Goodwill Day

For today's activities, Tara and I decided to checkout the various Goodwill stores in the area since it was their 50% Sale Saturday. We've been going to them lately looking for some clothes for our upcoming trip to Hatteras, NC. Since Tara got laid-off a couple weeks ago, Goodwill has been a good option.

Last night I'd visited one store and found a couple nice coffee grinders (for grinding whole spices, as I don't actually drink coffee) and a small deep fryer (for doughnut research). I took note so I could visit today.

After another great lunch of dim sum at China Chan near MetroCenter Mall, we headed to the GW at 35th Ave/Northern. It was the southern-most GW on our original itinerary. We didn't find anything of interest, but did see a worker escort out some loser who had tried to shoplift something. From Goodwill. On 50% off day. They didn't call the cops, but warned him not to come back.

Next, we headed to the GW at 19th Ave/Thunderbird, the location of the appliances I had my eye on. Since it was early afternoon, they were long gone. There was a somewhat worse-for-wear lower-end model that I passed on. I did, however, get lucky when one of the workers came into the shorts section and hung up a nice pair of jean shorts exactly my size right in front of me. They barely settled on the rack before I grabbed them. I was happy now.

We hit the 35th Ave/Greenway and 19th Ave/Bell store but didn't find anything. At the 7th St/Union Hills, I bought some jeans and a pair of cargo shorts. From there, we hit Happy Valley but didn't find anything. At 40th St/Thunderbird I found a pyrex loaf pan, perfect for my current bread baking kick. 35th St/Greenway was another goose egg.

The Cactus/Cave Creek Rd store provided one of the deals of the day. While I was looking at jeans and shorts, Tara went into the electronics area. She came over to me bearing a new-looking KitchenAid coffee grinder. At only $4.50 after discount, I was very happy. It was better than the other two I'd seen, so I was quite psyched. I know, it's the little things.

As this was the last of the stores we knew off-hand, I looked at the map of locations I'd printed last night. There was a location at 7th St/Dunlap, just down Cave Creek Rd from where we were, so we headed down the mountain. That store proved to be a treasure trove for us. Two new-looking non-stick loaf pans, a pop-over pan that I saw and Tara had to have, and a Cuisinart ice cream maker. All for only $9.

As we waited to pay, I remembered I'd seen an identical ice cream maker that was missing the paddle at one of the other stores. It would be great for the spare freezer bowl. The problem was, I couldn't remember WHICH store. By this time it was nearly 8pm. We back-tracked to the four most recent stores but it wasn't any of them. It was now 8:50, so we decided to call it a night.

Grand total for it all: $25.
New retail cost of just the grinder and ice cream maker: $80.

That's math that I like.