by Vanessa D. Alexander

Created on: April 26, 2008

Dressing children on a budget is not always about saving money with every purchase. It quite often is about quality. Quality is always a better budget choice than quantity. In the final analysis, you will save more and clothing will last longer.

There are times when you may want to choose designer clothing for your children spending more because the quality is exceptional. If you have more than one child the benefit of being able to pass clothing down to younger children is a budget plus.

Poor purchases account for a lot of waste. For example, how many children have clothing packed away in closets and boxes in the basement or attic that are unwearable because of shrinkage, color fade, wrong sizes or just poor design quality? This is poor planning in action and hidden wear and tear on your budget.

In theory, shop until you drop sounds like fun until your wallet begins to thin. Shopping for your children's clothing should be placed at the top of the A-list of budget concerns. A few planning guidelines go a long way:

1. Always take children shopping with you to avoid buying the wrong sizes and sale items that may be non refundable.

2. Observe your children's personalities and activity levels. It will help you budget for their wardrobes. You can generally assess this at an early age.

Some children are very active and seem to think dirt, find protruding nails in stairwells and walls or suddenly want to climb a tree in a brand new outfit. They of course need much sturdier clothing that may cost more but last longer.

Others are quiet and introverted. You have to wonder if they even wore certain items before you do the wash or put them in the Dry Cleaners. Some children grow fast. Others take years before they finally have a growth sprout and suddenly, there you are shopping for an entirely new wardrobe.

Young children are generally easier to dress and you can utilize second hand shops of gently used clothing and combine it with periodic purchases of new items.

3. As children get older, the task becomes more of a challenge. Middle school and teens have very definite ideas about how they want to dress and its mainly based on peer pressure. New and popular, become two words they seem to have no problem weaving into their growing vocabulary. We are fortunate when our budgets do not allow for the addition of our children's peers to control what we spend.

On the other hand, forcing older children to wear clothing they simply hate to retain a budget can sometimes create insecurities

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