Today’s Establish a House post comes from a question I received on my facebook page.
“A question for moms of large families! How do you save clothes for hand me downs? Limited space and many bins are taking over my closets with clothes I’m saving and I dread seasonal change outs or size changes. What’s the best way to do it?”
When you are a mom of many you know that hand-me-downs are such money savers! But the question of where and how to store that clothes can be daunting. Here’s what I do.
I have smaller containers on shelves at the tops of the kids’ closets. These are for smaller sizes usually one tote for each size up to 4T. ALL of the clothes for that size fit in the tote, whether they are fall/winter or spring/summer clothes. I try to keep the kids clothes to a minimum of 7 shirts and 7 bottoms for fall/winter, the same for spring/summer, with a couple of outfits for church hanging in the closet. This saves me on laundry as well as space and sanity.
When the kids get to be size 5 the clothes fits better in the bigger totes we keep in our storage room. At least four of the totes you see are for Christmas decorations and the big red one on the bottom right is for coats and jackets. The rest are clothing totes labeled for sizes and boys or girls. I can usually fit two sizes in one tote so girls 5&6 will be in one tote while girls 7&8 will be in another. As you can see one tote is also for shoes (looks like one of the kids recently rummaged in it and didn’t close it all the way).
I put off the seasonal clothing changeout as much as I can because it seems to take all morning (sometimes all day) because ALL the laundry needs to be caught up as I detest finding long-sleeved shirts in the wash after we’ve already changed all the clothing. It’s actually not too bad because the kids get involved and can’t wait to go “shopping” in storage so they help quite a bit.
How do you save clothes? Do you only save a certain amount? Please leave your suggestions and ideas and what has worked for you in the comments.
I have been struggling with this lately- we only have one child right now, and he’ll be two tomorrow. I was looking at all the diaper boxes (need to get bins) of clothing we have for those first two years and I cannot believe how much we have!
We want a lot more kids so I really don’t want to get rid of anything because I know we’ll need it and it will save us money.
So how do you deal with the really little baby stuff (cause you need TONS of onesies to survive that first year)?
I only have four kids, but I would def like to whittle it down to 7 tops and 7 bottoms. Is that even possible? I think saving hand-me-downs is good, but at some point the cost of storing/time energy organizing and maintaining hand-me-downs is NOT worth it. (to me anyway) especially since some clothing doesn’t really store very well. My kids have worn a LOT of hand-me downs from cousins too…I am grateful for them, but we probably need to rally get rid of a lot of the clothing we’ve accumulated. Just because they’re free doesn’t mean they’re worth keeping around either.
I have become very picky and only keep things in almost new condition with no tears or obvious wear. I keep church clothes also because those specialty items are hard to replace. I found a printable for organizing what you have for a kid’s wardrobe but having 5 kids I’m still overwhelmed by the whole thing. My kids mostly wear hand me downs from friends and relatives so the sorting of clothes seems to be endless. Then there is the issue of kids wearing size 4 in shirts but size 3 in bottoms. Or that my one son is very skinny and thin and his older brother is more husky in build and pants don’t work well sharing between them. Here is the link with the printable I found: http://www.abowlfulloflemons.net/2014/05/summertime-organizing-seasonal-clothing-swap.html
Sometimes I think the best idea is to just pass almost all of it on to a friend with a child about to grow into the clothing and hope that someone will do the same for you. Especially when I have tons of bins and not enough space for them.
I also wonder what a good time limit is on saving – my daughter is 5 and I don’t have any other daughters yet. I’m thinking over 5 years is too long to save stuff, the elastic will have started to go out. So just save church dresses perhaps?
OK…here is my two cents, having nine children, but mostly boys (8). Most of my boys do not like the same things, one likes long sleeves, the other hates them, or like KMDuff said, one of my boys is skinny and the other is husky. We have launched four from the nest.
I kept the baby things, but like KM, only kept the mostly new, or gently used. There comes a point where some things just need to go, so out they went. Like Monserrat, I used to have them in bins (now using the diaper boxes Trisha ;-), especially 0-3, 3-6, 6-9, 12 months, 18 months, 24 months. Finally when our youngest was about 4, I decided to give away all the baby stuff. Then, 2 and 1/2 years later, we found out we would need them again. The Lord is good and always provides, people just gave them to us, all of them, here a little and there a little.
