I have always been a shopaholic. In high school, instead of spending my weekly allowance of lunch money on school food, I would save it for my weekend trips to Urban Outfitters. Sale section garments satisfied me like no stale cafeteria pizza ever could. I would secretly weekly pack lunches and stash my cash for the stores. I’m sure that If I had just asked my parents to take me clothes shopping, they would have happily treated me to whatever I wanted, however, it was the thrill of being sneaky that egged me on.

My parents never did discover my deceitful habits, and I have since grown past the allowance phase. Now any money I get from my parents is used strictly for groceries, and I would legitimately starve if I started spending it on clothes instead. With my rainy-day savings no longer an option, I find other methods to feed my fashion addiction. Thrifting became my saving grace.

The thrill of walking into Goodwill, the Salvation Army, or the Garment District By-The-Pound now promises an exhilarating challenge. The idea of sifting through rack after rack of worn old trash to find a single treasure is a bigger rush than mall sale shopping ever was. Most of the things I end up bringing home are nowhere near practical, but instead funky, unique, and eccentric. Nowadays even buy and sell stores like Buffalo Exchange are not interesting or cheap enough to get my business.

I started thrifting as an inexpensive way to manage my shopaholic tendencies, however, my love for thrift has evolved from that initial justification. Although much cheaper, it is more environmentally friendly and humanitarian as well. Fast fashion stores like H&M, Zara, and Forever 21 mass produce poorly constructed and quality lacking products while paying sweat shop wages to the workers employed in their system. Furthermore, the pollution of clothes waste is becoming a huge environmental concern, as the mass amount of stuff being discarded is piling up.

My New Year’s resolution for 2017 was to only purchase clothes from thrift, and so far, I have made good on that promise (except for a few necessary evils). My closet does look a lot stranger than my high school wardrobe, but it allows me to wear fantastic things more unique than most students around me. Even though my friends and roommate think I’m crazy for spending as much time as I do in second hand stores, and bringing home a lot of weird crap, they are the ones always borrowing my stuff, and raiding my inventory of whacky outfits. My apartment is always the go to before any night out; my overfilling drawers full of who-knows- what never lets my friends leave with a boring ensemble.

Even though I’m running out of space in my small studio apartment for my finds, and buying the clothes still costs some money, I have definitely found a funkier, more eco friendly outlet for my addiction.