Stockpiling Clothes - Spent $800 - saved $3000 - and have three years worth of kids' clothes to show for it!

[jaelyns_mommy]

Wow good job :) :) i do that with DD. i dont get many handmedowns since out of everyone only like 3 of us had girls. There all the same age so its hard to do handmedowns for me. DD's grammy gets her a lot of clothes and she has 6 aunts who spoil her like crazy. i only buy on clearance unless i see something that i just cant pass up. im only spending $100 on each of us for clothes this year so yea..lol and again good job :)

and aparently my shift button isnt working..dang

[Macaela25]

I do this with my boys as well. Another tip I share when I give presentations is to only buy shoes when they are BOGO...Rack Room and Famous Footwear run them regularly. Buy what you need and the next size up.

[bluezoo5]

I have done this since my kids were born also. Between what I can find in good condition at yard sales, and the deep discounted clearance racks, I have not had to buy new regular price clothing for any of my three preschoolers ever (except maybe for something for a special occasion). I got a lot of hand-me-downs the first year or so after my first daughter was born, but that kind of petered out the older she got.

As a PP mentioned, it's actually a lot of fun to see what you have for the next season that you forgot you bought!

You just have to get past what "seems" like a big outlay at first, and look at the big picture like the OP mentioned. Also it feels weird buying 3 and 4 year old clothing when you have, say, a 6 month old, but I have been SOOO glad I had that stuff later on.

It's well worth it, as long as you can stay organized so you don't lose track of stuff. I have mine separated into rubbermaid-type containers by gender and size. We also have a shoe container.

[hbaqueen]

That is so awesome!!

My sister and mom bought DS 18 pieces of clothes from Walmart from the $1 clearance the other day all for next winter. She also got some pjs that are too big for him too small for my nephew but for a buck he can grow into em.

[jen276here]

I do the same thing! If I only knew I'd have DS#3 before I handed DS#1&2's clothes to someone else I could have saved more! lol I think it was two or so weeks ago I hit the JcPenney $.97 and up clearance and bought 45 or so pieces of clothing, mostly for DS#3 up to size 7 (he's 2T now), for less than $80. I used 2 $10/10's or I would have paid $100. Either way is great though! I've had this summer's clothes since before winter even got here - bought most at Target and Sears for around $1-2 each. And lucky me my guess of 3T looks to be right on! I buy shoes this way too - Target is great for kids shoe clearance - usually around $2.50-$4.00 a pair.

Now that DS#1&2 are at the terrible teens, shopping frugally is a bit more challenging, but lucky me they are pretty simple to please so when I get Target GC deals, Kohl's cash e-mails, or the JCP $10/10's I use them to buy their slightly more expensive clothes. I'm SOL on shoes though - I learned early with them they need the better shoes and most times I don't find super sales on them, but I do what I can.

This is an awesome discussion!

[oliviar519]

I usually buy ahead as well. Over the past few weeks as winter items go on clearance I have buying for my son for next winter. I do try to stick to better brands bacause they wash well and still look like new when DS #2 wears them as hand me downs.

[MrsPinecone]

Awesome.

I have always bought ahead for my kids. I had sizes from 0-3 months to 3T by the time each of them was born. DS is just going in to 4T, and I have almost all of next winter's 5/6s for him already. DD is in 18 months and I have up to 4T for her.

Recent finds:
JCPenney's Okie Dokie brand clearance for $2.36 per item. I got about 10 pairs of pants for DD, as well as 6 or so for DS-- it worked out to 30+ items for $90 inc tax. My store NEVER goes to .97, darn it.

KMart last year had boy's turtlenecks for $.80-1.50 each. They were the Basic Editions, and all solid and stripes.

Children's Place outlet-- .99 cent sale provided a lot of DDs winter wardrobe this year.

[Mothernature]

It's not crazy to stockpile cloths for children. This type of stockpiling saved my family a lot of money.

Our son turned six yesterday. He wears a size 8-10 and size 2 shoe. He flew through cloths the last five years. Had we ran out to purchase cloths as he grew, we would have spent thousands. I have found when he needed an item I did not have on hand (like a spring/fall jacket), I picked up at a garage sale. I have stockpiled to size 14 and size 5 shoe.

I think stockpile pricing is per area. It is near impossible in my area to find boys pants for under $5 and a good quality winter coat for under $20 on clearance.

I've noticed stores like Jc Penney and Sears are not deeply discounting as they have in the past. Macys, on the other hand, is deeply discounting their clearance merchandise. For example: clearance men's dress shirts at Sears and JC Penney were $19.99 for off name labels. I found Ralph Lauren dress shirts for $20.32 at Macys. This was true with boys cloths as well.

One last thing to consider, if one can score great clearance on higher end clothing (and keep the clothing in great shape), the return on the cloths via resale is great; an overall wise investment.

Thrift shops are too expensive here. I took DS to one to look for DS and Wii games. The store charged $6 for mens dress shirts and $5.50 for kids clothing . No wonder clearance flies off the shelf at 30% and 50% here.

[jennifermevans]

This is a little off topic but buying ahead is great for gift giving too. I had so many newborn and 3-6M cloths given to me, that a lot of them never got worn. Whenever my friends have kids I get them 6-9M or 12M clothes. I also pickup bigger clothes for gifts when I see them, I know the general sizes of what all the kids will be in, it really helps and makes the parents happy!

[CW&M Mom]

I purchase a year ahead for my kids. So summer is already purchased (luckily for #1 and #2 much of last year will still fit) and winter has already been purchased as well. I still need to work on coats though.

My only bummer is that #1 girl is nearly 8. #2 boy is nearly 4 and small for his age...really small. #3 is a girl and about 22 months. So keeping clothes from #1 to #3 is basically impossible...I cannot keep that much clothing around for that long. However jammies I've been using from #2 immediatly fit #3 when he's grown out of them...

If I was back in Utah...I probably would try and keep the clothing for the 2 girls...but in Kansas...it's too humid...my choice would be the very wet basement, a very humid garage or a roasting oven attic to store them...and they'd be ick by the time we would get back to them. So what I do is sell them as soon as we are done with them at my booth.