Sunday, February 24, 2008

Consignment Shopping for Kids

There is not much secondhand shopping in our little town. Yardsales are wonderful and plentiful, but it's tough to get out of the house alone on Saturday mornings and, frankly, I'd pay full-price before I'd try to take four kids yardsaling. Thankfully there is a huge consignment sale for all things kid-related twice a year. I've been shopping there since Levi was a baby and in the last few years I've sold some things, too. Last year I even made more than I spent! Last fall I was too busy to sell anything and only shopped a little on the last day (everything half off!), so I'm planning on making up for it next week! Hopefully, I'll be able to clean out some storage space, make a little money, and get all of the kids spring/summer clothing bought in one fell swoop. Since this is a big project I thought I'd think out loud for a bit and try to get organized.
The first thing I need to do is go through the clothes we have in storage and in the closets and pull out the clothes I'd like to sell. Since there may be more babies in our future I don't want to get rid of everything, but I do feel like I'm holding on to too much. For the boys clothing, I'll only get rid of things we have too many of and things we just don't use (I've been holding on to a baby sleepsack for 6 years, but I swaddle new babies so it's never been used). The girl's clothing is a little trickier. We only have Brenna so far so I feel wasteful holding on to all her clothing and yet I'm especially attached:) I think I'll save most of her church dresses, coats and shoes, but only keep the really precious casual stuff.
Once that's done I'll separate the "to be sold" pile into fall/winter and spring/summer piles and tag everything. The woman who runs this particular sale has very specific rules about sorting and tagging, which I used to thing was such a pain. It makes shopping so easy, though!
Now, I'll prepare to shop! Thanks to my parent's generosity and hand-me-downs from my sil, I don't have to buy much. But as I'm going through all the clothes, I can pull out what will fit this spring and summer. Christian's clothes are already out since I keep clothes for the whole first year in one container -otherwise I'd be getting out a whole new wardrobe every few months. Looking at what they already have will make it easy to put together a list of what they still need. And, hopefully, prevent me from going crazy with the church dresses. I love church dresses:)
One final thing I need to remember is to make a list of everyone's size and make a tracing of everyone's feet.
Then I'll go to the first sale for seller's only. This is where the best deals are snatched up and where you find the best selection. I also try to go back on Saturday when everything is half-priced, but this sale is so well attended that most of what is left will have been over-priced to begin with. There are deals to be had, but I don't kick myself if I miss it.
I'd also like to go through the movies and toys to see what we could thin out. I'm not sure I'll have time though so that may be put off until we move everything downstairs. Then I'll just set it aside for the fall sale. And I keep meaning to make up a few extra baby carriers and hairbows to sell. Sometimes my good ideas are more than I can follow up on though so we'll just see how that goes.
Next I need to think through exactly what kinds of clothes the kids need. They have a pretty simplified "uniform" already but I'd like to have it written down. My brain seems incapable of processing thought these days (as in I frequently don't remember the you know, thing that you say with the letters word I'm trying to say).



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