Young reporter, Scarlett Tynan-Morris, Comberton Village College

Thrifting is a sustainable and trendy way to shop, so I decided to spend a day doing so to see why I could find.

First I went to a clothing ‘swish’. A swish is a clothing swap - you donate clothes and then later on you get to pick out any amount of items you like for free!

The swish was organised by members of the Sustainability Forum at St John’s College, Cambridge. It started at 11am but I got there around 9am as I volunteered to help out. I moved boxes of donated clothes, sorted and folded them into categories. Then at 11am, everyone started coming in and we all started looking for our next favourite item of clothing.

There was a lot of scrambling and it was hard watching our organisation ruined in 30 seconds flat- but I found some great stuff! I even found a dress that was in my H&M basket in my size.

A whopping 115kg of clothing was donated and the event saved 2.3 tonnes of CO2 – free clothes and helping the environment.

In the afternoon, I went to the annual jumble sale Grantchester - we queued to get in and went in the main room- trinkets, books, some of the clothes and jewellery. We found a Super-Dry jumper for my brother and a Tom Brady basketball shirt, and some plaid red pj bottoms for me-again something I’ve been coveting.

The second, smaller room, however, we found so many good finds in! I found a new teddy bear coat, some cute jumpers and some lovely tops.

After a day of experience, some top tips for thrifting are:

  1. Always think- do I need this? A lot of things you find, you think it's so cheap you might as well get it- but remember be selective with what you purchase-it's better to have a few quality pieces than loads of random cheap items.
  2. Look for colours that you like and then look at the items- especially when you are pulling items out- see what grabs you eye then look further.
  3. If it opens at a certain time- get there about 20 minutes before and be first in the queue- this way you have more selection of clothes and items:
  4. Charity shops! Go to local charity shops and look there, it's a lot calmer than kilo or jumble sales- but a lot of good stuff there too! (Handbags are always good to look at at charity shops)