Summer vacation is upon us. In a perfect world Mom, you’ve been slaving away for hours at the gym (really, what more do you have to do with your day anyway? HA!), so you could rock that mommy swim skirt with confidence on your upcoming beach vacation. Insert crazy loud snorting laughter here. Ok, maybe not, but if you’re like me, I have decided to take a stand when packing for my upcoming trip, hereby vowing not to pack my three pairs of black yoga pants (in varying stages of fading), and favorite stained t-shirts. They will not enter my new fabulous hot pink zebra striped suitcase. However, if that’s the case I need to go shopping, and since I broke the bank on the five full price plan tickets, I got about a hundred bucks to work with for a five day vacation. I’m headed to Thrift Town.

In addition to the yoga pants and stained tees, I am also refusing to wear the mommy swim skirt. So before I lost my nerve, my first stop at Thrift Town was the bathing suit department. I found some amazing finds that still had the tags on them, all for under $5 ea.

Since parting with the swim skirt is a recent development, and I am not ready to flounce around the beaches in just two (small) garments shy of my birthday suit, my next stop was securing a few fun cover-ups. Winner, winner, chicken dinner (which will be eaten post vacation when yoga pants are an option again)!

I also needed a few fun options for sight-seeing and going out to eat. I always pack one dressy outfit every time I pack in case hell happens to freeze over and my hubby gets the urge to go somewhere besides In and Out Burger, call me a romantic. I found some great options in the women’s department that will do the trick! I even found a cute new workout outfit in case he doesn’t.

All in all, I think I did pretty well. I stayed on budget, came away with some amazing outfits and accessories, most of which were brand names, and I may even work these pieces into my everyday Summer Mommy wardrobe post vacation. I’m not gonna lie though; I’ll be missing my yoga pants like a baby misses their blankie!

Happy thrifting!

Gina Doglione-Nielsen is featured every week on Good Day Sacramento’s Thrifty Thursdays, and owns GNJ Consulting which handles Public, Social, and Media Relations for Thrift Town Stores. Gina lives in Northern California with her amazing husband Josh, and is constantly on the go with three “very active” and “strong personality” bambinos; aka Team Nielsen, and loves every minute of it.