The free clothing center; our community has one, and yours might too. It's run by volunteers, and only open for a few hours three days a week, but everything is FREE. There are no income guidelines and you don't have to fill out any paperwork: except that they do ask you to sign an agreement that anything you take is for your own personal use and that you won't resell it.
Obviously, I like it because I have eight bodies worth of clothes to shop for - a free center helps out a lot. I also like donating items there because then I feel like I'm trading. In our family (biological and spiritual) there is a lot of hand me down and pass me around items when it comes to clothes. We are often given bags of items with a message, "I was taking this to Goodwill, but thought you might like to go through it first." We always say yes! Anything that we are sure we won't use, goes to the free clothing center; I drop the items off and take a list of items I do need and look for them while I am there.
My clothing budget last year? I spent $5 (for a whole bag) on baby clothes at a yard sale. One of the items was a nearly new Columbia snowsuit; I sold that for $7 online and kept the rest for our new baby. My oldest daughter got a new pair of church shoes from the same sale (they weren't priced and she went up to ask; the lady said $5, and Summer said, "oh, I only have $2" and started to put them back. They lady said, "oh, alright, I'll take $2" (She wasn't just saying that to get a deal, that really was all the money she had with her).
So, overall, I spent nothing on clothing for anyone in my family, until Christmas, when my husband needed new jeans, and we couldn't find them at the clothing center. We've spent about $10 on mens jeans at area Goodwills and thrift stores. We also received two new pairs of kids tennis shoes and one pair of pajamas for each of the kids (all from Grammas at Christmas). I personally have an aversion to purchasing anything at a retail store!
I expect this year, I'll spend about the same amount, or possibly less, now that I have gotten more experienced at picking out items from yard sales that sell well online. Maybe I'll even make some money back this year! Isn't that what "making money from home" is all about?
Corinne Johnson is a Christian homeschooling mother to five (almost six) children, a help meet to her husband Don and the author of Vacation Education Books. Learn more at www.vacationeducationbooks.net
Saturday, January 10, 2009
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