Almost everything I wear is secondhand, and not because it's virtuous — because alt clothing bought new is wildly overpriced for what it is. A black slip is a black slip. You are not getting forty pounds of extra quality because it came from a shop with a skull in the logo.
Thrift the basics, all of them
Black tops, band tees, slips, skirts, long-sleeves, flannels. These are your volume pieces, you'll wear them constantly, and you'll wear them out. Buying those new is setting money on fire.
Charity shops and secondhand apps are full of them because black basics are what everyone owns and everyone eventually clears out. I've never once gone looking for a plain black long-sleeve and failed to find one.
Check the men's section first
Genuinely, first, before anything else. It's where the oversized band tees live, it's where the good flannels are, and it's frequently cheaper for an identical garment. The sizing is more generous, which is exactly what you want for the oversized-over-something silhouette.
Half my favourite pieces came from a men's rail. Nobody has ever been able to tell, and I wouldn't care if they could.
Spend the money on boots
This is the exception. Cheap boots have glued soles, and once a glued sole starts separating the boot is over — you can't resole it. Something welted costs more once and then lasts years and can be repaired indefinitely.
If the budget is tight, buy one good pair secondhand rather than two new bad ones. Well-made boots turn up used constantly because people buy them, find them heavy, and give up. Their loss.
Alterations are the cheat code
A five-pound dress taken in properly looks better than most things at ten times the price, because fit is the thing that actually reads as expensive. Hemming, taking in a waist, shortening straps — all cheap, all fast.
If you can do a basic hand stitch you can do most of it yourself. I learned off videos specifically so I could stop passing up things that were nearly right.
Go often, buy little
Thrifting rewards frequency, not time spent. Stock changes constantly, so ten minutes once a week beats two hours once a month. Learn where your local ones are and drop in when you're passing.
And leave things behind. The instinct when you find a good shop is to buy everything remotely interesting, and then you own nine things you don't wear. If it isn't a yes on the rail it won't become one at home.
Basics secondhand, boots new or well-chosen used, and a tailor for anything that's nearly right. That's the whole system, and it costs a fraction of doing it the obvious way.
Outfit posts, in full, are on my page.
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