Frugal Friday--Tips for Clothing Toddlers

Frugal Buy Gone Bad! These matching dresses sure were cute on the clearance rack for $3 each back in March when I thought for sure I was having another girl! Frugal tip: Don't buy for your kids, even on a super clearance, when you don't truly know the gender of your child-to-come!!! I ended up giving them to a friend with two little girls in exchange for borrowing her steam vaccuum cleaner.

Something I'm learning about toddlers/preschoolers and clothing is that you can't always plan ahead and "stock up" for them in advance when it comes to clothing. My frugal tip of the day is... that you should endeavor to buy very little for your toddler in the way of clothes even if it is at yard sale prices unless those clothes can be used within the next few months and you know that they really need that specific item. This may apply more to girls than boys in general.

If you received the clothes free, as we have gotten most of ours, you can pick and choose what to store and see what happens. But do realize that just as they got passed on to you because of quick growth spurts or adamant preferences, you will be passing many of them on in a while too. So don't waste your time/space storing too many. For example, Ali went through a stage of only wearing dresses. This was fine by me but we had dozens of cute jeans and khaki/courderoy pants that weren't even used that I had stored in anticipation of her wearing. Thinking I had her figured out, I began collecting pretty dresses for her in the next size up and giving away most of the jeans we got from hand-me-downs in the bigger size. Then she switched to only wanting to wear skirts and so the same two or three favorites got worn threadbare while dozens of beautiful, like-new outfits sat untouched in her closet. So, I scooped up little skirts where I found them at yard sales and the hand-me-down bags and then summer came along and with it a new preference for shorts, not skirts! And though we have tons and tons of shorts saved that still fit from last summer, she wears the handful of ugliest ones she has and routinely turns down the cutest pairs. The summer dresses I had anticipated her wearing sit untouched in her closet, already outgrown in just a few months' time!

Since we have lots of other battles to fight with Ali, fighting over clothing is not a huge priority on my agenda. I'd rather be flexible and give her some independence than force what she wears each day. So today she went to the library in pink crocs, a yellow t-shirt, and a blue skort. Oh well! Here are some tips that may help you plan wisely in the kid clothes department:

*Choose Practical Clothes! After you have had your first you will know what kind of outfits you like and don't like. I discovered I love baby bunting pajamas, button-up-the-middle onesies and zip-up style pajamas for newborns that allow easy access for nighttime diaper changes. Keep these little things in mind as you plan for your next child and pass on those outfits, adorable though they may be, that you know won't be practical. If you haven't had a baby, ask a seasoned mom to look over your baby clothes with you and give advice.

*Choose simple clothes! Don't get me wrong, I have a darling suit for Jer and Ali has had some wonderful Easter dresses but they are most comfy in simple clothes that don't hinder their movement.

*Stocking up on t-shirts for boys is usually safe but be careful about pants/shorts as they may not fit right in a year. Right now Jeremiah is very happy with shirts that have things he is interested in on them. He may never care what I pick when it comes to shorts or pants (after all, he's a boy!) but he is thrilled to wear a truck or an elephant or a bike shirt. I know that stocking up on these types of things for next year is pretty safe since he'll likely still be into those things. Even if boys don't have as many choices and aren't as picky, keep in mind that those cute pants you bought might end up being too tight or too loose around the waist or might look like capris when they are meant to be long shorts (Jer has a pair like this and he's been teased about it!)

*Keep it frugal by hitting the thrift shop sales periodically. Our thrift shop does $2 a bag days at least 4 or 6 times a year and this is a prime time to fill up a huge bag of clothes for your kid for that season. Even if it's not a bag sale day and I need something, like pajama pants for Jer, I can almost always find really nice clothing there for around 10 cents to a quarter per item. I've said it before on my blog, but our thrift store often carries kid's clothes with the tags still on them!

