Friday, April 13, 2012

Buying Kids' Clothes on a Tight Budget

When we were a 2-income family, I didn't give a lot of thought to buying clothes. If we needed them, we went out and bought them. Granted, I never went over the top (when I was working full time we had one child, a boy, and it's hard to go over the top with boys' clothes because to me they all seemed very similar. Jeans. Polos. T-shirts.)

But now that we are a 1-income family, and we are trying to make that 1-income stretch to many things, buying clothes for us and our kids is done very thoughtfully and creatively.

A few days ago I read a great article on 8 Ways to Save Money on Children's Clothes. One of the suggestions in that article is to buy kids' clothes at a resale shop. Which is something that never crossed my mind when we were a 2-income family, but now I'm so glad that we live near a few good resale shops and I've just started shopping them in the past year. Especially with having a girl, because the resale shops have so much good stuff for girls (older boys' clothes are so much harder to come by, I guess because boys are so rough!)

And every so often, there is a Groupon-type deal for half off at a kids resale shop, which makes the deals even sweeter. I recently bought 2 Groupons for $10 for $20 worth of merchandise at Once Upon A Child. Yesterday I took one of my $10 certificates in and bought 5 pieces of clothing for my kids. A dress, a girl's shirt, two pairs of denim shorts/skirts, and a pair of boy's athletic shorts. Not bad for $10!



The dress is denim, from Gymboree with tags still on. And as a bonus, it has little white anchors on it, perfect to take on our cruise!


Do you shop at resale shops or consignment sales? Garage sales? Do you have any tips to share?
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3 comments:

  1. trumpet girlApril 13, 2012 at 4:50 PM

    Many of the consignment sales that last a day or two offer half off right before the sale closes. The selection is not as big, but what you do find is super cheap!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Jenn KinchenApril 13, 2012 at 6:22 PM

    I'm a huge fan of consignment sales. Even on 2 incomes its hard to beat the bargains, especially when the kids grow out of stuff so fast.

    My mom's church in McKinney hosts Sweet Repeats twice a year which benefits their MOPS chapter. Like the previous comment, they both offer 50-75% off sales on the last day. If you volunteer at Sweet Repeats you get to shop early also. I loaded up befor our first was born and have been back to at least one of these sales every year for the next seasons worth of clothes.

    http://www.sweetrepeatsmckinney.org/
    http://www.divineconsign.net/

    ReplyDelete
  3. NancyApril 13, 2012 at 6:33 PM

    I hadn't heard of the one in McKinney. Sweet!

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