“A forum dedicated to sharing your thrift finds. Garage sales, flea markets, pawn shops, and more are all allowed. Come join our community and share your passion for the hunt with like-minded people!” reads the subreddit’s description, inviting thrift store enthusiasts to show off their best finds.

Unsurprisingly, the person who created the sub is an avid thrift store visitor, too. “I do shop at thrift stores often,” they told Bored Panda in a recent interview. “I don't generally look at clothes (I am 6'5" with long arms, so it's hard to find clothes that fit). But I get a lot of kitchen stuff, board games, and electronics from thrift stores. I just really like looking at all the weird stuff they have, or stuff from my childhood. It is a form of entertainment to me.”

The redditor shared that they started r/thriftstorehauls (back in 2011) after noticing that there weren't any active thrifting subreddits. “Managing the sub is pretty easy. The community does a good job at reporting stuff enough that it gets auto removed. There are a lot of active people that let others know about our rules when someone posts something they shouldn’t. It's just a great community.”

“For the first couple years the subreddit was pretty small, with less than 2000 people, and it was extremely chill. You would see the same people all the time,” the founder recalled. “Now with us being as big as we are (the sub currently has roughly 3.7m members), it is hard to get to know people. Which isn’t a bad problem to have, though I do miss the days of it being small, which is why in part we started a Discord.”

According to Capital Shopping, as much as 16-18% of the US population shop at thrift stores. By doing that and buying secondhand, they reportedly save an average of over $1,700 per year.

But being able to save money when shopping is just part of the beauty of thrifting. “When thrifting, you will find things that aren't really for sale anywhere else other than other eBay or other websites like FB marketplace. Generally, when you find something cool, it will be cheaper,” the head of ‘Thrift Store Hauls’ told Bored Panda. “In my opinion, the biggest difference is that walking around a thrift store is more entertaining than walking around a Target or Walmart.”

According to the aforementioned source, the secondhand market in the US has been growing steadily at least since 2017 (with a slight drop in 2020, arguably because of the chaos caused by the pandemic). Standing at $43 billion as of 2023, the market is expected to reach $73 billion in 2028.

Discussing whether or not thrift shopping has been gaining popularity lately, the founder of the thrifting-focused community suggested that there has always been a culture of thrifting; but it does seem to be increasingly popular. “I think nowadays it is much more popular, especially with clothing,” they said. “I see tons of high schoolers going through all the clothes at my local Goodwill every time I am there, which is fine… that stuff doesn't fit me anyway.”

Whether or not you’re an avid thrifter yourself, you can probably imagine the joy and excitement of finding a treasure-like item. You can likely also imagine all the other kinds of goods one can find at a thrift store, and if you’d like to see some of those, check out these funny and weird thrift store finds or marvel at how this woman manages to transform thrifted items to amazing outfits.