cheap, fun, and unique items from days past. We call ourselves FivecatThrift.
This blog is dedicated to the random things we find in our daily travels to thrifts stores, garage sales, and craigslist postings. Weston and I love online review vlogs about music, tech items, and pizza. You’ll see in each post that we review the items. It’s not really a serious review, but more of a fun way to display the product and provide a high-level overview of our feelings on it. Each review is scored as zero to five (cats)... Because duh… We’re FiveCatThrift.
Any items you see here can be found for sale in our ebay store. Some items might be way too cool to give up though. In that case, we’ll mention that we kept it for ourselves. Please check out our YouTube channel and our Instagram page for more thrifting goodness!
If you’re a thrifter, please let us know about the cool items you find as well! We look forward to sharing our adventure with you.
PS: Yes we have cats!!!! Not five though… Well, we did have five, but now we have three. There is a story there that we might fill you in on at some point.
BABY ON THE BRAIN!
So, we had our baby girl a little over a week ago. Needless to say, we paused the thrifting and selling for a little bit. But we’re back, baby! Pun intended.
Weston started working from home before he returns full time to work next week. I’m on maternity leave for the next 5 weeks at least. I had not left the house in over a week and the ants in my pants started to have a dance party. Weston noticed that I needed to get out for a bit so he sent me some links to a few garage sales in the area. While Weston watched the baby, I managed to pull some really awesome vintage items. A game of Memory from the 1960’s, a box set of Sesame Street books, and another box set of children’s books. For myself I grabbed two pairs of sneakers. Unfortunately only one pair fit me well enough to keep.
Another garage sale was hosted by a retired high school art teacher. I scored an awesome set of pots and pans for $20! Even the former teacher couldn’t believe how cheap he was selling them. I also grabbed a few pieces of art from his former students for very cheap.
Weston and I did go to Restore this weekend as well, but left empty handed. I'll definitely use my free time this month to thrift as much as I can. I can’t wait to post more videos and blogs about it. Keep checking in for more fresh finds and thrift deals.
Last Weekend of Thrifting Before I Had My Baby | Part 2
We decided to start getting up in time for the F1 races on Sundays, so Weston was up at 6 am making coffee and cleaning the house. At the conclusion of the race, we filled up our water bottles and coffee mugs for a trip to the thrift store. Our only stop was at the Goodwill on Miller Parkway, but that’s the only stop we needed. I was able to find quite a few high-end dresses including the Diane von Furstenberg, pictured to the left, and tops and Weston scored a nice pair of black Allen Edmonds for $3.50. I actually kept a lot for myself this last trip to the thrift store. Check out my Instagram to see the reel I just posted. Chuck the cat was really into my new sweaters as well.
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Thrift rating on Diane von Furstenberg Dress: 4 out of 5 cats
Last Weekend of Thrifting Before I Had My Baby | Part 1
Good Evening! This past week sure was busy. Between getting our nursery set up and getting the final pieces in place before the baby comes, we barely found time to fix our broken fridge and get a cavity filled. That’s right; our fridge malfunctioned and it took Weston a few days to troubleshoot the issue and resolve it. As of writing this on Sunday night, he feels fairly confident it’s fixed. I really hope he’s right. We lost about $5 in cherries this week. Quite upsetting.
Anyways, we did find time to hit a few garage sales and a Goodwill this weekend and the results were awesome! St Mary’s in Elm Grove had a “half-off women’s” day. I found an awesome Ralph Lauren nautical-themed skirt. I only bought it because I thought it was a cape! Do not ask me why I thought it was a cape. I thought I was going to look like some boat captain superhero with my new cape, but alas, it’s a skirt. I also found some really cool horse heads (add them to my indulgent horse collection). Topping off our trip to St. Mary’s is a great set of goose pillows.
Before leaving Elm Grove, we stopped at a few garage sales in the area. We didn’t find anything too fancy, but Weston found a small Weber grill for $2.50. We have been looking for a small grill just to cook food when it’s too hot in the house to use the oven. Honestly, this week was too hot to cook food, but we didn’t have the grill, so we suffered. We can take solace in knowing we won’t suffer again. I’m really looking forward to making some veggie kabobs out there soon.
As I started thinking about what we bought at the next stop, I remembered a jacket we grabbed at the same time we bought the grill. I can’t believe I forgot about it! I left it in the backseat of the car and just had Weston run out to grab it. This beautiful jacket is going to keep someone warm in the most fashionable way possible. Feast your eyes on this gorgeous Current Seen jacket circa the mid-1990s. I had one of these when I was in grade school and couldn't believe how good of a condition this one was in.
