Fancy a guilt-free shopping splurge?

Photo credit: Red Cross Australia’s Flickr Stream

Fancy a guilt-free shop­ping splurge? Head for your near­est Op shop.

‘Op’ stands for oppor­tu­nity and there’s plenty of that to be had in the plethora of sec­ond hand bar­gain out­lets in and around Brisbane.

Among my favourites is The Endeav­our Foundation’s quirky store in fash­ion­able Padding­ton. The charm­ing out­let is a pop­u­lar pit stop for sea­soned op shop­pers as they stock labels and the qual­ity is good. For exam­ple, I recently found a Lisa Ho silk shirt for $19.99. Even with top qual­ity op shops, you still have to be dis­cern­ing as some­times, there is a rea­son some­one has donated their much loved gar­ment! The Endeav­our shop also has a large vin­tage cloth­ing sec­tion down­stairs where you can uncover some real finds.

There are plenty of op shops in the same street includ­ing Retro Metro, which stocks qual­ity one-off retro pieces. There is also a St Vin­cent de Pauls which has cloth­ing, fur­ni­ture, cos­tume jew­ellery and crock­ery. There won’t be quite the same num­ber of labels avail­able here, but keen and dis­cern­ing hunters can pick up a bar­gain all the same.

Throw the Envi­ron­ment A Life­line — Doc­u­men­tary from Mal­colm Burt on Vimeo.

Another label out­let is the Life­line shop at 144 Ade­laide Street in Bris­bane cen­tral. Its loca­tion means it’s slightly smaller than most op shops in the outer sub­urbs, but it’s still packed with bar­gains includ­ing fine china and glass­ware. It also stocks designer hand­bags (around $40), shoes, hats and gold and sil­ver jew­ellery. Prices are slightly higher than the aver­age op shop (they have to cover a higher rent) and on the day I vis­ited there seemed to be a good selec­tion of larger sizes but min­i­mal Size 8 to 10s. How­ever, new stock comes in weekly so there is bound to be some­thing for everyone.

If you’re pre­pared for a good rum­mage, try a few sub­ur­ban op shops. St Vin­cent De Paul’s at Sum­ner Park in Brisbane’s West­ern sub­urbs is a large out­let and stocks every­thing from crock­ery, linen and fur­ni­ture to cloth­ing. You may still pick out a label at a rea­son­able price if you’re lucky on the day or have a good eye for qual­ity. This is a favourite out­let if you have a cos­tume party to attend as there is often plenty of evening­wear and per­fect  ‘dress-up’ garb – even the occa­sional tutu if feel­ing bal­letic.  Fur­ni­ture is pretty run-of-the mill although if you’re quick, you can unearth some good bar­gains. My prize pur­chase from this par­tic­u­lar out­let is a sil­ver cof­fee pot with bone han­dle I bought for the princely sum of $2.

Photo credit: Red Cross Australia’s Flickr Stream

Keen for a seri­ous op shop out­ing? Then the City of Ipswich, a 40 minute or so drive from Bris­bane is your best bet.  There are plenty of out­lets in the city cen­tre as well as on the out­skirts. Par­tic­u­larly note­wor­thy, is a Life­line super­store which lives up to its name in that it’s the size of a ware­house and stocks every­thing from bed­room suites to cloth­ing and gen­eral house­hold goods.  The store was unfor­tu­nately inun­dated dur­ing the recent floods but is due to open again soon. If you have time and patience and don’t mind a good old dig, this is the mega op shop for you.

Another men­tion­able store is the Red Cross out­let in Sher­wood. It’s a small shop but man­ages to stock books, cloth­ing and acces­sories as well as crock­ery and gen­eral bric– a-brac. Again, visit reg­u­larly to grab the best bargains.

Red Threads — Padding­ton Store Launch from Aus­tralian Red Cross on Vimeo.

And there, in a nut­shell, are a few op shops in Bris­bane worth men­tion­ing – def­i­nitely worth a visit to quell the urge to shop – you’ll also be sup­port­ing a good cause.

Tips for op shopping:

• Find your favourite op shop and visit as reg­u­larly as possible
• Try and be dis­cern­ing – don’t buy an item sim­ply because it’s inex­pen­sive. The same rules apply to op shop­ping as they do to gen­eral shop­ping – try not to impulse buy. If you don’t absolutely love it, don’t part with your money
• Some op shops have an inflated opin­ion of their wares – don’t spend money on old worn fur­ni­ture, for exam­ple, unless you absolutely love it, it has con­sid­er­able charm or has poten­tial for vast improvement.

Don’t buy for the sake of buy­ing. I have walked out of many an op shop empty-handed.

That said, if there’s some­thing irre­sistible, at least you won’t be blow­ing the budget!