This month’s pre-loved finds {August 2026}….

Welcome to my monthly pre-loved bargain post, which is always one of my favourite posts to write. 😀

There’s something so satisfying about finding something you genuinely need or love second-hand, especially when it costs a fraction of what it would have done new or even what it’s worth now.  

This month’s post has somehow turned into a handbag special, which wasn’t intentional at all, but I realised I had four very different pre-loved bags that I wanted to share.

We’re talking everything from a £1.50 vintage Disney bag to a pre-loved vintage Prada bag, with a potentially 1930s bag and a £2 Vinted beach bag with a shared custody arrangement thrown in for good measure. 😂

My £1.50 vintage Disney Chip ‘n Dale bag

I’m starting off strong with my new bag, although when the kids came round and saw how excited I was about it, they were absolutely mortified. Apparently they don’t share my excellent taste. 😂

I know it’s a bit childish, but I absolutely love it! It’s a vintage Disney Chip ‘n Dale bag that I’ve managed to date to somewhere around 1991/1992, and it’s in amazing condition. Even better, I only paid £1.50 for it from the clearance section of our local charity superstore, which makes it one of my favourite charity shop finds for ages.

Google gives me all sorts of results when I search for it, including some very optimistic ideas about what it might be worth, but I’m not actually interested in selling it.

I bought it before our holidays this summer with plans to use it as my swim bag, and that’s exactly what I did. Now we’re home, I’m thinking it might become my lunch bag for work because something this fabulous deserves to be used rather than shoved away in a cupboard.

Sometimes the best charity shop bargains aren’t the ones you buy to make money from – they’re the ones that make you smile every time you use them. 🐿️❤️

Is this bag really from the 1930s?

My next bag came home with me from our holiday and I’m still not entirely sure what I’ve actually bought. 😂

I spotted it at a farmers’ market and the woman selling it was very keen to tell me that it dated back to the 1930s. She seemed quite confident about it. Me? Not so much.

Luckily, it was only a few pounds so I wasn’t exactly buying it as an investment or planning my retirement around its potential value. I just really liked it.

It’s quite a stiff, structured shape and my first thought wasn’t actually to use it as a handbag at all. I thought it would make a really unusual little storage basket somewhere in the house. I’m not entirely sure where yet, but that’s the plan.

It may genuinely be almost 100 years old or it may be considerably younger than the lady at the market wanted me to believe. Either way, I paid a few pounds for something that I really like, so I’m happy.

My pre-loved Prada bag

Next up is a bag I’ve actually owned for a few years.

I bought this Prada bag pre-loved from Vestiaire Collective and, from memory, I think I paid around £75 for it. It was authenticated when I bought it so I knew it was genuine, and I’ve loved it ever since.

I don’t use it all that often because it’s somehow become one of my holiday bags. It spends most of its life tucked away and then comes out whenever we’re going somewhere, which probably makes me love it even more because I associate it with trips away and good times.

I had absolutely no intention of selling it, but after using Google Lens on some of my other pre-loved finds, I thought I’d have a cheeky look and see what came up for this one.

Similar bags are selling for more than £250!

So there you go. Conclusive proof that handbags are an excellent investment and I should absolutely be allowed to buy more of them. 😂

Obviously I’m joking – mostly – and I’m not planning to sell it anyway. But I do love the fact that I paid around £75 for a designer bag I’ve enjoyed using for years and it could now potentially be worth considerably more than I paid for it.

That’s one of the things I love about buying pre-loved. Sometimes spending a little more on something you really love can work out brilliantly, especially when you’re buying a quality item that holds its value.

The £2 beach bag with a shared custody arrangement

And finally, we have possibly the hardest-working bag of the lot.

This one cost me £2 on Vinted and it’s pretty much the perfect beach and pool bag. It’s roomy enough to fit everything in, easy to carry and exactly the kind of bag you can chuck everything into before heading down to the pool.

Unfortunately, my daughter thinks it’s the perfect beach bag too.

So we now have what can only really be described as a shared custody arrangement. 😂

Whoever is going on holiday next generally gets the bag, so it regularly moves between our houses depending on our travel plans. For something that cost just £2, it’s certainly getting plenty of use.

And actually, I think that’s my favourite thing about all four of these bags.

One cost £1.50, one cost a few pounds, one cost around £75 and one cost £2. One might be from the 1930s, one is vintage Disney, one is Prada and one spends its life being passed backwards and forwards between me and my daughter.

None of them were bought because I desperately needed another handbag. I bought them because I liked them, knew I’d use them or could see a completely different use for them.

And that’s exactly why I love shopping pre-loved. It’s not always about finding the cheapest possible thing or buying something you can sell for more later. Sometimes it’s about finding something a little bit different that you genuinely love – whether that’s a designer bag that’s gone up in value or a £2 beach bag that you have to negotiate custody of every time someone books a holiday. 😂

I’d love you to follow me on Twitter and it would be amazing to see you over on my Facebook page and on Instagram. If you’re interested, you can find out more about me here and while I’ve got your attention, if you’re wondering why some of my posts lately are a little bit less frugal then have a read of this post. 😉

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