Have you been to a mall lately? It's sort of a depressing place. Lots of stores have vacated the premises, and with the clerks that are left manning the surviving shops and kiosks look like they're starved for social interaction. There's just no one there. The Christmas music playing over the PA seems out of place in such a deserted venue.

The real shopping crowds this holiday season aren't at the mall -- no one's paying full price this for anything anymore. But you will find long lines at your local thrift stores, where you can purchase new and gently used clothes, furniture, accessories, and more for just a few bucks a pop, whether you're buying Levi's or designer jeans with the tags still on them.

Thrift stores are a great place to find inexpensive treasures, especially when "vintage" is so totally in style. Don't make the rookie mistake of thinking of thrift shopping as going through other people's trash. Lots of things for sale there have never been worn before at all, and everything has to be in decent condition before they put it on their racks, even at Goodwill. Tons of the things you'll find there are actually straight from the mall -- when stores can't sell all their merchandise, they send it to thrift stores to make room on their own clearance racks. These items might be a season or two behind the actual weather, but they're brand new, and the seasons will roll around again next year.

Secondhand shops are an especially great place for women to look for formal wear. So often, a girl will spend hundreds of dollars on a prom dress that she only wears once -- then it finds its way to the Goodwill racks after only a few hours of wear, and now it can be yours for less than $10. Avoiding the mall also means you're less likely to show up at your next formal wearing the same dress as everyone else who shops at JC Penney. (My local mall isn't very big, so my high school prom had 200 girls all wearing the same 10 dresses.)

I used to be intimidated about bringing clothes to the seamstress at The Common Thread, a tailoring shop located in an upscale shopping/tourist enclave on the Upper Cape called Mashpee Commons. I ventured in last week with a pair Escada slacks ($8.00 new at a Hospice thrift shop) that needed to be hemmed.

When I went to pick up the slacks, the proprietor explained that she was "running behind." Her tailoring business has been booming this fall. When I mentioned this to a friend, she said that she had also taken slacks in for alteration last week and that her seamstress had told her the same thing.

Imagine, Americans repairing, altering, reusing and recycling! Does the economy need to practically collapse around us before "Shop Until You Drop" ceases to be the new national anthem? Given a president whose response to 9/11 was, "Go to the mall," shopping has been patriotic.

After decades of being drunk on dollars, we might actually be sobering up. If the clothing repair business is strengthening, what could be next? Here's an idea: customers could start buying shoes that can be repaired.

The shoe repair industry plummeted in the 1960's, with a 40% drop in stores, and has continued to decline leading into the 21st century. If shoe repair sees a resurgence, it will provide jobs for former prisoners who have learned the craft while doing time.

As many WalletPop users have already demonstrated, while there's a lot of fun in coming up with great ways to save money, the real fun is in passing the ideas around. With that in mind, I was very impressed by New York State's "Stretching Your Dollars Effort" (SYDE).

Basically a bare-bones clearinghouse of thrifty ideas, SYDE allows New Yorkers to post their tips for saving on gas and groceries, as well as ideas for cutting the costs of home food prep and household expenses. It features text-based suggestions, as well as video and audio clips, some of which are a lot of fun to watch.

While a few of the ideas are specific to New York, most of them can be widely adapted to any setting, be it urban, suburban, or rural. More to the point, as good old-fashioned thrift has become a thing of the past, it's nice to be reminded of all the neat tricks and clever shortcuts that can add up to serious savings!

Bruce Watson is a freelance writer, blogger, and all-around cheapskate. SYDE reminds him of the wise, thrifty, and nurturing grandma that he never had.

This is it, friends,the kickoff of the season. It's just before 7AM as I write this post, the sun is glaring in my face here on Cape Cod, and my yard sale shopping companion is five minutes from a shower. Life is good.

If you're going out on the circuit this morning, I'd love to hear from you. If you're still on the yard sale learning curve, here are a few suggestions.

