Thrift in the Time of Macklemore; Or: Frugality Shouldn't Be Shameful

You don't more than a few bucks to shop for a solid outfit, and thrift stores have a lot more than cat-print knitted sweaters.

In this clip from Industry Focus: Financials, Gaby Lapera, Jason Moser, and Mark Reeth talk about the benefits of thrifting, how to save a significant chunk of change shopping for clothes, some advice for shopping frugally at liquidation sales (and not be fooled by tricks the likes of which Sports Authority just got caught pulling), and more.

A full transcript follows the video.

This podcast was recorded on Aug. 1, 2016.

Gaby Lapera: I think most people when they think of rap stars, rap/pop icons, people who make popular music, they think of people who perhaps don't give the best advice. They're saying "Drink some really nice champagne," when box champagne would work just as well to celebrate your major occasion.

Jason Moser: For shizzle.

Mark Reeth: Do they make box champagne? You would know.

Lapera: If they don't, they should.

Moser: Here's your next million-dollar idea right there.

Lapera: There are some songs that give good advice, I think anyway. I think that the song that comes immediately to mind for me is Macklemore's "Thrift Shop." For our listeners who haven't heard it, "I'm going to pop some tags. Only got $20 in my pocket. I'm hunting, looking for a come-up. This is ..."

Reeth: F bomb.

Lapera: "Intensifier awesome." And later on in the song, he goes on to say "They be like 'Oh, that Gucci, that's hella tight.' I'm like, yo, that's $50 for a T-shirt."

Moser: I see where he's going with this.

Lapera: Currently wearing a thrifty T-shirt right now. Thank you, Hailey Douglas, for giving me this shirt. It cost me zero dollars, so I am totally on the thrift store bandwagon with Macklemore.

Reeth: I'm right there as well. I think a thrift store would actually be a step up for my fashion statements here. I've got a free Motley Fool shirt on. I've got a hat I stole from some kid in college. These shoes, I had a coupon for them and they were on sale, so yeah I'm definitely living that thrift store life. Jason Moser, you're looking classy in this button down.

Moser: See that's funny because I used to work at a bank and an insurance company where I had to actually wear real clothes to work like suits and ties and stuff and so it's very easy for us to speak this way because we don't have a dress code here and you really actually can just dress however you like to dress. I think yeah, for me, especially when we had kids, I started to recognize there's a lot of money that people burn on things like clothes when you don't necessarily have to, so I look at things like Old Navy today with ... To me, it's just a greater option. It's not an alternative I necessarily would've thought about perhaps a decade ago but Old Navy gets a lot of our money today.

Baby clothes, gee whiz, when you're raising kids, they just grow so fast you can't keep them in them so you go to those consignment sales where you ... Sure, they're clothes that are used there, but half of them haven't been used because the baby never got to wear them because they grew too fast, so clothing is one of those things that ... I like that, "Yo, that's $50 for a T-shirt." That's insane.

Reeth: That's insane, yeah. Absolutely. I get "dress for the job" that you want. Obviously, the job I want is hobo but you've got to dress for the job you want. I personally whenever I'm not dressed like this, I only shop sales if I need a button-down that. I'm a huge sale shopper. It's all I do. Black Friday, I think we talked about that on Market Foolery in the past. One thing that's actually come up recently regarding sales is Sports Authority. You guys see that Sports Authority --

Moser: Oh, yeah.

Lapera: Yeah.

Reeth: It went bankrupt and had its going out of business sales and everybody hears that and says: "Oh, it's going to be rock-bottom prices. This is a great time to go visit Sports Authority and get the shoes that cost $200 for $100 now," let's say as a random example. The problem is people forget that those stores, those companies are still looking to make as much money as possible.

Moser: Of course.

Reeth: Especially when they're going bankrupt, they need as much money as possible so in the case of Sports Authority, they hired a third-party to kind of manage their bankruptcy. This third-party came in and jacked up the prices at Sports Authority stores, before the sale and then when the sale hit, the prices went back down to almost exactly where they were before. People have been freaking out about this.

This happens all the time. Sports Authority just got caught. You just, you need to do your research. I think if there's anything that comes out of this entire show, it's: Do your research before you make any serious financial purchases or decisions even as far as shopping for sales.

Lapera: I thought the charitable stock-giving was sneaky but that's way sneakier.

Reeth: Way sneakier. It's a sneaky world out there, Gaby.

Lapera: Yeah, I just want to say that I ... There's a good portion of my shopping at Goodwill for a long time and you can find brand names, too. I think that's one of the things people think that you go in there and you can only find those dresses that your third-grade teacher wore that were kind of like jumpers with cats playing with balls of yarn on them.

Reeth: That's all I get from there too.

Lapera: Well, yeah. I get the Under Armour. Mark, where's the dresses? So to reiterate our points: pay your rent, give charitably, live frugally and give to charity shops where other people can buy your Under Armor.

Reeth: Nothing wrong with it.