50 Thrift Quotes For Fans Of Vintage And Frugality

By Clifton Sankofa

School Leader, Language Arts Expert & Master Quote Curator

Published June 9, 2023

Find out why thrift is considered a virtue by some with our awesome thrift quotes.

Some say that a little bit of thrift can go a long way.

Check out our thrift quotes below and find out more.

What does thrift mean?

Thrift can be different things depending on who you ask.

It can be the careful management of money and resources or healthy and vigorous growth.

Thrift can be a second-hand store and is also the name of a lovely evergreen shrub.

Check out these cool benefits we receive when we shop at thrift stores below:

Thrift stores are cheaper.
You are more likely to find unique items at a thrift store.
You support local businesses and support a cleaner environment.

When did thrift stores become popular in America?

Thrift stores grew in popularity in the late nineteenth century.

Vanity has always been a part of the human fabric, and in the late 1800s, there was a social stigma about buying and selling used clothing.

One reason for the stigma was that everyone did not keep the same cleanliness standards and feared contracting a disease by sharing clothing with others.

However, this stigma changed once Christian ministries started using thrift stores to fund their programs.

The thrift store we know today did not become popular in America until the 1920s.

The Great Depression increased the demand for secondhand clothing.

Since many could not afford new items, secondhand items became popular, and businesses began changing their efforts.

Who does the most thrift store shopping today?

People from many demographics shop at thrift stores.

However, trends suggest that Gen Z and Millennials do the most thrifting.

According to ThredUp, Gen Z and Millennials adopt secondhand clothing 2.5 times faster than other generations.

Gen Z and Millennials are two generations who have a lot in common with the generations who live during the Great Depression.

These groups were severely impacted by economic decline and, in some cases, collapse.

It is no wonder they love thrifting so much!

If you love thrifting or vintage swag makes you smile, check out our thrift quotes below.

Short thrift quotes about the magic of second-hand shopping

Here are some quick quotes from a diverse group who all share a common love for being thrifty.

1. “I like Goodwill and the thrift stores.” — Kreayshawn

2. “We shop a lot at garage sales, thrift stores.” — Jim Bob Duggar

3. “I’m on tour all the time, so I stop at thrift shops.” — Travie McCoy

4. “I shop at thrift shops probably five times a week.” — Macklemore

5. “Some of my favorite pieces are from thrift shops.” — Barry McGee

6. “I’m pretty much a thrift shop gal. Flea markets on Sundays.” — Zoe Kravitz

7. “Cannot people realize how large an income is thrift?” — Marcus Tullius Cicero

8. “As a kid, I loved going to lots of thrift stores with my parents.” — Tessa Thompson

9. “I love to go thrift store shopping or explore any sort of garage sale.” — Zoey Deutch

10. “If I dig something, I’ll throw it on. I like random stuff you can get at thrift shops.” — Sasha Lane

More short thrift find quotes celebrating the virtue of thrift

From Marcus Tullius Cicero to John D. Rockefeller, it seems everyone has an opinion about frugality.

11. “I love charity thrift stores.” — Lara Spencer

12. “Thrift is inimical to our being.” — J. D. Vance

13. “Thrift is of great revenue.” — Marcus Tullius Cicero

14. “The scope of thrift is limitless.” — Thomas A. Edison

15. “I’ve always been a thrift store kid.” — Playboi Carti

16. “Sometimes the poor are praised for being thrifty.” — Oscar Wilde

17. “The reward of energy, enterprise, and thrift is taxes.” — William Feather

18. “I believe that thrift is essential to well-ordered living.” — John D. Rockefeller

19.“You cannot bring about prosperity by discouraging thrift.” — William J. H. Boetcker

20. “You cannot bring about prosperity without discouraging thrift.” — J. Paul Getty

Thrift shopping quotes and sayings from serial thrift hunters

Some people pride themselves on sniffing out a deal and finding a thrift store.

21. “I don’t really shop unless it’s thrift.” — Jeremy Scott

22. “I like thrift stores and vintage stuff, and not so much going to Urban Outfitters.” — Morgan Saylor

23. “You can get the look you want between thrift stores and stores like Ikea and Target.” — Bobby Berk

24. “We owe something to extravagance, for thrift and adventure seldom go hand in hand.” — Lady Randolph Churchill

25. “I used to go to Saks, I would go to Bergdorf, I would go to Barneys, I would go to thrift stores in SoHo.” — ASAP Rocky

26. “People come to my house and can’t believe that I picked up everything on the street or in a thrift shop.” — Elle Varner

27. “I love thrift shopping. You can get ten things because everything costs, like, three dollars.” — Lorde

28. “I like to thrift. I think it’s the funnest thing ever. But it’s a sport: You have to wake up, eat, and then it’s a whole day.” — Ravyn Lenae

29. “What I learned growing up on the farm was a way of life that was centered on hard work, and on faith and on thrift.” — Rick Perry

30. “I was kind of ashamed of my bourgeois family as a teenager, I guess – I had dreadlocks, shopped in thrift stores, and pretended I had no money.” — Lou Doillon

Thrift store quotes and sayings about the love of vintage fashion

Vintage and thrift shopping is an art; these quotes remind us why.