A few days ago, I mentioned bringing assorted denominations of cash. Also bring your checkbook. Often - though certainly not always - sellers will take a local check, particularly on a larger item.

If you haven't already acquired it, you will want to invest in a detailed street map of your sale areas. There's nothing more frustrating than wandering around in circles, particularly these days with gas at such a premium. And yes, as many bloggers wrote this week, many of us will be staying closer to home this season.

Open any cookbook published before, say, 1965. The recipes all make mention of how to make the dish cheaply, using affordable cuts of meat, and canned vegetables because they were cheaper than fresh. The idea of "Thrift" was alive and well, and the idea that a housewife should look for ways to stretch the family budget was lauded as a virtue.

We snicker at such old-fashioned values today, even as we hold dear the nostalgia for a "simpler" time. Sometime in the last few generations, the fiscal conservatism our grandparents practiced as a matter of course went out the window with the rotary phones. A provocative article in Canada's Financial Post asks what happened?

Evelyn Nieves' Associated Press article has some really good news about a new breed of Gen Xers and Y's. The Sunday Telegraph of London coined the acronym, YAWN (Young And Wealthy Normal). These are young, successful men and women who have decided to do something different than shopping until they drop. Paris Hilton: you're going out of style.

Though the group has its share of high-tech success stories and dot.com millionaires, Nieves says that, "Yawns are actually a subset of a growing global movement of the eco-socially aware. The state of the economy and the state of the planet have inspired people to consider what they buy and how they spend in ways not seen since the 'Small is Beautiful' and ecology movements of the 1970's. "

YAWNS are young people who are choosing frugal lives and humanitarian projects. They choose normal sizes homes over McMansions, donate significant money to worthy causes, and drive energy efficient vehicles. Not only that but, "Second-hand stores are to Yawns what the Gap was to yuppies."

It sounds like the 60's - except that unlike hippies, yawns are financially savy.

Imagine.

As consumers search attics for fast cash, resale shops are seeing a glut of merchandise. For-sale listings on Craigslist are also way up. We can be sure that there will be more sellers and less buyer money around as the yard sale season begins.

I've been a yard sale addict for more than 25 years. My buying habits won't change very much - except for the fact that I'm also part of the wave of downsizing/decluttering baby boomers and like everyone else, I'm watching what there is of my money. Since I'm also a social worker, I don't want to profit from anyone else's misfortune, which makes me a little uneasy about what it's going to be like once I start my Saturday routes. I expect that I'll make the same kind of offers - looking for the same kind of percentages off - that I always have, looking for a fair price. As a real estate agent recently explained, "A fair deal is when both the buyer and the seller are both just a little dissatisfied." No one gets the best of anyone.

It seems I find a bin, tucked in the back of every thrift store, filled with metal knives and forks and spoons. In my house (I don't know about yours), forks have this way of disappearing. Maybe they go the same place as the mates for my socks (forks and socks: star-crossed lovers?). In any case, I peer into the bins, thrilled by the hope that maybe I'll find something great to fill in the fork section of my cutlery drawer.

And then I remember my cutlery drawer. Ahh, those thrift store purchases from long ago; the odd forks and spoons brought home accidentally from my husband's former job as a caterer. None of them were stainless steel, and one day I had a particularly large sink of dirty dishes and got out one of the thrifty purchases. I could distinctly taste the metal along with my pie. That can't be good for you.

Unless you can see the stainless symbol on the cutlery at the thrift store, stay away! The last thing you need is to introduce more metal into your diet (the mercury in your tuna is already too much). If you can taste it, it's certain that some of it is wending its way into your digestive system. I'm no expert on metallurgy, but I'm sure that these metals are not healthful dietary supplements. When you're out looking for a bargain: pass up the spoons and forks.

This post was written as part of a series on how to thrift shop smarter. Read more on what to buy, and not to buy, at thrift stores.

Babies. Sigh. They grow up so fast, don't they?

