My dad recently got my kids into playing golf. My younger son, Sam, is particularly obsessed with the game, but for the last several months he’s been using my dad’s old clubs which are way too big for him. Today was his tenth birthday and I knew I wanted to get him a set of his own, but the ones I saw at Dick’s were pretty expensive and the sets I found on Amazon were cheaply made.

And then my dad found these used kids’ clubs at a secondhand sporting goods store—a little dinged and dented but a quality set of clubs that’ll work great for a beginner. And you know what? My son was THRILLED. Absolutely over the moon about them. It didn’t matter that they weren’t brand new; they were the same brand his grandfather uses and, to him, that meant more than a shiny new set.

This was a good reminder to me that there’s a whole secondhand economy out there that sidesteps the overpriced, low quality crap we’ve become used to. If I want to find good quality items at a price I can stomach, I’d do better to scour yard sales and consignment shops rather than Amazon and Target.

Secondhand shopping, FTW.