Hopefully we’re now making less trips to various stores for both human and pet food along with personal hygiene items. We’re streamlining meal planning and not visiting our local pharmacy or veterinarian office as often.
Let’s move onto another basic need.
Many women enjoy shopping for clothes, although that’s not true for all of us! I know I personally look forward to my annual “girls shopping trip” every fall at an Indiana outlet mall or in our beautiful historic downtown.
It’s also fun for me to take an hour or two every couple of months to explore one of our unique local thrift stores. I’m a huge fan of hunting for garage sale bargains as well.
Some clothes shopping, however, can become part of the mental load. It’s especially tough when you start to have children and are forced to shop more often as they grow into different sizes.
Even if you have a baby shower or two and loving relatives that enjoy buying your little one some clothes (my mom was always thrilled to pick up items for the boys) it’s not uncommon to have to shop every couple of months for clothes when you have babies and or toddlers. And if you’re not careful, this can get expensive.
One Godsend for our family was having friends who were kind enough to pass along their children’s clothes when they were done with them. I made sure to do the same in return for our friends who had boys younger than ours.
I also love the recent popularity of children’s resale and consignment shops. As one brilliant blogger recently said on lifehack.org, “Kids grow quickly, so why would you want to spend $25 on a new shirt or $40 on a new pair of jeans when your son or daughter is going to outgrow them in a year or less?” It just makes so much sense to buy gently used clothing for your growing child.
I tried to take less frequent trips to stores and garage sales for my kiddos by planning ahead. We were fortunate that my sons are only 16 months apart, so most of Jonathon’s clothing could easily be passed down to Jacob. I always browsed in the children’s section whenever I shopped in a thrift store, and I paid attention whenever I saw garage sale signs advertising children’s attire!
Thanks to buying clothes a size or two bigger and storing them in our attic, I was nearly always prepared for those days when one of the boys would slip on a pair of pants to discover they had become “high waters” – pants you could wear to easily wade in water.
Sometimes I missed the mark on estimating a future size, but since I spent very little on clothing, it wasn’t the end of the world when the boys didn’t get to wear something I had purchased. I did like to buy my sons some brand-new clothing on occasion, mostly for special events or holidays. I visited our downtown children’s boutique for these items a couple of times a year, and I was glad to help a local family-owned business.
Amy Shankland is a writer and fundraising professional living in Noblesville with her husband John, two sons, two dogs and a cat. You can reach her via email at amys@greenavenue.info.