How I Save Money on Kids’ Clothes: Consignment Sales

A few posts back I wrote about how I save money on my kids’ clothes by creating seasonal capsule wardrobes for them. Another of my tried and true methods for not breaking the bank when buying children’s clothing is to buy gently used clothing rather than brand new items. And my current favorite way to do this is by shopping consignment sales! If you have not tried shopping consignment sales, you are missing out, let me tell you!

A few years ago, I really did mot know what all the fuss was about our local kids consignment sale. I figured it was just a glorified garage sale, so I just skipped it. But then one year I decided to just give it a try, both selling and buying. I had such a great experience that I hate the fact that I am missing out on it this fall because of our move! (But you can count on me finding a sale to shop in our new area!) So, why do I love to shop consignment when it comes to kids’ clothes? Let me count the ways!

  1. One night of shopping, and boom! I have finished my clothes shopping for the season. Seriously, I go in there with my handy dandy Kids’ Capsule Wardrobe checklist, sift through the racks to find what I need, and at the end of the night, I have pretty much everything on my list! I have found that it is getting harder to find everything for my boy because he is getting to that age in which there is just less of a selection, at least at the sale I have been shopping. And sometimes I need to buy brand new shoes because the used ones can be pretty roughed up. (But I ALWAYS get shoes on clearance unless I cannot possibly avoid it. They are just overpriced otherwise, in my opinion.)
  2. I can often find cute name brand clothes that I could not normally afford for a fraction of the price. Gap, Gymboree, and even more select boutique style clothes are often easy to find at consignment sales, and they are usually in great shape. I especially like shopping for Christmas and Easter dresses for my little girl because they have usually been worn so few times that they are practically brand new! And at around $2-4 per dress on discount night, I can buy a couple and still not spend half what I would shopping a department store clearance rack!
  3. I shop the discount night to get an even better bargain! Most consignment sales have one or more time slots in which you can get as much as 50% off everything! Some sellers may choose not to give a discount or to offer a lower discount, so that is something to watch for as you check tags before buying. But I try to buy as much that is the lowest discounted price as possible. Often, if you are a volunteer helper at the sale or are a seller, you get an early bird pass to shop the discount sale first and snatch up the beat deals before the general public.
  4. I can also sell our gently used kids items and make back a part, if not all, of the money I spend shopping the sale! This was probably the thing that got me hooked on consignment sales the most. Every time I have sold items, I have been able to make enough to cover the cost of that season’s clothing. Often, I had one or two bigger ticket items along with all the clothes, like my son’s old train table and a barely used stroller. These help make a bigger contribution to the total profits! It is work to label everything and get it set up at the sale, but in my experience it was totally worth the effort. And it was much easier than having a full-on yard sale on my own!

I could go on and tell you a few pointers I have learned about buying and selling at consignment sales, but I think I will save that for another post. For now, I want to hear from you! Have you shopped consignment sales for kids clothing? Did you love it, or hate it? What is the best deal you have snagged shopping consignment?

Fall and Winter Capsule Wardrobes for Kids

In my last post I talked a little bit about why and how I chose to use a capsule wardrobe for my children’s clothes both to save money and space. Today I thought it might be helpful to share what items I include in my shopping list when I am preparing to go to the thrift store, consignment sales or other venues. These may not be comprehensive lists, but they are the actual lists I will be working from this fall for my 6 year old son and 2 year old daughter. (Tip: Scroll to the bottom of this post if you want to know how to get your own printable Kids’ Capsule Wardrobe Checklist!)

Boy’s Fall/Winter Capsule Wardrobe

Tops:

  • 6 t-shirts
  • 3 dress shirts
  • 2 fleece or hooded sweatshirts

Bottoms:

  • 3 pairs jeans
  • 3 pairs sweats or athletic pants
  • 2 pairs dress slacks (1 black, 1 khaki)

Miscellaneous:

  • 2-3 pairs long sleeved pajama tops and bottoms

Shoes:

  • Tennis shoes
  • Winter boots

Outerwear:

  • Winter coat

If I needed to buy my son new socks or underwear, those would also get added to the miscellaneous list. I would also note the sizes of each category of items needed. As you can see, I plan just enough of everything to get him through one week. Then we do laundry! Ha! Often times my children receive some extra clothes as a gift from family, offering more wiggle room between laundry days. But we get by just fine with this minimal amount of clothes.

