Hey, my name is Anne. Welcome to my thrift store directory of Milwaukee’s finest 🙂
I started thrifting when I was about 14 years old, “before it was cool”, and well before Macklemore’s “Thrift Shop” (iykyk). At the time, I was hitting up Goodwills across Milwaukee, trying to find the perfect “mom jeans”. I had a pretty good technique for turning these into the perfect, high-waist daisy dukes that were so popular at the time. I would use a variety of tools, including a razor meant for shaving (don’t worry, I didn’t use it on myself after!). What a time to be alive.
I’ve loved thrifting ever since and continue to hit up Milwaukee’s thrift and vintage stores whenever I get the chance. I would say that roughly 75% of my closet is thrifted. I’ve also done my time on digital eCommerce sites, including ThredUp and Poshmark. A couple years ago I also began selling on Poshmark (check out my closet).
As a full-time employee and mom of a one-year-old, the time I have to spend a day scoping out Milwaukee’s thrift stores is limited. That is where the idea for this website was born. When trying to discover which stores to hit up, I unfortunately discovered that ‘milwaukee thrift stores’ yielded few results for me, and finding exactly what I was looking for was a challenge.
I started to dream up this website. What if there was a central spot for all of the Milwaukee area thrift stores? One where you could filter by location, types of items, or price point? On top of that, where do people go to find local flea markets, estate or neighborhood garage sales? Thus, Thrift MKE was born.
This website is still a work in progress and it will take some time for me to discover and build out all of the locations. The one thing I don’t want to do is auto-generate content for each of these special places with AI slop. My hope is to visit as many of these stores as I can and provide my own take. I happily welcome any suggestions or feedback – you can reach me at annecotter94@gmail.com.
In the meantime, happy thrifting!
