Recently quite a few people have been telling me about the bargains they've been snagging in the charity shop Newlife, so I went down to check the place out for myself!
Newlife is a charity for disabled children, providing nurses and vital equipment for disabled children and families when families have been denied this by the statutory services or when their will be a delay in receiving this from them causing the child to suffer. They also fund medical research into the aetiology, prevention and treatment of birth defects and have funded medical research training for over 60 students as well as giving work experience to young disabled adults, offering basic skills training for them a well as giving them the chance to develop their social skills.
As a charity, Newlife manages waste products from several popular manufacturers and retailers, meaning that their dead stock doesn't go to landfill or incineration. It instead goes to their stores to be sold. Where a product can not be re-sold, the charity recycles as much as possible of the raw materials to create new products. This means they largely sell band new stock and much lower prices.
They have stores in Cannock, Yardley, Moreton, Heanor and Market Drayton. With Cannock being my local store, I headed over there to see what I could find.
The shop was laid out really well so it was very easy to find clothes in your size straight away, and I filled up my basket very quickly. After probably a good hour of shopping, trying on various trousers and dragging my boyfriend around making him hold my basket, I finally paid for what I'd decided I'd buy. I picked up 4 pairs of trousers and 6 pairs of sunglasses all for £38!!
The sunglasses I recognised straight away - dead stock from River Island! These usually retail from about £12.99 - £16.99, but I got them for £1 per pair. I am very smug about this.
I recognised some of the trousers that I picked up in store, you can often tell by what are on the buttons of the jeans. However, the ones I bought, I'm not sure about. Newlife cut out the tags so that they cant be bought there and then returned at the original store for more money.
I didn't pay anymore than £8.99 for any of these! I actually only paid £4.99 for the white pair! Can you tell I have a thing for check trousers?
Cannock also has a market place store and a furniture store alongside their clothing store. We nipped into those as well to take a look and from the market place I snagged this lilac Instax mini carrier case for only 99p! I also almost bough a small side bag originally from Urban Outfitters for £1.50, but it was missing it's strap, so I decided against it.
And that's everything I bought! Keep your eyes peeled for more charity shop hauls in the future, I'm trying to buy into the world of fast fashion less and there are plenty of stores locally for me to wander around and find some good picks! I 100% recommend you check out a Newlife store near you if you can!