My last post was supposed to be about changing out your summer wardrobe for fall, and somewhere in there my mind went off to sappy things. So, lets try this again.
It was 66 degrees on Sunday and rainy. That is the cue to get out the fall clothes. I dont want to get caught with my kids on a 50 degree day in shorts. That would be the sign of a bad momma in my book.
I buy all year long, mostly at yard sales, and a few clearance racks. My goal with any outfit is that it costs no more then 5.00 for the entire thing. If that includes the hairbow and shoes it is a bonus ;).
I have gynormous plastic tubs in my basement and they are each labeled with a child's name and the size. When I buy something I take it downstairs and put it in the correct tub. I do buy ahead up to 1 extra year if its an awesome find, and also so that I have something on hand incase my kid has a super duper growth spurt and totally skips the size I bought for that year.
On the first hint of a new season, I drag the huge tubs into my laundry room. It is about a 12x17 room so I have a little extra room. Then, as I have extra room in my loads I wash the stored clothes and put them away in the closets.
When I am all done washing the clothes, I start going through the clothes currently in their closets. I keep Marissa's clothes for Mayson, but not all the clothes. There are some things that I realize we never wore because I didnt like them and I wont keep those. There are also stained items, some I do keep because every kid needs some play clothes, but I keep very few. I can always pick up play clothes at yard sales. There is a 4 year difference between my girls, so not everything is worth storing for that long.
With Christian's clothes I am storing for that second boy I hope to have in the future, but I am more picky in what I keep since that 2nd boy doesnt actually exist yet. I dont keep anything with stains. I only keep sets and things that were very special or that I loved.
I get new tubs for the items I am storing, label them well, and put them in my basement. I hope to try out the space saver bags in the future and see if they will work for us, I would love to save some space since the bins are becoming more numerous with 3 kids.
After I do that, I go back through the clothes that I just washed at put away in the closets. I match up sets and evaluate how many of each type of clothes we have. We only need so many church dresses or going out sets. Things that I dont really like or I cant find a match to, I pull out. If I love it and dont have a match I try to keep an eye out for a match. I hang the outfits by sets so that I dont have to think hard about what to put with an item when we are getting dressed.
The clothes that we no longer want or have use for...if they are in bad condition (stains or flaws) I take them to a thrift that I know will eventually turn them into mops if no other use can be found for them. The rest I put in a large tub for our Spring yard sale. If I know of someone who has a need, I give away what I can. Anything left after the sale I give to friends or donate to charity if I dont know anyone who can use the items. If there is an extra special item that can command a little more money, I do try to sell them on eBay. I used to do that all the time, but found the money made wasnt generally worth the time and effort put in.
I do the same things each spring too. We have a sale in the Spring and another in the late Summer/early Fall. I use the money we make from the sales to buy our new clothes that year.
Do you have a system of storing and decluttering your kiddo's stuff? I would love to hear it!
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