*Stock up on the essentials at yard sales/clearances/thrift stores that will definitely be used in the coming year or two:

Socks

Undies (if new)

Swimsuits in good condition in the next size up

Footie Pajamas in bigger sizes

*Don't buy used shoes for your kids unless your child tries them on right there and they will be used right away. I have gotten so many great buys on shoes only to find out that though they were the right size, they weren't wide enough, or they skipped that size altogether in a growth spurt, or the velcro on the tennis shoes doesn't stick well when they run, etc. Sometimes you really do find great buys on used shoes, but be very cautious about buying them. Accept hand-me-down shoes and give them a try but also look for good clearances at discount stores or shoe stores as it's often more bang for your buck to buy your child new shoes that fit them well and have a little room to grow in. My personal preference is getting my kids inexpensive Croc-type shoes for the summer since they are washable and comfy and easy for them to put on.

*One In/One Out! If you see something cute that you want to get for your child, make yourself follow the "one thing in, one thing out" rule. I found a really cute pink flowery skort today at the thrift shop and remembered that one of the cotton knit skirts Ali always wears is not only losing the painted flowers on it, but is not very modest on my active girl. So, I determined to throw out the old skirt and replace it with the new comfy skirt that has built in shorts under it!

*Shop with your child's preferences/temperament in mind. Today I saw an adorable, brightly-colored, like-new shirt that would have looked lovely on Ali for the fall. However, I remembered the battles we had last fall/winter over her getting her sleeves wet when washing hands and having a fit about it and changing clothes 10 times a day. I also know that she is always hot, even in the dead of winter, and prefers t-shirts. Since t-shirts on her make my life easier and can easily be layered with a fleece sweatshirt, I decided not to buy the cute long-sleeved shirt even if it was a steal.

*Know what you have. Periodically paw through your kids' clothing boxes and figure out what you need and what you don't need. Some women make lists in a little notebook to remind themselves so they don't buy things they already have. We use apple boxes and HUGE ziploc storage bags for storing next-size-up clothes in the kid's closet and purple and blue rubbermaid tubs for storing the outgrown clothing in the storage shed. I turned down an adorable baby tuxedo this week at a yard sale because I knew that we already had one in storage from when Jer was a baby.

*Don't stock up for more than a year in advance. One reason I choose not to stock up beyond a year in advance is so that I can keep on top of the organization of the many kid's clothes we have. Besides, if I shop for the next 3 years, I will rob myself of the joy of yard-sale-ing next summer! Or, I will buy more, even if I already have things, and end up with way more than I need.

*Don't store too many outgrown-clothes! I choose to give about half or more of Ali's clothing away when she outgrows it just because it is more than we need even if we have another little girl and it might as well be used in the here and now. There are no guarantees we will need pink clothes again and so I'd rather not waste precious storage space holding on to too much. No doubt if we were blessed with another daughter in the future, friends would gladly pass on little girl things, or I'd have a ball bargain-shopping for her! I do save my very favorite outfits or the ones with special memories attached because it would be fun to give a few outfits to the kids when they have their own babies to wear them! I save most of Jer's clothes since I know another boy is following close behind, but I'm sure that many of those things will get passed on as Justus outgrows them (since there are no guarantees we'll see blue again either!)

*Clothing quality/color. Because we have been given so much for free and have such great bargains in our town, I can afford to make choices of clothing based on my kid's coloring and the quality of the clothing. While I definitely don't think name-brand clothes are a must, and I don't want my kids to be spoiled about clothing or vain in their appearance, I do pass on the clothes that are stained, dirty, faded, or stretched out, even if it's only slightly. I look for new or like-new clothing and I've found that brands like OshKosh are wonderful because they still look new wash after wash. We've been given so many clothes with the tags still on them that there is no reason for me to purchase worn or heartily-used clothes at yard sales, even if they are only pennies. I endeavor for my kids to look somewhat nice since we are a walking testimony of a Christian family in our little town. Since my darker-skinned kids look nicest in bright and bold colors, I often pass the cute pastel hand-me-downs down to friends with little blondies! When something becomes too threadbare or stained with paint/ink I throw it in the rag bag or thrift-store it!

And two tips for getting kids to wear outfits that are nice instead of over-used/mismatched concoctions:

1. Hide their usual picks in the upper closet for a week or two so they can't find them when getting dressed. King Jo wanted to hide all of Ali's ballerina outfits for a while he got so sick of them!

2. Pick out two or three nice outfits and ask your child to choose one of the three for the day.