Moving on to a yard sale in Greendale, we scored a few vintage items worth leaving the house for. I grabbed a few nice hats including a Harley Davidson camo cap and a mint Miller (Molson Coors) hat. As we started checking out, I glanced to the left and noticed a pair of vintage Care Bear glasses! These bad boys came from a Pizza Hut Promotion back in 1983. While we didn’t get the most valuable of the bunch, we were lucky in finding these two as they sell for about $18-25/each.
Our Saturday thrifting came to an end around noon. Weston needed some cables from the guitar store and I needed tacos from the taco store. El Beso for the win! If you live in the Milwaukee area, I highly recommend El Beso. 4.5 out of 5 cats!
We thrifted some on Sunday, but I’m going to save those details for the next blog post. I scored some awesome clothes for myself.
Fila Sports Shoes
Weston said he had every intention of working out today on his lunch break but must have changed his mind. He came home with some random Fila sneakers from the Goodwill by his work. They fit him in the store, but after testing them for an extended period of time, he realized they will not make good running shoes. That’s okay though, we should be able to flip them and get our money back! They’re in great condition and will serve someone with smaller feet than Weston well.
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Thrift rating on these: 1 out of 5 cats
Initial Anthropologie Mug
Our house was in desperate need of groceries tonight. To avoid becoming old Mother Hubbard, we drove to the local grocery store. Wouldn’t you know it, there just happens to be a Goodwill on the way, so of course, we stopped. 6:00 pm on a Monday offered fairly slim pickings for anything interesting. However, we did find this awesome cup for $.99! It appears to be from Anthropology and of really good quality. Neither Weston nor myself have a name that starts with “M”, so we’re going to let it go on eBay.
Side note: we spent 1/7 of our grocery budget on cherries this week. Oh well! The gosh darn things taste so good.
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Thrift rating on these: 2 out of 5 cats
Cactus Vases/Candle Holder
There are 1750 known species of cactus and most are made from plants, but this one is special. It’s made from glass! What a concept!!!! I’m joshing around. This appears to be some kind of candle holder or vase. The opening goes all the way to the bottom which allows for maximum water holding. Perfect for storing water in the hot hot desert heat. I’m a big fan of these things and I really don’t know why. They’re heavy and probably not that useful, but they look really cool!
Thrift rating on these: 2.6 out of 5 cats
Tonka Truck
Tonka was founded in Mound Minnesota back in 1946. In 2001 it was inducted into the Toy hall of fame. I was today years old when I learned there was a toy hall of fame. But I supposed they have Hall of Fames for everything.
Insurance Hall of fame
Paper Hall of fame
Burlesque Hall of fame
And so on….
I’m totally going to the Paper Hall of Fame now that I know it exists. We live fairly close.
But I digress:
This tonka truck from 2012 sports a steel bed and some big ole tires. Perfect for hauling loads of sand from one end of the sandbox to the other. We thought this might be worth more money than it is, but we got it for $2.99 so, you can’t go wrong.
Thrift rating on these: 2.1 out of 5 cats
Goose Basket
Geese have been around for millennia. The first wicker furniture dates back 5000 years. With a history that deep in both, it’s shocking that it took people until the 20th century to combine the two. Here we see a fine example of a wicker goose. While a quick search online for “wicker goose” will yield some really cool objects, I like this one for its simplicity and its tight wicker knitting. I’m not sure if you call it wicker knitting, but that’s what I would call it if I were going to invent wicker… Knitting. Anyways, this will be perfect for carrying small items from one end of the house to the other.
Thrift rating on these: 2.9 out of 5 cats
Lobster Shirt:
While wandering around the Goodwill near our grocery store, I found this J. Crew short-sleeve button-down with little lobsters all over it. Weston almost always wears button-downs and has been looking for more with short sleeves as it heats up this summer. I showed it to him as soon as he came back to the cart and he didn’t even try it on. He was sooooo excited to wear it! We washed it when we returned home and he put it on immediately. It fits him so well! He will probably spill coffee on it at some point rendering it useless, but at least he’ll enjoy this super fun shirt until it stains.
Thrift rating on these: 3.2 out of 5 cats
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Not For Sale!!! - Weston loves this shirt too much. $5.99 well spent!
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