Goods Friday.

We took a bit of a gamble yesterday, hoping the charity shops would be open on Bank Holiday. 

The first stop was Chorlton in south Manchester where there are ten shops all within a five minute walk of each other. I used to do manager cover at the PDSA shop in Chorlton a few years ago and I was quite sad to see the deterioration in a lot of the shops nearby. I left Chorlton with just a book (The Joke by Milan Kundera if anyone can recommend? and even that had a huge coffee stain on it which no one had thought to wipe off!) and I was really disappointed. A new British Heart Foundation shop had opened since my last visit which I found to be really overpriced and the quality of the stock in the others was just dreadful. I love colour blocking in charity shops as I think its a great way to create some unity between items which are all completely random but the shops who were utilising this idea hadn't thought to put items in size order - I just haven't got the patience for that!

Next, we went to Didsbury which is about ten minutes down the road but a completely different world! I picked up these floral Zara trousers in the Mind shop for £4.50. These prints and style are everywhere at the moment and if you live near Didsbury get yourself down to Mind because someone had donated about ten pairs! I chose these because they're completely different to anything I own and I'm trying to step out of monochrome a little more. Mind is a cause close to my heart and having been in three of their shops, (Didsbury, Rochdale and Stockport) I think they price and present stock well.

It's unlikely that Didsbury yields only one result and I left feeling a bit flat - like it really wasn't my day for finding bargains! I decided that we should stop at Withington but unfortunately, all but one of the shops were closed. I picked up the blue dress in the middle of the top picture in the Cancer Research. I've actually owned the dress before (I bought it from Topshop new a few years back!) but unfortunately it shrank after I washed it on a programme which was too hot! I loved the dress and was quite sad to see it go so I was delighted that I could purchase a replacement for £3.95. I'm going to make sure I hand wash this time! I also picked up the necklace shown in the picture below. It was £2.50, which I think is a little on the pricey side, but I love the colours.

Still in pursuit of a decent day, we took a last ditch bus trip to Urmston where I picked up this lightweight fluffy green M&S jumper from Barnardo's for £2.99 and the blue and black flower patterned dress on the left of the last picture which cost £3.99. 

My final purchase of the weekend was this printed dress from Oxfam in Sale which cost £2.99 and I hope will be nice now the weather has got a little warmer! 

There doesn't seem to be a lot of great quality stock in the shops at the moment - everyone needs to get donating!

Have you found any bargains recently?

Char x