Don't Throw Away Your Kids Clothes

Do you still have clothes that are hanging around that your kids outgrew months or even years ago and you realize that it’s time to get rid of them? This is often the case with many parents, including myself, and it is hard to let go of those items because usually your child only got to use them for a few months. In my home grandma loves to buy the girls clothes and sometimes they may only get to wear something once or twice before they grow out of it.

So what do you do with those clothes that you cannot bring yourself to throw out because they are still almost new? Here are just a couple of suggestions that have worked great for me either by putting a little cash in my pocket or giving a sense of satisfaction that I did a good thing.

The first thing your going to have to do is separate the items that are truly almost new from the ones that may have stains, wear spots, rips, or even dead batteries. The best of the best can either be sold at a garage sale or at a consignment shop. Often times I’ll do the garage sale first then take them to a consignment shop. This way I get double the chance of selling them and often times I get a better price in a garage sale anyhow. Also many consignment shops will donate whatever doesn’t sell.

The best stuff is pretty easy to sell but what do you do with all the less than perfect items? Well I will usually sort this into two piles. One I call trash and the other I call wearable. I figure that if I wouldn’t want my kid wearing it then it’s time to donate it to a thrift store like goodwill. If an item is bad enough that they cannot sell in there store they have people who buy those items to recycle into a whole bunch of new products from rags to insulation. So even if it is a total piece of junk they are still going to make some money off of it. Now the items that I still consider wearable I personally like to donate to organizations that support foster care. Being a foster parent myself I have had children dropped off at my house at 2 am with a dirty diaper and pair of shorts 3 sizes to small and nothing else. More than once I have made a 6 am run to one of these places just so a child can have some clothes to put on until I have time to do some actual shopping. I couldn’t imagine getting pulled from my home dropped off in a strange place and just to make things worse have no clothes.

There are a million other things that you can do with old kids clothes that you either don’t want or need but don’t just throw them out. There is already enough good stuff flowing into landfills today lets work together to see if we can keep some out.