Hand Me Downs...

This Post over at Meridith's inspired me to post about how I handle hand-me-downs. With 3 girls, each two years apart, I'd be INSANE to not recycle clothes. We have ALWAYS dressed our girls in either hand-me-downs or thrift store finds.

When we had Peanut, we were lucky enough to have a friend in our apartment complex in VA who was... well-to-do... shall we say. Her family supplied her with a never-ending parade of new little girl outfits, and I seriously don't know that her daughter ever wore something twice. She gave us trash bag after trash bag of brand new clothes. I don't think we even bought any baby clothes to bring Peanut home. This started a trend I pretty much still follow today.

Twice a year (fall & spring) we have HAND-ME-DOWN day. The day you get to try on your big sister's shoes, and that dress you liked so much last year... I start at the top, making Peanut try on anything I'm not sure of. Then I "Shop the Bin" I keep under the bed. (due to a recent windfall, I have 2 1/2 bins at the moment) This is where I stash anything from friends, cousins, & sisters that was too big/ small to fit someone last time. I keep a running list of anything missing that I'll have to purchase to fill in the gaps. (with a 5ft tall 10 Y.O., this is getting hard to keep up with...) Anything that is too small for Peanut goes into a pile on Curly Sue's bed. She then has to try on her stuff, and these new finds, then I shop the bin and add to the list again. Anything too small for her goes on Little Bit's bed. SHE is always the clothes lottery winner. I have rarely ever had to buy clothes for Little Bit. In fact, once or twice I've bought her something new (usually on sale) just so she has a chance to give a little input on her wardrobe.

I always use hand-me-down day as an excuse to re-organize dressers and closets, and turn anything ratty or stained into rags. Anything that has reached the bottom of the food chain in good condition, either goes on to friends with smaller kids, or to Goodwill to be someone else's frugal find. Some of the best dresses my girls have ever had came from Goodwill. I keep a running list of who's wearing what, and check the racks for good deals whenever I'm there.

To keep it all straight who's what is whose... I use a sharpie and put dots in EVERYTHING. I read this once on someone's blog (thank you, thank you whoever you are!!!!!) Starting at the top, Peanut's clothes get one dot on the tag. When they go to Curly Sue, I add a second dot. Little Bit gets a third dot. That way we can all tell at a glance whose is whose on laundry day, and it's a simple system to keep track of.

One thing we have learned over the years, is that if you have to buy something new, higher quality lasts longer, but buy with respect to how many kids you expect to have wear something. If Peanut needs a new jacket, I'm more willing to shell out some cash than if Little Bit is running short on tops. (this hardly ever happens.) If 3 kids are going to wear something, it needs to be built to last. We had one outfit we bought Peanut when she was learning to crawl from The Children's Place (back when I still went to the mall...) All 3 of out girls crawled around in these little jeans, and they still looked brand new when we passed them on to someone else. We got a lot of bang for our buck with that purchase.
Something I do buy new is short sleeved white T's. (whenever I find them on sale at Old Navy, I buy in bulk, many sizes...) They go with everything, and I can bleach them if needed. At Christmas I got them for $1/ea. They layer under jumpers, go with skirts for church, and bridge the style gap between sisters.

I also make sure everyone always has a white cardigan that fits. That way I can avoid the summer/ winter dress thing. A jumper can be worn alone in summer, add a T under it for spring and fall, and top that off with the cardigan in the winter. VOILA!

Anyway, this has been a really long post on hand-me downs... How do YOU do it?