Posted in Simple and Frugal Living
The Best Bang for Your Buck with Kids' Clothing
Clothing can be expensive; especially with kids. Hand me downs are one of the best ways to cut down on clothing costs. A way to tweak that system or just for kids clothing in general is to develop a pattern for your purchases, BEFORE you shop.
Kids out grow their clothing so quickly! On top of that if you have multiple children of different genders, hand me downs can be difficult to accomplish. Finding clothes that are sturdy and cost effective can be difficult. Remember that smart marketing executive who realized that kids have the biggest impact on purchases within a family? Well, the exec was so smart that it was discovered that if you market clothing directly to children, parents will buy it! Thus the influx of clothes marketed with characters. These characters not only encourage kids to want them, but after they are purchased your children are now walking billboards for that character, resulting in even more sales. I hope that marketing executive got a bonus for finding a way to advertise the company's products for free by using our children and having US pay for it!
Another marketing executive determined that they could help homemakers so much if they sold kids clothing in sets. Oh, happy day! Clothing that is prematched...until you get it home, your child wears it one time, it is laundered and replaced in their drawer...never to worn as a set again. LOL!
Don't get me wrong; our kids have clothing with characters from time to time. We also have had clothing that is a set. One of our children is not as influenced with characters as he is with a particular genre of clothes. He sees a t-shirt with some sport on it and he wants it! But there is a way to make your children's wardrobes more simple and do it frugally.
Firstly, stay away from patterns. Patterned tops and bottoms often limit the matching possibilities as well as the passing down of said items between different genders. A solid red t-shirt can be worn with just about any colored bottom AND can be worn by both boys and girls! That said, if your daughter likes pink and the next child is a boy, don't restrict pink from her wardrobe completely. However, limit the amount of pink shirts, so that some shirts can be handed down. There are several shades of blues, greens, purples, yellows, and oranges, that can be worn by both. Big brother's t-shirts can be paried with a simple fabric bottom to make a dress for younger sister. This would be very difficult to do with gender patterned or specific character clothing.
Wth bottoms, solids are the best way to match tops AND promote hand me possibilities. Solid colored cotton shorts and sweats can be handed down regardless of gender with ease. Blue jeans can also be handed down. A pair of boys jeans can be girl-i-fied with the additions of a pretty patch,lace, ribbon, or iron-on. Another great idea is take boys jeans and khakis and turn them into skirts for younger sisters. This is EASILY done. The small pieces of fabric needed to make the transition will allow you to really customize those boy bottoms into girl friendly clothing items.
This process also makes dressing MUCH more simple for children. With solid tops and bottoms, pairing clothing takes only a moment, because most everything will match. Additionally, solid colored clothing is consistently LESS expensive.
These are my thoughts.
Leslie Valeska
~contributing writer~
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