Streamlining our home and clothing has been a continuous work in progress, as I discover how much I prefer fewer things manufactured with quality and integrity. As many of you can attest to, having little ones makes that ideology a little bit more difficult to implement. One big area is in dealing with children’s clothing. Knowing full well that we intended to have more children, we saved just about every piece of clothing that we received for Eli. People LOVE to give baby clothes and my friends and family were no exception, meaning that I didn’t actually need to purchase any clothing until Eli was about a year old. While such gifts offer a large blessing to any family with young children, the problem has been that I am not fully in love with some clothing choices, but in the effort of not being wasteful and being frugal, felt compelled to keep them. After discovering that our second child is a little girl, we had the opportunity to reevaluate our clothing storage and figure out what is really necessary to hold onto for future children. Here is how we have undertaken our clothing storage:
1) Mindset when going through clothing: The week after finding out that our second was a girl, I pulled out all of Eli’s old clothing — 2.5 years of clothing. I began to try to figure out what could be used for a girl, what I wanted to save for any possible future boys and what to get rid of. It didn’t work — I wasn’t in the right frame of mind to try to discover which clothing was worthy and which wasn’t. So I packed it all away again and said, let’s wait. Baby clothing has so many emotions tied to it that you need to be in a getting rid of, cutthroat frame of mind.
2) Reasons for getting rid of clothing: I needed to determine what clothes could be used for my next child and what clothes were going to stand the test of time for any possible future boys. Meaning, if I was going to store a piece of clothing for 5 years time, it better be a piece of clothing that I love and an item that is going to look good in 5 years. It’s easy to look at baby clothes and see them as inconsequential, but I believe we should love them just as much as anything else. My reason for getting rid of clothing was to develop a child’s wardrobe that I loved as much as I loved my own.
4) What to do with the clothing we will not keep: With the idea of only keeping clothing I loved and that had longevity, I had lots of clothes to get rid of, as in 3 large garbage bags. My options were to donate (to a friend or a Goodwill type location) or sell to a consignment shop (online or local). Any clothing that I had found to be too ratty or stained, i.e. something that someone else would not want to dress their child in, I collected with other scrap fabric to drop off for fabric recycling. Since I was getting rid of such a giant amount of clothing and also have another child that I need to dress, I opted for the sell option. Having done a thredup.com clean out bag once before and not gotten anything out if it, I opted for the local choice. For all my efforts, up $40. Not a ton, but I try to shop second hand for the majority of kids clothes and $40 should get me a couple cute little outfits for baby girl!
How do you handle used kids clothes? Are you a hoarder or a seller?
guest
Every season I sell my baby clothes at consignment sales. It takes a little bit more work than just taking to a consignment store but I usually make $150 or so. I knew that I didn’t want my babies to be born in the same month even if they were the same gender so holding on to years worth of clothing didn’t make sense to me.
grapefruit / 4455 posts
I donate or save. I don’t know what may or may not work or if we will have another (we have 2 and I wasn’t sure when my first was a baby that we would have a second) but I just save what I like. In the bigger sizes things get worn so much they mostly aren’t worth selling by the end of it.
pomelo / 5866 posts
I donate about every 3 months and write it off. It makes me happy to think about giving to people who need it.
I am trying to keep clothes mementos to only one grocery size bag full for her first five years of life.
cantaloupe / 6730 posts
I’m having a boy now and it’s really hard goong through those girls clothes! I still have them – I tell myself that it’s just in case Baby Boy turns out to be a girl after all.
guest
Thanks for the tips!
I just stumbled upon a local non-profit that collects supplies for refugee families, many of whom have babies. I’ve bookmarked it and am planning on sending our unneeded items there when the time comes.
grapefruit / 4085 posts
I donate or sell. Anything that’s stained gets trashed. I love getting rid of the clutter! I save a few items for posterity – going home outfit, favorite onesies, some first holiday things, etc.
nectarine / 2280 posts
I just donated a bunch of stuff. Now that baby boy is fitting into 9 months and up it made it easier to get rid of DD’s clothes up to 6 months. He’s not wearing them and I’m done having kids.