My toddler girl’s shopping list will be a little bit bigger. This is mostly because she is not quite fully potty trained, so we sometimes need a few extra pairs of bottoms to get us through to laundry day, although she is getting much better! Also, she is going to be wearing mostly dresses and leggings or tights in the cold months, not so much for style (even though I do love the look!) but because she is so skinny! Especially without a fluffy diaper on her bum, I cannot find pants to fit her in length that will not just fall right off her slim waist.

Girl’s Fall/Winter Capsule Wardrobe

Tops:

  • 4 long sleeved shirts
  • 3 long sleeved dresses
  • 1-2 jumpers
  • 2 cardigans

Bottoms:

  • 4-5 pairs leggings (2 black, 2 denim, 1 brown/grey)
  • 4 pairs thick tights (black, cream, grey, pink)
  • 2-3 denim or khaki skirts

Miscellaneous:

  • 3 pairs long sleeved pajamas

Shoes:

  • Black dress shoes
  • Play shoes
  • Boots

Outerwear:

  • Fleece jacket
  • Winter coat

If you would like to get a printable PDF copy of my Kids’ Capsule Wardrobe Checklist to take shopping with you, just sign up for my email list below. After you confirm your subscription, you will receive a password to access my Members Only Resource Library!

So, there you have it! If you would be interested in seeing my basic spring/summer capsule wardrobe list, please leave a comment below. I would be happy to post that as well at a later date!



How to Save Money on Kids’ Clothes with a Capsule Wardrobe

For some reason, I have been thinking a lot about my kids’ clothes lately. Maybe it is because they are both growing like weeds and will need new stuff for the fall and winter. Maybe it is all the packing and moving prep I have been doing lately and trying to decide what we might not need in the next few weeks. It could be because I have been thinking about how to save more money in our budget after reading Erin Odum’s book More Than Just Making It (coming out Sept. 5, 2017, but you can preorder now and get all sorts of awesome pre-release goodies!) Whatever the reason, I am thankful to say we have really never spent a lot on our children’s wardrobes. Actually, we were extremely blessed during the first two years of my son’s life not to need to buy him any clothes because friends and family gave us so much. Some things were brand new. A lot were pre-loved hand-me-downs, and I appreciated both kinds of gifts ever so much!

However, as our situation changed and our kids grew older, we had to begin buying more and more of their clothes. And because I have a small clothing budget, I wanted to find ways to make the best use of our money. Kids outgrow their clothing so quickly, and often wear them out even more quickly, that it really never has made sense to me to spend a huge amount on things they will only be able to wear for a season. Also, I find that my kids like certain styles or types of clothes and will choose the same handful of outfits over and over again, even if they have drawers and closets full of other options. Admittedly, I am the same way! Because of this, I decided to use the capsule wardrobe concept as a basis for buying kids’ clothes, and it has worked out beautifully for our family! Not only has it saved us money by helping me only purchase clothing that my children will actually get our money’s worth out of, but it has saved on space and given me a lot less anxiety about packing up their wardrobes when it comes time to do that!

If you are not familiar with the concept, a capsule wardrobe is a small collection of clothing items that you can mix and match to create multiple outfits. Ideally, a capsule wardrobe will be able to last throughout a whole season, if not for the whole year. With quickly growing children in a more extreme climate, your mileage may vary! I do generally only shop for my children twice a year and aim to get a good 6 months use out of what I purchase for them. I have started shopping consignment sales in the early spring and late summer, but more on that in another post! So I pretty much lump the warmer months into one “season” and the cooler months into another.

When I get ready to do my seasonal shopping, I sit down and make a list of everything I think we will need to purchase for the coming months, including shoes and outerwear. I also make note of the sizes needed for each category. Then when I go shopping, I know exactly what to look for and am not so tempted to make impulse buys. I do try to find clothing pieces that will mix and match as much as possible. It is easier with boy’s clothes, but doable with girl’s as well if you look for neutrals and colors that go together well. Besides saving money and space in your closets and drawers, having a capsule wardrobe also saves you from decision fatigue! It is easy to make outfits that go together quickly and without much thought when pretty much everything in the drawer matches and is liked by your kids!

I will be writing another post with some example lists of what I like to have in my kids’ capsule wardrobes for both cool weather and warm weather months, so check back here tomorrow! How about you? Do you use a capsule wardrobe for your children? Or maybe for yourself? What are some ways you save money on buying clothes for your family? I would love to hear your ideas in the comments!