Buying Kids Clothes- Clearance Edition

Hello!  I am pretty darn excited to talk about today's post because it involves one of my most favorite things.  Shopping!  So fun right?  Well most of the time.  But when it comes to kids clothes it can sometimes be a slight pain to have to buy new clothes every few months since they grow so fast.  Thankfully (we have been really blessed to find great deals) for the past two years when my kids have out grown their clothes all I had to do was go into the basement and grab the next size box and we were good to go. 

Our little cowgirl with a bag full of clothes behind her.

I had started collecting clothes from the day that I found out that Adalyn was a girl and those clothes have carried us through.  I also have collected clothes for Jensen since we found out he was a boy.  But now...Jensen has enough clothes to last him for another size, but Adalyn has nothing in her "next size up box".  As a planner, this lack of clothing for the next size was starting to make me nervous. 

In the past we have bought/recieved children's clothes from multiple different places, the majority being garage sales.  But we also got them from...

 -thrift stores
-Once Upon a Child (used kids clothes place here in our city)
-Grandmas
-Gifts
-Clearance
-I even bought some in bulk from McKay's coworker and a ward member. 
-A few hand-me-downs (got to love cousins)

I had assumed that we would do lots of Garage Sales this summer and restock our supply, but we haven't been as dedicated to the garage sale scene this year and children's clothes seem to be scarce when we do go.  So a started to come up a new plan. 

I don't need them to have tons of clothes.  We are trying to dejunk our house right now and the last thing they need is TONS of clothes, but they DO need the essentials.  I also wanted whatever plan that I came up with to be long term.  I used to shop a lot for fun, but these days it is very low on my priority list since it isn't so "fun" with two babies in tow.  I wanted it to become a no brainer thing that was just a part of our schedule.  So here here is the "operation outfit the children" plan that I came up with....

1. Shop for kids clothes twice a year- I will shop in July and March/April (not sure which month yet.   I will just have to watch for the sales this coming year).  In July I will shop for summer clothes for the next year and in March I will shop for winter clothes for the following year.  I will do the bulk of the shopping online in the clearance sections of stores like Target, Old Navy, Kohls, ShopKo, Walmart, Children's Place (their clearance is the bomb!).  These stores always have great clearance sales at the end of the season when they are getting ready to put out the new winter/summer clothes.  As long as I get free shipping I think shopping online is better than shopping in stores because they have a wider selection and different sizes. 

2. How many clothes do they need?- I sat down and came up with a list for what they need each season.  The list isn't fancy it is just a couple pages in my notebook.  (My notebook I use for everything from grocery lists to decorating ideas.  Someday maybe I will update it to be electronic but for now it works.)  For example I decided that each child NEEDED about 10 shirts and 5 pants/shorts for next summer.  So under each of their names I wrote out "shirt" 10 times and "pants" 10 times.  I wrote "dress" a few times under Adalyn's name for church and "pants/shirt" under Jensen's name for his church clothes.  They each need 3 pairs of shoes for next summer- church, tennis, and sandals.  So I wrote those out by their names too.  I have no idea what size Jensen will be wearing next summer so I will not be buying him shoes until later.  The last items on their summer lists are 1 swimsuit, a light jacket, 3-4 pairs of PJ's and socks.  With my list in hand, I checked through the things we already had.  I crossed out those items on my list to remind me not to buy those things.

3.Cost-  I will share with you the budget that I created for kids clothes.  It has worked well for us this first time and  hopefully will continue to work in the future.  Obviously everyone is different so this probably would not be the same for you.  I am not great at finding the best deals out there and rather than stress myself out I just adjusted our budget.  For our kids clothing budget we set aside $45 each month.  Then when March or July roll around I pull out the money to buy the clothes.  That gives us about $270 for clothing/shoes for both kids each season. 

4. Try it out-  I tried it out this past week, did some summer clearance shopping things, AND things went really well!  I was able to find a lot of great basic clothes at good prices and it didn't take months and months of running around to garage sales.  The shirts I bought were about $2-$5 and pants were never more than $10 each (usually were about $7, even church clothes).  Shoes were around $5 each too.  With a few nights of online shopping and 1 trip to Kohls and Walmart the kids are about set with just a couple more things on each of their lists.  

Hopefully I guessed the right size for each of them otherwise we are in trouble! :)

I definitely had fun buying new stuff and was really excited to stock the next box with new clothes.

We will still try to go to garage sales, welcome hand-me-downs, and buy used clothes when we see them because in the end I think those ways are the cheapest ways to clothe your children, but clearance shopping is definitely working out as our last resort.  And new clothes are always fun :)

 

So any suggestions? 
Is my plan going to work?  Only time will tell?
Any great Clearance shoppers out there?
Libby, we need a Savers in Idaho.  :)

Have a good day!