31. “I shop only at thrift stores and vintage stores.” — Ezra Miller

32. “I was brought up in an era when thrift was still considered a virtue.” — J. Paul Getty

33. “I might wear skinny pants one day; I might wear thrift shop pants the next day.” — Post Malone

34. “I still like thrift store shopping, and I don’t like to put a lot of effort into what I’m going to wear.” — Lauren Ambrose

35. “Thrift shopping is all about going into the thrift shop and having no expectation of what you might find.” — Macklemore

36. “Growing up, I just made do with whatever I had access to; a lot of hand-me-downs and thrift store shopping.” — Ruby Rose

37. “But to recommend thrift to the poor is both grotesque and insulting. It is like advising a man who is starving to eat less.” — Oscar Wilde

38. “Industry, thrift, and self-control are not sought because they create wealth, but because they create character.” — Calvin Coolidge

39. “A garden is a grand teacher. It teaches patience and careful watchfulness; it teaches industry and thrift; above all, it teaches entire trust.” — Gertrude Jekyll

40. “When I’m in a thrift store, I gravitate toward pieces I know I’ll wear a ton, and insane pieces that I’m sure most people would consider gross.’” — Victoria Legrand

Thrift dress and thrifty finds quotes about the power of thrift

Some say we are over-relying on thrift to solve many of the world’s problems.

41. “The only sure road to restored prosperity is through the thrift and hard work of our people as a whole.” — Charles M. Schwab

42. “I have said before, you don’t expect conservative parties to believe in much, but you do expect them to believe in thrift.” — Paul Keating

43. “I’m old enough to remember in the 1930s and the 1940s when thrift, frugality, was considered an important virtue.” — Edmund Phelps

44. “I usually wear a yellow cloth belt with cherries or a leather belt with a beautiful tree buckle that I got at a thrift store.” — Hannah Kearney

45. “I really like mixing very old beautiful pieces that are from thrift shops or that have some historical value with quite new futuristic things.” — Bat for Lashes

46. “As an adolescent, I saw the Specials at the Glass House in Pomona, and that was life-changing. I dressed the part – except not well because it was a thrift suit.” — Devendra Banhart

More Quotes About Thrifty Finds

Enjoy a few more quotes about deals and being thrifty.

47. “There’s no reason anybody should be reading too much into ‘Thrift Shop.’ I just have because I have a 10-year-old and a 7-year-old who are really into going to lyric websites, hitting print, and printing lyrics for every song that’s popular.” — Al Madrigal

48. “Whether it’s spending more time and money at thrift shops for threads or combing the record store for the most unknown/least coherent band they can find, there’s one thing that hipsters constantly want you to know: that they are better than you.” — Steven Crowder

49. “I started traveling out of curiosity, but I have come to believe in travel’s political importance, that encouraging a nation’s citizenry to travel may be as important as encouraging school attendance, environmental conservation, or national thrift.” — Andrew Solomon

50. “The whole thing of clothes is insane. You can spend a dollar on a jacket in a thrift store. And you can spend a thousand dollars on a jacket in a shop. And if you saw those two jackets walking down the street, you probably wouldn’t know which was which.” — Helen Mirren

How does thrifting help our environment?

Textile waste is one of the most significant problems on our planet.

Fast fashion is a term used to describe a clothing industry practice where catwalk trends are replicated, mass-produced, and sold at a low cost at retail stores.

While this concept sounds cool, the impacts on our planet are devastating.

Fast fashion has resulted in 17 million tons of textile waste filling our landfills.

This is a severe problem we should consider because it takes roughly two hundred years for these products to decompose.

Thrift stores reduce waste by reusing clothes and ensuring they get a longer life span.

At many thrift stores, items that cannot be sold are recycled, significantly lowering the amount of textile waste we produce annually.

Additionally, thrifting helps save water and reduces carbon emissions.

Did you know that the fashion industry is the industry that consumes the second most water in the world?

Reports estimate that the fashion industry uses seventy-nine billion cubic meters of water annually!