A trip to the Goodwill thrift shop is a treasure in a lot of regards. You never truly know what to expect, and it’s grown into a TikTok trend where people go to thrift shops and show their followers the deals they got. A Floridian creator thought she had gotten the mother lode with a $10 grab bag, only to find out things weren’t what they seemed.
If you don’t know what a $10 grab bag is, congratulations on all your success in life — and presumably you’re enjoying the tax cuts. For everyone else, a grab bag is a form of gambling — and that’s welcome, because what sets it apart is how low risk it is, unlike other newer forms of it. It comes as a plastic bag that you unwrap after you’ve already bought it, and only then do you find out what exactly you paid for.
For TikTok creator redheadedmama05 — real name Lacey — she hit the jackpot and got exactly the types of toys she wanted. Turns out that Macklemore song wasn’t so wrong. But when she got to the counter, the cashier claimed that her bag had something it “shouldn’t have,” and asked Lacey to return her grab bag. So she did what any self-respecting human being would do in 2026 and posted it on TikTok instead.
The post has gone on to garner more than 1.5 million views, and the comments are lively. One user wrote, “I donated a bunch of stuffed animals last year, and when I was unloading them, the worker helping me was telling me which ones she was taking home. Made me not want to donate any more…” Another user added, “Reminder that Goodwill is a for-profit organization that pays its disabled employees under the minimum wage.” And one user even discouraged going to the store altogether, writing, “Going to Goodwill in person is pointless now. Anything halfway nice gets held back and sold online. And the stuff that’s crummy is overpriced.”
From that point, people in her comments were just sharing negative experiences at their local Goodwill stores. The story started trending on X too, and one user on that platform gave an anecdote about their experience working at a Goodwill store when they were a teenager during their summer break.
According to the user, when new inventory comes in, the best items are placed into watermelon boxes — like the ones used at Walmart — and then shipped to warehouses across the country for storage. They would leave about 10% of the inventory for appraisal by staff, who, as has previously been mentioned, are often overworked and underpaid — and that’s where mistakes start happening. Hence, valuable goods occasionally end up in the $10 grab bags.
As for Lacey, there’s really little she could do. She unfortunately just had to follow the rules of the Goodwill store she was at, despite them shifting the goalposts just when things got interesting. Online stores are probably the only way to get actual steals these days.
Published: Apr 29, 2026 03:57 pm