by miraclesinprogress

Created on: July 21, 2007

I discovered a very helpful strategy for dressing my children in designer clothes while not even spending a cent. It's true!

When my children were younger, I organized a few "clothing swaps," and because I was active in a church at the time, I contacted a few moms who liked to dress nicely themselves. I tried to organize moms with some similar figure types and sizes (and we had a variety), and children with some similar types and sizes. I asked that everyone who wanted to, go through their closets, as well as their children's, and find all the clothing that was too small.

I asked that no one bring anything that had a single stain, rip, or any discoloration, but the best clothing they had. I also asked everyone to bring a favorite healthy snack, and I remember we had layers of clothing across the back of a giant sofa, all organized according to sizes. We then had some rules about how many we could each take, and everyone had to contribute what they were able.

We had quite a few moms show (and they left the children at home with dad or sitters) and not only had a wonderful time to ourselves (and left with some really pretty clothes), but we all came away with some very good quality clothing for our children, and we did not spend a penny. We certainly met some like-minded friends, too, some for the first time.

Another idea I utilized as a single mom was to try to get out of town to frequent quality second hand and consignment stores. I felt this was better for the children's dignity when they started school. (It is easy to tell them not to feel badly about wearing other people's clothing, but I agree with James Dobson when he mentioned that school or high school can be tough enough on young people; any "edge" we can give them is helpful to their self-esteem.) I was able to get them very good fitting designer clothes at reasonable prices, and my reasoning was that many were ones that probably had not been recently worn or seen in the town where my children were living.

The other strategy I tried to implement was to get them at least one new outfit each for the beginning of school, particularly after saving money with the above two strategies. Another way to get good quality outfits was to make the effort to get one or two designer ones that were brand new, but preferably during seasonal sales. This is always affordable, and they would often rather have two pair of designer jeans, than 10 pair of ill-fitting ones.

I hope these ideas help, because my children were certainly thankful to go out of town to frequent quality consignment stores.

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