thriftstores

How to Save on Special-Occasion Clothing for Kids

Julie Rains — Mon, 10 Jan 2011 15:00:10 +0000

At least a few times each year, my kids need to dress up for special occasions such as school or county-wide band concerts, awards ceremonies, and weddings. Acquiring appropriate attire can be time-consuming and costly, especially as children seem to outgrow clothing and shoes quickly.

Over the years, I have discovered some ways of keeping my dollar outlay for special-occasion attire low for my children (both boys, now teenagers).

Determine What Kind of Attire Is Truly Needed

School-sponsored events often have published guidelines, which should be read carefully.

Admittedly, some instructions are vague, asking parents to dress their children in clothing that is typically worn to church, which would mean letting my kids wear t-shirts, shorts, and sneakers to a special event. Similarly, some event sponsors caution parents not to buy new items or incur a financial hardship to acquire appropriate clothing. These instructions make me wonder if I am the only parent who does not always have formal clothing and dress shoes available at a moment’s notice.

Fortunately, most guidelines are more precise. The band director at my youngest son’s middle school, for example, specifies dress shirts with ties, slacks, and dress shoes for boys and dresses for girls. My scrutiny tells me that a suit jacket is not required. Paying close attention and distinguishing requirements from suggestions are first steps in saving time and money.

There are many occasions that have no requirements but rather a social obligation to dress appropriately, such as a wedding or high school graduation. Consider the desires of family members or close friends who are hosting these events. Think about whether professional photographs or family photos may be taken, and factor the significance of these images in choosing dresses, suits, etc. for your children and teens to wear.

Check Your Closets

You may have precisely what is needed somewhere in your home. A few days ago, my son asked me if he had a pair of khaki pants for a special event the next day; his question instigated a panic. I quickly realized that he did have several pairs of pants readily available (hand-me-downs from his older brother who attended a multi-day event that required these clothes, purchased at Goodwill).

Even if the hanging-up clothes (dresses, slacks, suit jackets) in your daughter’s or son’s closet are too small, there may be appropriate clothing in another family member’s closet. Consider what is ready to pass along from one sibling to another or which items a child can borrow from a parent. For example, my youngest son is able to borrow dress shoes from my husband as they currently wear the same shoe size.

Decide What You Want to Buy New

Review your family’s calendar to check upcoming events. If you happen to have several special occasions in the span of a few months, then your cost per-wear for purchases will seem reasonable compared to buying a dress or suit that may be worn just once. Keeping this approach in mind, select items that will be appropriate for as many of these events as possible.

Consider what items are essential and which are less important, and shop accordingly. Depending on your needs, you may want to spend most of your budget on a pair of well-fitted slacks and save on shoes.

Buy Ahead

Buy dress-up clothing in anticipation of special occasions, if you can find a bargain.

My favorite sources have been children’s clothing consignment sales sponsored by local preschools and community groups. When my kids were younger, if I noticed a dress shirt for $5 or less, then I would go ahead and buy it; I gambled a few dollars that the clothing would be useful in hopes of avoiding much higher prices later. If the price was much steeper, say $25 for a nice pair of pants and jacket (no matter what brand or condition), then I would pass on the deal unless I was certain that my kids would need the items for a special event.

When shopping these types of sales, I noticed that there were designer and upscale-brand dresses priced much lower than retail but still fairly high. These items were not as popular as sellers anticipated; most parents couldn’t justify paying even $30 for a $100 item if they weren’t positive their daughters would wear the dress later.

Borrow (and Share)

If either of my sons had some special occasion attire that would fit a friend’s child, then I’d gladly share. This arrangement works well for not-so-personal items such as dress shoes or a clip-on tie.

Learn to Sew

My visual-spatial capabilities and lack of patience with fashion details have prevented me from sewing my children's clothes. But many people find sewing to be a wonderful frugal alternative to purchasing new items. Even if you don’t want to create an entirely new garment, you can alter clothing yourself rather than paying someone else to do this task.