Take it from a mom. Yeah, they do. So fast that anything you buy them will be too small within weeks. Babies wake up from their naps bigger than when you put them down. Toddlers grow like little weeds, AND they play so hard their clothing gets worn out before you get your value's worth. By the time they're in elementary school, the little nits seem to outgrow/ruin their clothes weekly.

That's why thrift stores are the only place to shop for kids.

Everyone has one (or two) of them in his family: The official holiday spirit monitor. Always pulling out the precious collectibles (whether that's emotional or monetary value should be left to another blog post). The bad news? Their houses are virtual minefields for little children, or the more clumsy among us. The good news? It's always really easy to shop for them. In fact, that good news can also be bad news when you're browsing in thrift shops and see the display of vintage Santas or artsy menorahs. Surely Aunt/Grandma/Mom/Uncle Kelly would love those!

Wait. Don't take that Father Christmas, complete with swan and gold accents, down from that high shelf! Can you get it for the same price (or less) at those after-Christmas sales? Probably. You'll think it's just the thing in the thrift store in October, but play patience and wait until December 27th. You'll get it for a great reduction -- most stores sell merchandise after the holidays for 70% to 90% off -- and without those character-adding chips and missing fingers. What's more, you can bask in the satisfaction of not having been taken in like all the eager souls who paid full price.

And just think how much Aunt/Grandma/Mom/Uncle Kelly will appreciate having a nice box, complete with styrofoam inserts, to store it in.

This post was written as part of a series on how to thrift shop smarter. Read more on what to buy, and not to buy, at thrift stores.

I'm not much of a shopper, but there's one place in Columbus that turns me into a kid in a candy store. That place is The Habitat For Humanity Build It Again Center.

The Center, a K-Mart-sized building on the north side of town, is jammed with building supplies donated by homeowners, contractors, and companies in the Columbus area. Everything from countertops to cabinets, conduit to concrete, stairs, doors, windows, and more are for sale. All is new or gently used and priced so reasonably you can't say no. What you see is what you get, though, so be prepared to work your plan to the size of your discoveries, rather than vice versa.

The profits go to support Habitat's programs, but that isn't the motivation behind the Center. Manager Rob Cramer told me that the main purpose for the program was to reduce the amount of serviceable goods that end up in the landfill.

The Center certainly does that. On any given day, he estimates 100-300 people can be found scouring the aisles for the right supplies to turn their pad into a palace.

Where else can you find such a win-win opportunity? Help reduce waste, help fund Habitat, and save yourself some serious coin. I'm looking for a new garage door, so you might just find me there. And remember, if there's anything especially cool for sale -- I saw it first.

This post was written as part of a series on how to thrift shop smarter. Read more on what to buy, and not to buy, at thrift stores.

I'm one of those people who believes in the power of books. Books should never be given away! Books are always good for you, no matter how bent or broken their spines. Books can solve anything.

That was, until I had small children. Who also loved books. So much so that they sucked on, ripped, wrinkled, and played sword fights with them. It brings new meaning to the word "bibliophile."

For many books, it's ok to let them suffer a little. Board books, after all, are meant to be licked a little by baby mouths, discovering what books are all about. The library people even have a name for it: "early literacy." But those cheap staple-bound picture books? At 50 cents from a thrift store, I'm saving a few dollars -- I can get any installment in the whole Berenstain Bears oeuvre for $2.99 apiece at my local bookstore. Saving $2.49 sounds like a good plan at the time. But when I lose half the pages within a few weeks, I'm several dollars' worth of crazy.

When it comes to a few dollars or your sanity, I think you know the way to go: get the books new! They'll last longer and they're guaranteed to already have all their pages. And that will feel so good on your linear brain.

This post was written as part of a series on how to thrift shop smarter. Read more on what to buy, and not to buy, at thrift stores.

