Quite an honour.

I'm going to make a bold claim and say I have a new favourite charity shop! Considering I've probably been to 95% of the charity shops in the Greater Manchester area, this is quite an impressive development! 

I stumbled on Barnardo's in Stretford completely by accident this afternoon on the way back from Urmston. I'd googled charity shops in Stretford 'mall' before and the results had been somewhat inconclusive so I'd never stopped there. Big mistake! This Barnardo's is a 99p shop. I've discussed Barnardo's one-price discount shops before and am a real lover of the shops in Cheadle, Droylsden and Fallowfield but this one was another level of incredible! 

The shop was beautifully presented in colour blocks with inviting displays all around. Sometimes with discount shops, you see a dip in quality but not at all with this Barnardo's! I picked up these six incredible items for just £5.94! 

F&F patterned top.

Stripy Peacocks dress.

Beautiful delicate peach lace top - no original labels.

H&M grey jumper.

Divided @ H&M contrast sleeve jumper.

Zara blue midi skirt.

I honestly cannot believe how great the quality of these items is! An impeccable Zara skirt for 99p?!

Prior to this new discovery, I'd visited another of my favourite shops - The Charity Box in Urmston. 

I picked up these two beautiful skirts for £4.95 each. They're both from Cos so I was willing to spend a little more.

Purple wool skirt from Cos.

Striped skirt from Cos.

What do you think of my finds? Have you ever bought something from a Barnardo's discount store?

Char x

Dress up!

If you follow me on Twitter, you may have seen I had a lucky lunch break on Wednesday!

With twenty minutes of my hour left, I decided to have a quick walk into Sale town centre. I only had time to look properly around one shop so went to the Salvation Army which has become my go-to donation shop since Age UK shut down. I picked it because it's the shop closest to my office but wasn't expecting to find anything as my success rate in there is about 10%! Most of the clothing is in larger sizes and the majority of the shop space is taken up with furniture which I definitely can't carry home on the bus.

The first thing I saw was this beautiful white dress from Asos. I absolutely loved the shape of it on first sight but was devastated to discover it was a size 6. I've been monitoring my calorie intake to lose weight recently, which has been successful but not THAT successful! I haven't bought anything in a size 6 since I was about 17. I kept looking at the style and size of it and pulling at the fabric before deciding to take a gamble, as it was only £2.99. Imagine my shock when I tried it on at home and I could zip it up! It's definitely a loose fitting 6!

The next item was this black dress. It was the standard charity shop price for a dress - £4.99 and doesn't have the original tags so I'm not sure where it's from. I actually think £4.99 is expensive for this considering the Asos one was £2 cheaper. I'm planning to cut the bow off (I'm not into bows!) and wear it under a printed cardigan in the office.

As I was paying for those two, I noticed this printed dress hanging up behind the till. I assumed it was on hold for someone but the volunteer confirmed it was just waiting to go out. Primark, £2.99 - bit overpriced but I love it.

Then finally on my way home today, I popped into the Oxfam Emporium on Oldham Street. I'm not going to lie, I used to hate the shop! I still think things in there are horrendously overpriced (especially books - £3.99 for some old coffee stains, folded pages and cracked spines?!) but the clothing is getting better. I nearly bought a scalloped hem skirt from Asos which they'd priced at £4.99 but thought a fiver was too pricey (I don't want to feed their ideas that their pricing is reasonable). 

I was just about to walk out (shocked at the selection of £40 handbags) when I noticed a Sale section at the back of the shop. Not one to miss out on a bargain, I ventured over. Most of the stock was items I'd seen a few weeks ago but then I saw this...

beautiful New Look number, new and tagged at £19.99 on sale for £4.99. That's a quarter of the price and in perfect condition - that I can deal with!

I REALLY need to blog about the amazing haul I had at the car boot on Sunday but I've had such an exhausting and busy week which isn't over yet. Promise I'll get around to it soon!

Char x