NCT Nearly New Sale - 26/10/13

I surprised myself and went to a nearly new sale being held by the NCT just to see what was up for grabs.

It's not really my kind of thing. I'm a terrible snob when it comes to second hand. It's not that someone else has worn it but I hate existing imperfections implying that we didn't look after the item and I don't trust other people's lifestyles and habits.

I'm far from a super clean and meticulous individual but I need to know the source of the filth to be relaxed about it.

I also hate cheap new stuff.

And I hate overpriced new stuff.

It's a bit of a quandary when I want to have the best for baby but don't want to pay for it, so I've been trying to be more open to second hand and try to think of it as recycling good quality.

I've been doing a lot of window shopping on Ebay and it does seem that there are bargains to be had, although my first actual purchase was a bit of a disaster. I'd bought a second hand high quality maternity dress thinking I'd wear it for Christmas. It was sold as ready to wear, fresh from the dry cleaners.

Well, it came and it had the dry clean label inside and yet it still stunk of BO like it had been set into the material. Urgh. Never going to wear it now and the comparatively small price paid is just down the drain.

Anyway, I went to this nearly new sale thing expecting it to be Ebay type stuff but without the postage price. James even came along.

We got inside, paid 50p each for the privilege and was walking back out again with empty hands exactly 5 minutes later.

I don't know what it was. I was kind of expecting each seller to have their own stall so you could meet the person whose seconds you'd be sticking your baby in but it was just tables full of toys and rails full of clothes that could have been pulled out of the bins for all I knew.

Plus it was just used cheap things for sale.

I thought maybe we'd just missed the best stuff and perhaps we did, but we were only 30mins later than the opening time. Everyone else seemed to have bags packed full off stuff and still eagerly rummaged through more, just grabbing and snatching in a random fashion. It was a bit like vultures fighting over the scraps left by the hyenas.

I'm not even sure anyone was buying for their children with the lack of care they were taking.

I did try looking through the rails but a glance from James said it all, we didn't want our baby wearing this crap.

Sure it might sound like we're putting down people who can't afford better, but these people weren't hard up. At worst they were depriving people who needed stuff like this from getting it for free because that's where it would have gone if it hadn't ended up at the sale. No one needs that many items of clothing, it's just greed or vanity or whatever.

I won't be going to another one anyway. Not my scene.