Savannah Cottingham

Thanks, I Thrifted It

PUBLISHED IN FOLIO 2026: VOL. 41.

In the hazy glow of the late ’90s and early 2000s, when dial-up tones filled kitchens and
Blockbuster cards still held power, the average American family earned roughly $40,000 to
$50,000 a year. My father made about half of that. It was enough to keep the lights on, stretch
dinners into leftovers, and to make Christmas feel bigger than it was.

On Christmas morning, we’d wake to a treasure trove of gifts arranged in a semi-crooked
half-circle, taking turns unwrapping each shiny new, or semi-used toy, thrifted from the local
Goodwill. When you’re a child, it doesn’t matter if another kid played with it before you. My
Digi Makeover still worked perfectly on the TV. I still flaunted my pink Heelys to the
neighborhood boys who lived in our cul-de-sac. My Harry Potter books had all the same words
as everyone else’s, maybe even better ones, because they’d lived another life before finding their
way into my hands.

I learned much later that the rule was simple: each of us got one brand-new “big” toy
from Santa, and the rest were thrifted. It never bothered me. In fact, when I became an adult, and
my annual income was half of the half my father brought in, I bought my baby daughter’s
Christmas gifts from the thrift store too. Because the magic was never in where the gifts came
from or how much they cost. It was in the unwrapping, in the elation of receiving something so
precious.

Maybe that’s where my love for lost things began. Some might call it frugality; I call it
seeing value where others can’t. American consumerism never entertained me much. At least,
not until after my divorce. Then I wandered into the world, buying myself the expensive things

I’d always denied. I told myself; I deserve it—a mantra I leaned on even when I didn’t have
much to spend. My values shifted as I tried to discover what happiness looked like for me.
It wasn’t that I didn’t like myself; I just didn’t know who I was. My identity had been
swallowed whole by motherhood. I had four children, three I birthed and one kid brother, who
had a habit of fighting for and stealing shiny things. He was obsessed with brand names and
newness, a trait he inherited from my ex-husband, Colton, who was in a lifelong pissing contest
with everyone around him. Though we lived in a run-down trailer on the south side of town that
barely kept heat in the winter, he always had to have the newest game console, the latest toys, the
flashiest personality. And somewhere in the noise of it all, I lost mine. I learned to tiptoe around
his moods, afraid of how sharp his words might slice that day. I grew angry and mean, collecting
insults like ammunition. I cherry-picked my moments of joy and prided myself on being
resilient.

My marriage was broken, but I was the one who held everything together. I made the
decisions, fixed the car, paid the bills. I ran the household while my counterpart made bad
investments, boasted about his new guns, and spent my scholarship savings on a truck that broke
down six months later. Life for him was, whose is bigger, grab the stick.
After the divorce, I reached for the ultimate feminine. Being a single mother wasn’t the
hard part; I’d been doing that all along. The hard part was the quiet, the silence of my chaotic
house when the kids were with their dad. The hard part was facing that I didn’t know who I was
or what I wanted. I explored the likes of men, and when they didn’t fit, hung too loosely against
my hip or were too stained to salvage, I donated them back to society.

People would compliment me on my personality. I’d say, “Thanks, I thrifted it.” Because
isn’t that what I did? I picked up my mannerisms secondhand. Learned to love through borrowed
examples when my parents didn’t teach me. I softened my voice by studying how others reacted.
What am I but a wooden shelf on a wall filled with thrifted trinkets of personality—some shiny
and new, others tattered and worn. Yet people still admire me.
I am the mid-century candelabra, silver-plated, selling on eBay for $129.99 when I
bought it for four dollars. I am the cast-iron, enameled, speckled strainer, strong and reliable. I
didn’t buy it new; I found it in a thrift store somewhere near the Oregon coast. I am the first-
edition Bram Stoker, Dracula that sits encased on its own shelf in my home library. Intellectual,
precious, once buried under the weight of prettier books with sprayed edges. I am your
grandmother’s cookbook, with corners creased, saved for rainy days. I have crossed out lines and
annotations, added three eggs, not two.

I thrift trinkets like personalities: uranium glass, oversized handmade coffee mugs, brass
picture frames, vintage wine glasses, and wooden spice racks. My book collection is enormous,
but that’s to be expected when I pay fifty cents for a paperback.

Sometimes I think I even thrifted my now-husband. He had once been picked up shiny
and new, loved and cared for for ten years until the next models came out. When the shiny new
playthings that his ex-wife found more fun to play with came along, then he was labeled for
giveaway, and discarded. But I’ve always liked collecting lost things. The vintage treasures I
find secondhand are, to me, invaluable, precious trinkets I admire and adore.

I’m utterly taken with the man, and he knows it. He’s the kind of find that makes your
heart leap when you spot it tucked behind the clutter on a back shelf, the one you snap a photo of
to show your thrifting friends in disbelief. His love isn’t cheap; it’s better than that. It’s freely
given, without a price tag at all.

Now I don’t mind being barefoot in the kitchen—minus the swollen belly, minus the
uterus. I bake bread from a sourdough starter that needs feeding twice a day. I talk to my plants,
and they grow taller. I speak softer and love harder. I am not a wildfire of chaos anymore. I
picked up my calm secondhand and learned to love a man who isn’t shiny or new. His value has
only risen over the years. He’s vintage. A one-of-a-kind classic. Old-fashioned and chiseled.

My femininity is secondhand, gold-plated with agency in hints of coppery tones, adored
and mostly intact. I have a maximalist soul and the heart of a velvet couch. My walls are photo-
frame filled. A particular kind of aesthetic. Dark tones and oddities. Bones and mushrooms.
Moss and crystals. Dungeon-style candle holders with snake-coiled tapers. Wax statues of naked
women and ecosystems trapped in glass bottles with cork tops. A 1905 working paperweight
typewriter.

I’ve learned that secondhand things hold stories the new ones never will. A scratch on a
coffee table, a crease in a book’s spine; proof that someone else lived here once, that joy and
grief both left fingerprints. Maybe that’s why I hold on to things longer than most people. Like
dust motes that refuse to leave the sunlight. I find joy in the discarded. I see memories in chipped
mugs with fading glaze. Everything can be mended, even myself, with enough patience and a
little rub-and-buff gold. Like kintsugi, the art of broken pottery, my cracks only make me shine
in stranger, more beautiful ways.

I am not new. I’m the unicorn find on every thrifter’s bucket list.

Savannah Cottingham holds a BA in English Literature and Creative Writing from Montana State University and is currently pursuing her MA in Professional and Creative Writing at Central Washington University. She is the author of The Last Keeper and The Fated Ones, both published by Ink and Paper Press. Her poetry has appeared in Silent Sparks Press, The Rook, As It Works, and Eagle Art Academic Journal. She was awarded first place for her works of poetry at the 2024, MSU Billings Creative and Research Symposium. Savannah lives with her family in a small mountain town in Montana, where she spends her time writing, drinking coffee, and creating new worlds of lore.