Thrift store DEFINITION: A non-profit or for-profit retail establishment selling previously owned, second-hand items ranging from clothes, housewares, appliances, books, electronics, and miscellanea. Donations to thrift stores are usually tax-deductible. Here Wikipedia's international description of a thrift store, also known as a charity shop. The thrift store was always an exciting place to go growing up. We didn’t have a lot of money, so every couple of months, we’d hit the local thrift store for clothing and other supplies. This is a picture of the thrift store I remember the most. It’s the RAD Thrift Store, located at 215 West Main Street, Santa Maria, California. There is a smell to thrift stores (at least all the thrift stores that I have ever visited). It smells like body odor, mildew, disinfectant, perhaps ages of perfumes, cigarette smoke, dank attics, danker basements, and lastly, I suppose it smells like poverty. I can remember running through the aisles