Activate Your Frugal Shopping Habits

You may have tactics for snagging deals on clothing and shoes for yourself; do the same for your kids.

I have done well on occasion at thrift shops. One of my shopping excursions to Goodwill enabled me to buy several pairs of slacks for my son that were in much better condition than the ones purchased brand-new for my husband. Other trips have not been quite as successful but yielded an acceptable, if not elegant, suit jacket and tie. Some parents may frequent vintage shops and consignment stores.

Hit your favorite stores for off-retail pricing and special sales. My shopping preferences are online at sites like Overstock.com for dresses (for myself, not my kids) or recommendations by ShopItToMe.com.

Listen to Your Kids

Your children will often tell you of upcoming activities that may require special clothing. If you can anticipate these needs, you'll be more likely to find the right attire as inexpensively as possible, rather than having to rush to the mall to buy what they need the day before a big event.

This article is from Julie Rains of Wise Bread, an award-winning personal finance and credit card comparison website. Read more great articles from Wise Bread:

Strategic Thriftstore Shopping

Maggie Wells — Sat, 21 Jun 2008 06:47:33 +0000

There's nothing like a little shopping to get one's mind off of debt, bills, mortgages, taxes and all things she needs to pay. I know that for most people, men in particular, that statement sounds insane. The cure for the blues of unemployment or debt is to go out and spend money?! Well, for some of us...uhm....yeah.

But there are methods to the madness. I'm not talking about running up the credit card for a clothing spree at H & M. I'm talking about opening the belly of the piggy bank (in our case a Neko welcome cat) and counting up the limit of our fun for the week. Usually we find $40 worth of quarters between there and the coin box in the car. I head for the thriftstores.

Thriftstore shopping can be a gross disgusting experience or it can be exhilirating. I have a dust allergy myself so I really like to be strategic about where I go and for what.

It's been my experience that the big chain thrift stores like the Salvation Army and Goodwill should be avoided. That's not to say they don't have anything worth buying, but your interesting pieces and quirky things are generally not found there. Figure that since they are the Wal-Mart and Target of thriftstores the donations are more mainstream and so is the clientel. They also can't cut you deals the way a smaller thriftstore will. You can find an emergency skirt at Goodwill and even donate a few items to you but they aren't going to budge on the $3.00 you now owe them for it. If you are looking for inexpensive treats and an opportunity to wheel and deal, you have to go smaller and strategic.

Case in point. My best friend Lysa is coocoo for expensive art books and cookbooks. Her number one thriftstore? A branch of Out of the Closet in out of the way Atwater village in Los Angeles. Because it's out of the way and because the people donating are largely from nearby Silverlake (an artistic enclave). Books that would cost up to $100 she winds up getting for $1. Her best find? A $7 cursive typewriter.

This might sound as morbid as people who look at the obituaries to find apartment openings in New York and San Francisco, but my favorite thriftstores to shop in are those found close to retirement complexes. Two things happen to make these fountains of plenty. 1) As seniors move from their houses to retirement condos and apartments, they downsize and throw out whatever has been sitting in boxes and with tags on in their closets for thirty years. They throw them out en route to their new place. 2) Anything that makes it to their new condos and apartments usually gets donated after they pass on by relatives that live too far away to cart it all back. Santa Barbara, California was a particularly good city for both retirees and thriftstores following this model. I scored three vintage sweaters for $15 --one with the tags still on and all with their beads and sequins still attached. Another favorite stop for thriftstores for me is tiny towns in the southwest and (this will sound weird) Reno , Nevada. People unload great things when they are desperate to keep on gambling or to keep on moving. For $3.00 in Tucson, Arizona I got a Thomas Brothers guide for Los Angeles in 1950 and an unused train ticket for a route that oddly enough goes right by my house now! (Only the train doesn't stop there any more).

My favorite thrift experience hands down was in Japan. Thank goodness for a national obsession with new things. I picked up great kimonos that just needed a good cleaning or needed a little stitching. A great new kimono will run in the thousands but only about $30 -$50 used. You might be wondering how a thriftstore survives in Japan--I did. Apparently it's the number one place to shop for foreign workers (and indeed it was).

