‘I find I can afford really good things (at thrift stores). I never go to department stores any more. I think it is foolish.’

In the Goodwill Industries thrift shop in Lomita, Helen Olsen triumphantly held up a toy bear.

“It costs $5. I think that it is a good buy,” she said. “These are $20 in the department stores--at least! I get so much more for my money.”

At least she did on Friday. An entire basket of toys cost her $20. And parking was no problem.

As hordes of frenzied shoppers flocked like lemmings to the South Bay’s upscale malls the day after Thanksgiving--turning acres of parking lots into tableaux of teeth-gritting gridlock--smaller groups of equally avid acquisitors pursued their quarry at leisure in down-home thrift shops.

Little of the merchandise is new. The selection has gaps. Clothing styles are dated. The lighting is not as bright.

But the prices are right.

Olsen, a real estate agent who lives in San Pedro, said Christmas shopping at thrift stores is a necessity for her. “I got three little grandsons,” she said.

Olsen brought along grandson Joshua Chavez, 7, a second-grader at the Tabor Avenue Elementary School.

For Joshua, thrift stores mean more fun than department stores.

He made zooming noises as he aimed a 2-foot-long Sky Striker F-100 jet fighter at a bin full of stuffed animals.

“They let you play more,” he explained between bombing runs.

Marge Hutcheson, 65, of Redondo Beach, who lives on Social Security, also has grandchildren to buy presents for and discovers real finds in thrift stores.

“I find I can afford really good things,” she said at the Goodwill store in Redondo Beach. “I never go to department stores any more. I think it is foolish. One blouse is $75. Women’s shoes are $125. Most of my friends have money. I don’t.”

Recently, she said, a friend from the East Coast saw a knitted dress that she had bought at a thrift shop.

“She had just seen it at Saks--that’s where she shops--(for) $350,” she said. “I bought it for $5.”

For Tranquilla Adkins, 47, an unemployed Venice resident, thrift stores have become a way of life. She has a map of all the Goodwill stores and cruises them regularly, looking for bargains.

“This is what you do when you are unemployed,” she said.

The busiest shopping day of the year found her in Redondo Beach, buying a stuffed animal doll for Megan, 2, a granddaughter who lives in Seattle.

Before she left her job in New York with the Hertz car business, she always shopped at department stores.

“Bloomingdale’s, I owed my soul to them, of course,” she said.

At first, she was unsure about going to thrift stores.

“Me going to a Goodwill store!” Then she got hooked. “It is fun. I love it,” she said. Nowadays, she won’t go near a department store.

“I don’t like the crowds, the service, paying 10 times what it is worth,” she said.

Her friends, who shop at department stores, are continually astonished at the bargains she finds in thrift shops.

“They can’t believe it,” she said.

Then, they believe.

“Why didn’t you get me one like that?” they say.