Kids Clothes and "Stuff"

Admit it. You have gone shopping and found that really cute outfit for your child that is just a little too big but just have to have it. You buy it, bring it home, leave it in the bag so it won't get dirty and put it away. Soon life gets busy and you forget where you put it. Time goes on and your child grows. Eventually you find it and now it is too small. Then you are disappointed because you remember how cute you thought it was and the thought that they never got a chance to wear it.

I find cute clothes or go to garage sales and thrift stores to find clothes all the time. With having 2 boys, that's a lot of clothes. My oldest is 5 and my youngest is 5 months. I started using 18 gallon Rubermaid bins for clothes before my oldest was born. I have all my bins and labeled them with the size, 1 bin (sometimes more) for each size. This made it so I could shop ahead and save them for him to grow into. After I get home from shopping, I sort the new clothes into the appropriate bin for that size. Now, I did sell a lot of his clothes because I didn't know when we were going to have more kids. We figured out when he was 3, almost 4, that we were going to have a baby. I have saved all of his clothes since then (3T and up). I did have to shop again for this baby, that was hard because I had to buy everything I had just sold a few years earlier. Right now my boys' closet is full of bins, 3-6 month through 18 month and size 5. The basement holds everything else, 2T-4 and 6/7. There are currently 18 bins of all sizes clothes, 2 bins of shoes, 1 of maternity clothes, and 3 of winter coats and snow suits all sizes.

A friend of mine just told me about a system she used for her boys. She had a chart that listed the sizes and all the different types of clothes (jeans, t shirts, hoodies, shorts, etc.). She would write in the appropriate column how many she had of all the different items that way she would never over buy or under buy of a particular item. I plan on implementing this idea for buying clothes. One tip I have is "Always buy ahead." I say this because you never know when your kid will growth spurt and need new clothes and being able to shop clearance, garage sales, off season saves a lot of money when buying new in stores when they need the clothes right then. By being able to store the clothes in the bins, I am able to use them with my younger son and not buy over and over. If you are pregnant, have kids, or know you are going to have more in the future, this is a great idea. As they grow and are involved in more activities or have more kids, lives get more and more hectic. There is less and less time to plan ahead and do the "cheap" shopping. Do the shopping while there is an open schedule instead of being stressed and rushing last minute.

The boys' closet.

Bins in the basement.

Bins in the basement.