As a girl, I was a perfectionist. I can remember my boxes of watercolors, and how I obsessively rinsed my brushes between colors so as not to turn them into a rainbow of blacks and browns. Pastels were even more precious, and took a soft touch to blend them on paper, but not on the instrument itself. It's hard to create when you're spending your energy focused on keeping things neat and orderly.

And then I had kids.

The first time I let my two-year-old destroy a perfectly good watercolor box in a happy hour, I took lots of deep yoga breaths and then faced facts: I was not about to run back to the art supply store after every messy creation to get a new box. Painting in the black and brown spectrum didn't faze him at all. Why fight the power of a preschooler's exuberance?

So during my next trip to the Goodwill Bins, the outlet where everything is sold by the pound, I "picked" until I found some treasures. A very good quality, but heavily used, watercolor set, missing its brush. A treasure trove of fancy pastels, half of them dumped out of their box. In five minutes, I'd gathered up all the broken and chalky bits and ended up paying less than a dollar for my artistic treasure.

It turns out that the art supplies are now partially destroyed, and I often end up discovering a brilliantly-colored pastel chunk underfoot (note to mothers out there: don't clean up pastels with vinegar. It's like dying your floor). But I don't sweat: I rescued those supplies from the trash, so I can let go of my obsessive-compulsive self and just let the little boys be. Thrifting art supplies for little ones is the way to go.

This post was written as part of a series on how to thrift shop smarter. Read more on what to buy, and not to buy, at thrift stores.

Part of the problem inherent in cookbook shopping is that it's really hard to take it for a dry run, first. You can get a feel for a pattern book by the photos of the finished object; for fiction, you can read a few pages and see if it draws you in. But you don't cook for how a meal looks, and all the brilliant prose in the world won't save a badly composed set of instructions for a loaf of bread.

But where there's a thrift shop, there's a way. When I page through cookbooks in the bookshelves of a vintage boutique, I'm not looking for favorite subjects or shiniest images. No, I'm looking for the most used book of all; the one with pages splattered with olive oil and flour and tomato sauce. The one whose recipes were followed, and then followed again.

Paying $15 or $20 for a glossy cookbook full of lovingly-composed food photos is great, if you like to experience the way food looks. Celebrity chef cookbooks? Again, you're paying to look at something, and this time it's Bobby Flay or Giada Laurentis; surely attractive folks, I'll give you that, but a cute boy just gets in the way of good food unless he's waiting in the breakfast nook. Cooking from an experienced cookbook is the next best thing to learning from an experienced chef; someone else has already done the trial and error for you. And at 50 cents to a few dollars, you can't beat the price of thrift store cookbooks. All the better to save for the ingredients!

This post was written as part of a series on how to thrift shop smarter. Read more on what to buy, and not to buy, at thrift stores.

If you enjoy a hot beverage once in a while, you've probably felt it: the conviction that a lovely mug would make you happy. Do you know the domestic bliss encapsulated in that tableau; a clean surface, a project you enjoy, a mug that signifies your style? It's the still-life art as life.

But there's a dark side to this scene of homely perfection. Mugs break. And if you're clumsy like me -- or if you have a houseful of roughhousing children, like me -- it's a good bet that your tableaux are often shattered (figuratively, literally, noisily) by an errant elbow, an exuberantly tossed pillow, a swift brotherly punch. (I'm trying to break the boys of their fighting but, troublingly, they're boys.)

It's why buying mugs from thrift stores, is the better way to go. Never troubled by a chipped or crackled mug, I delight in discovering the lonesome pottery or ceramic that might make my coffee table complete. I pay a dollar, or less, per interesting colorful vessel and it brightens my life, until it breaks, without depressing my wallet. I don't have to commit to just one look, either; I can choose the speckly one with coffee, the green one with tea, the snow-flake-covered one with hot chocolate. Thrifting mugs? It's a win-win.

This post was written as part of a series on how to thrift shop smarter. Read more on what to buy, and not to buy, at thrift stores.