If an area is too upscale though, the thriftstores won't be there and if the area is too low end, you won't find anything worth finding.

So Saturday morning is rolling around in a few hours and I'm sitting at my grandmother's retirement complex. Of course I'm spending my stimulus check on bills, but I'm saving $20 of it for the thriftstores less than a mile away. Maybe my economic depression will be cured by some hidden treasures tomorrow. I'm crossing my fingers.

Where's your best thriftstore?

This article is from Maggie Wells of Wise Bread, an award-winning personal finance and credit card comparison website. Read more great articles from Wise Bread:

Zen Spring Cleaning (and making a little cash off it too)

Maggie Wells — Sat, 05 Apr 2008 08:47:04 +0000

This is it. Tomorrow is the beginning of the big day the husband and I have waited anxiously for all winter: spring-cleaning. The kids are going to grandma’s over night and armed with a couple of Dwell Magazines and a few books on creating Zen in the home, we’ve vowed to organize the garage and kick the clutter habit once in for all or at least for 2008. Our goal? Nothing stacked on any surface and nothing double stacked in the bookcases. We want to walk in the living room and see flat surfaces everywhere.

My mother was actually the queen of this. Before every Christmas she’d place two grocery bags in the middle of the living room and tell my brother and I that they had to be filled with things we didn’t play with or read anymore before Santa would come with new things. As a spring take on this, my husband and I are shooting for twenty brown shopping bags filled with things we don’t want or use––wish us luck. It’s good to create your financial goal for spring-cleaning too because it helps you let go of things that may be worth something that you don’t really want or neat. We’ve set the goal of $1000 of selling on eBay from our Spring-cleaning and $300 for a garage sale. That’s almost as much as George Bush’s economic stimulus package for a family of four.

My husband is better at this than I am. As a former eBay Powerseller, he doesn’t even let something in the house unless he can assess its resale value the moment it enters the house. I don’t quite think that way though I’m learning. Here’s a list of a few household items and perhaps the best thing that can be done with them and when.

As I look across the living room and out the window into the garage the number one thing I see cluttering our lives is reading material: books, magazines, comics. You name a magazine and we’ve got an issue somewhere. But our house is a dainty 1000 square feet and there is literally no room left in the six bookcases in the house. If this sounds familiar to you, stop and ask yourself what the hell you need all these books for? Even if you’ve already read all the books in your collection (I’m betting you haven’t, because I sure as hell haven’t) when will you have time?

So, the husband and I had a book chat this evening and I think it was a pretty sound agreement: here’s how we are dealing with the books in the house and in the garage:

•Out of print and rare books stay
•Current reads for research, interest stay
•Children’s books stay
•Books used for school stay (I teach)
•Mass market books, even those we like, go
•Current Best sellers go
•Books we love go if there’s no chance we’ll re-read them in less than 5 years

This is making organizing the bookcases much easier. The living room bookcases will now house out of print, rare, and current reads. The garage bookcases will store books used for school and rows of books scanned and ready to sell on eBay and Amazon. Oh my goodness! Space has opened up! But what to do with the ‘go’ pile?

Garage sale, donate to your local Friends of the Library, sell or swap online (www.bookmooch.com or www.titletrader.com for example). Books I love I often give away to friends and students. We usually send friends not one present, but a Christmas or birthday box of presents. Throwing a couple of good books in gives the recipient good reads and opens up space.

One tip for selling books on eBay and Amazon, go through the book collection and see if you have any college reads. Set those aside and label that box college. Come August, list that box of books on eBay once students have started scouting for this semester’s list. No matter what you charge, it’ll be cheaper than the college bookstore and that’s what they’ll be looking for. Books have such little resell value that the only time to cash in is really at the beginning of each semester.

As they are heading out of your dominion, label the boxes of books appropriately so you don’t have to go searching through them again and again to find out what’s in there.