But back to the big boys, I go through their drawers every August, before school starts, move one set of clothing onto the younger brother, re-evaluate their wardrobe, throw out trashy pants/shorts/shirts and then restock the wardrobe with what is needed–someone doesn’t have underwear, only 2 pair of pants handed down, etc… My boys usually only have two or three pair of jeans, we keep it to 10 shirts, 7 short sleeved, three long, and just move along anything that won’t work for that child (but also, our climate is very mild without definitive seasons). And for boys, shoes don’t usually pass down or jeans very often either. They just don’t.
So as far as storing, just keep your very, very favorite outfits so if, even after 5 years, like our 6 and 1/2 years, you still have the things you loved. If the elastic is dead, get rid of them anyway 🙂 That is what is working for us. I finally did give away all of the girl stuff, except a couple of homemade things (blessing dress). Our only daughter is now 13, so if we have another one, the Lord will need to send it all again, and I know He will, so I can let it go to bless someone else.
We use clothes bins and label them very similar to how Cocoa does it. I used to save just about everything. Then I went through and got rid of the stained and worn out clothes, but kept everything that looked new. However, I realized that some of the “new” stuff was new because nobody liked it (maybe it fit weird or was too bulky to fit in drawers, etc). So now I keep what we like and get rid of things I know my kids won’t wear. My girls love lose stretch pants and this year I noticed that many had holes in the knees so we cut them and sewed them up as shorts. They look really cute and I didn’t have to buy any new shorts this summer!
About saving clothes for a long time:
My oldest boy is ten and after four girls in a row I now have a baby boy. I saved a big bin of baby boy clothes for 10 years before I finally got to use it again. I am very grateful I saved clothes for 10 years. I only had to dispose of a few pants that had elastic problems (They were hand-me-downs to begin with. Everything that was new for him ten years ago was just fine.) and a few stained onsies that I am not sure why I kept. Most of the clothes were in great condition. I know my 10 year old likes to see pictures of himself wearing some of the outfits we put the baby in now. My baby is over 6 months now and I have only had to buy about 3 packs of onsies and 2 pants.
We save only shoes that are usable and relatively clean. I think saving shoes for church is the best money saver I have ever done. They only wear them for a few hours a week anyways.
I actually like when we change the clothes for the seasons. Everyone gets so excited to go “shopping” in the bins. I think I like it just because I like changes of seasons in general.
Storage bins take up room and we have moved 6 times since I packed up those baby boy clothes 10 years ago. So they can be a pain to move, but overall I think saving clothes is so worth it.
I’m late to the party, but happy to offer my thoughts. We had two boys, then two girls. I’d saved everything from the first baby, then realized the second could never wear it all plus all the wonderful new things we’d received to celebrate the second’s birth. So, enter sanity. I kept only those items/ outfits that had true sentimental value. I also saved about 15 or so onesie/ simple newborn outfits. I knew by the second what worked best for us (those little elastic bottom gowns for middle of the night changes? Brilliant!) and saved only those items.
We have very limited storage space, no attic or basement, and all the extra clothes share space with holiday decorations, hiking/ camping gear/ albums/ anything being saved. I’ve had to become ruthless, but realistic. Our boys are three years apart, but so different in size. For the most part, tees aren’t worth saving because they are stained/ worn. I realized early on that saving the 10 year old’s pants just didn’t make sense because the next boy wouldn’t fit into them for 5 years or more. I pass along good condition everyday wear and save anything special.
Our girls are 5 years apart and have very different styles. I saved all the dresses/ tights/ etc for the toddler/ preschool years, but not the everyday stuff. Unless I made it, I generally passed it on to friends. My older daughter is pants/ shorts only and my younger is all for dresses/ skirts. Lots of words to say: consider the (reasonable) styles of your kids.
Last words about passing on shoes….this has really never worked for us. I had terribly hard to fit feet as a child (and as an adult) and hated wearing my older sister’s shoes. My feet always hurt. I try to just buy my kids their own shoes. We are not shoe collectors, though. Each child has one pair of tennis, one pair for church (seasonal), one pair sandals, and one pair beach/ pool. That’s it.
I store hand me downs/ special clothes in plastic tubs, generally labeled by size. By number three, the baby just wore whatever was clean and I didn’t worry about color or gender! I have the very special vintage clothes (dresses made by my mother or grandmother) stored in acid free paper and breathable boxes. I store off season clothes at the top of the kid’s closets and, like Cocoa, am really trying to control the amount they have. We get lots of hand me downs for the girls, though, and they have too many.
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