Magazines and comics, believe it or not, have a much higher resell value. I attribute this to there being more photos and pictures and Americans not having the patience for books without such things. While my husband has ever copy of WIRED magazine ever printed, and I hold onto the National Geographics and Harper’s, most other things we’ve agreed not to hold onto. Yet somehow, there are stacks here and there. It seems a shame to have them go to the recycling. Especially the ones we didn’t get around to reading. What to do?

•The ones with good ads and photos put in the kids are supply bin—you never know when you are going to need to make a collage with the preschoolers.

•Library free table donation
•Waiting rooms need you’re Sun Magazines to balance out the Good Housekeeping––if you have a lot of cool small press magazines drop them around town strategically and it’s as good a political statement as any. Hooray! The religious homeschool kid just picked up your copy of Bitch Magazine: Feminist response to pop culture! Your job is done.
•All music or acting related magazines are going to go on eBay. Because someone somewhere wants that Vanity Fair with Harry Potter and my Bust Magazine with Sandra Oh. Currently my husband is unloading a secret stash of Rayguns he forgot he had. Every one of them got a bid.

Next we have too many DVDs and CDs. If it ain’t something you’ll watch time and time again or is a classic then why have it? Keep The Princess Bride; get rid of Kindergarten Cop. Once my husband has made files of our CDs to play on our computers and iPods, we rarely ever see the CDs again. So why keep them? Occasionally nostalgia will get in the way. I’m not giving up my tape of Leonard Cohen’s I’m Your Man because I bought it for .99 back in the day and it was the first time I’d ever heard him and the record store I bought it at has long since closed (what a sap).

Then there are the hidden items in the house taking up valuable real estate in the closets––the clothes and shoes. My husband insists that he should have no more than six pairs. OMG! Only six?! Yeah, that’s not working for me but I can make an effort not to go beyond 20. If you haven’t worn it in two years it should be in the bye-bye pile. Clothes are another matter entirely. There are clothes you wear and then, if you are like me, clothes you collect. And then there is the matter of keeping at least five different sizes.

I apply the same get rid of stance that we apply to the books:

•Keep rare, vintage, interesting pieces
•Keep functional things you wear everyday
•Get rid of anything that makes you look fat because, it’s always going to make you look fat (odds are it’s not just the clothes)
*Get rid of everything else.

The get rid of pieces do best at garage sales or donations to the thrift store. My advice is to find smaller thrift stores to donate to or make friends with someone who works or manages one. Odds are that if you drop off five boxes of clothes and you see a sweater you like, you can get them to give it to you. I have two I donate to that I also shop at and I try to only buy from them on days I’ve donated. They either give me a huge discount or let me walk away with a free bag of goodies. It feels very freeing to get rid of the wait of five boxes with a simple cardigan in your hand.

Toys! That’s the hard part. There are our kids’ toys and all those remnants of our childhoods we’ve bought on eBay. My husband’s solution for toys and Zen Spring Cleaning was to create a whole wall of shelving in the garage with white storage boxes. He’s labeled them things like “Superheroes” and “Thomas the Train” and “Hello Kitty” and “Lego.” Each kid gets access to one box from the toy wall a week so that there are no more than two toy boxes in the house at any one time plus art supplies and puzzles. We continually sift out toys we don’t want in the house to garage sale, donation, or giveaway prizes.

There's also the karmic side to it. I find the more stuff you give away, the more things you want seem to come your way. My daughter receives hand me downs with the tags still on them and I can't help but think that if I quit giving away her things she's outgrown, my freebies would go to.

Finally, return everything you may have borrowed to their rightful owners. The owners will be mad you are returning stuff they have no room for, but insist. It’ll get the ball rolling for their spring-cleaning too. And have that garage sale next weekend too.

What’s lurking in your closet, garage and living room that you should get rid of? Where will it end up?

This article is from Maggie Wells of Wise Bread, an award-winning personal finance and credit card comparison website. Read more great articles from Wise Bread: