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Here in N.C. kids will be wearing flip flops and shorts and t shirts for at least 6-8 weeks. It is a complete waste of time and money to me to shop for fall clothes this early yet our no tax day was last weekend and all the ads are screaming about fall clothes. I prefer to shop closer to the season as my kids grow very fast and it is too hot to shop for ANYTHING right now.
Do you set a budget for back to school clothes? I've adjusted to the fact I have to spend way more than I'm comfortable with for shoes and this year for the first time my 10 year old girls want some pretty flats as well as sport shoes so that is a double whammy. When the time comes I will spend about $150-$200 for long sleeve shirts, windbreakers, jeans, etc per girl which should get them to spring with what I bought last year(end of season sale) a size too big in anticipation of their growth spurt. At Christmas I will buy a few articles too. Am I in line with what you plan to spend? Thank god I don't have to buy a bunch of coats, boots, snow gear. Last year they wore their heavy coats once once or twice.
My kids wear uniforms and I can order them online any time of year. They are always the same price and they never go on sale. However, my middle son has stopped growing so I only have to replace worn items for him. I only ordered a few new shirts and two new pairs of long pants. We don't need winter stuff in FL. Our winter wear consists of one pair of long pants and a few sweatshirts for each child.
My youngest is homeschooled so we just buy him clothes when needed. My oldest has pretty much stopped growing so I will just replenish his wardrobe a little but and get him some new shoes. He skates a lot and his shoes are really worn out. I don't really have a set budget. I usually go shopping during the end of season clearance when stores have them. We are in NC too and both kids wear t-shirts year round.
My daughter has always loved to shop at consignment shops. She gets her most of her jeans at old navy, since it is so cheap, but sweaters, shirts, hoodies, etc she goes to the consignment shop. Expensive items like coats, and dresses, which are not worn as often are especially good buys at these places.
But because of the nature of consignment, we would start in spring, looking for fall stuff, estimating for growth a bit.
Only thing we always buy new (besides underwear of course) is sneakers. They get to much wear and conform to people's feet too much to be a good buy used.
I went to Target a few months ago and hit the jackpot on jeans/t's for my sons. Shaun White jeans were between $5 and $7. I got 15 pairs. Shaun White t-shirts $2-3. I got about 8 of those. And SW sweat jackets were $9. I got each of them one of them. Now my younger son is still in elementary school and needs collared shirts and cargos, and shorts, no jeans, so all of my oldest son's clothes, went to him that were in good shape. I don't need to buy him a thing for school yet. My oldest is starting middle school in a couple of weeks and he needed the most stuff, though about 4 pairs of those jeans and a couple t-shirts went to my younger son who will still need weekend stuff. We also went out yesterday and grabbed some more t-shirts, Nike and Skechers sneakers (for all three of my boys) and school supplies for the older two and spent $165. Not too bad. I just will need to grab some long sleeve shirts for both of them in a couple of months for the cooler weather and a couple new pairs of cargos for my 8 year old. My 11 year old still needs a couple pairs of shorts, but he can mangae with the five pairs he has right now until I can find some that he likes.
I don't envy parents of girls this time of year. I feel for you guys.
We have all boys so we have it easy. We usually just buy them each a new pair of running type shoes and make sure they have t-shirts and jeans that still fit (they usually do) and they are good to go.
The quality of socks seems to be going way downhill. We used to buy Gold Toe or Jockey brand socks because the quality was better than Hanes or Fruit of the Loom, but even Jockey quality has gone to crap and doesn't last long at all. Gold Toe holds up a little longer but not by much, but they seem so overpriced. We've had a heck of a time finding socks for our boys that last longer then two months or so. It's awful.
CostCo (Kirkland Signature brand) has really good blue jeans for $13. My husband bought a pair for himself, and then we went back and bought some for the boys and my husband bought a second pair. They are sturdy jeans, simple (no bedazzled pockets or pick-stitching or anything "trendy" like that)... just simple, well-made, blue jeans. Our oldest son's friend has worn them for years, and we finally tried them out, and are glad we did! They are sort of a medium dark wash at first but the wash fades into a nice color after awhile. And no stupid sandblasting or whatever to give the jeans that fashionable "worn" look. Did you guys know people have become ill and some have even died because of the technique used to created that "worn-in" look on trendy blue jeans! It's horrible what people support in the name of fashion. The disease is called silicosis. You can google it. It's awful. I will never buy trendy jeans again.
Anyway - I hate "Back to school" shopping season. It's just more marketing/advertising hype. They want us to spend-spend-spend, even when they must know most American families are living paycheck to paycheck. It's unethical.
We don't usually have to buy school supplies, thank goodness. We reuse stuff we already have. This year we had to buy some printer paper, but we needed some for home, anyway. Everything else we already have.
This is when it all begins, you know?
August: Back to school hype.
September: Halloween hype.
October: Thanksgiving hype.
Oct/November: Christmas hype.
December: New Years hype.
January: Valentine's hype.
Feb.: St. Patrick's day hype.
Mar.: Easter hype.
April/May: Summer Vacation hype.
June.: 4th of July hype.
July is like the only month where they are not hyping anything. We can just do our part for the global economy and blow up our Chinese-produced explosives, have a cold beer, and stuff our faces with whatever it is they put into hot dogs.
Our annual budget for clothing the five of us is in the thousands of dollars. I'm not sure I could break out back-to-school shopping. We buy as needed year-round.
I think I've spend about two hundred dollars on clothes for my youngest daughter this month. She doesn't grow very fast, so we get a little excited when she has a growth spurt. She wears shorts and tshirts almost all year for school. On colder days she'll wear a skirt with leggings underneath, but she won't wear long sleeved shirts. The $200 that I've spent includes the backpack and two pairs of sneakers.
I do a lot of our clothes shopping at the thrift stores...I know what time of day they're bringing out the racks of clothes, so we go then and get the nicer stuff as it's brought in. For example, the other day I spent $40 at Goodwill and I got 5 dresses, 4 skirts, 5 shirts, 6 pairs of shorts and a glass cake plate. One of the shirts is Abercrombie & Fitch, two of the dresses, a skirt and three of the shorts were from Children's place, there was a skirt/shirt outfit from Gymboree...
My 10 year old is doing online school this year, so I didn't have to get her any school clothes. She's wearing ladies clothes now and prefers things that are fluttery, silk, beaded, etc. We go to garage sales on our bikes on Saturday mornings and she's very good at bargaining for her clothes. I think sometimes the ladies are flattered that she wants their old clothes that badly
Oldest is out of school, so no shopping needed there. Middle child (16 yr. old boy) went to gramma's for a few weeks and came back all outfitted for school. That leaves me with the youngest to buy for. I have slowly been picking things up off Ebay or from Ross over the last month or so. This year, I would say that I'll spend around $150 on clothes and then a bit more on supplies. If I had needed to buy for my son... that cost would have been much much higher (he is my "brand name" child).
No matter how cheap they are I will not buy any clothes with a celebrity name or picture on it and I usually avoid any article with any kind of obvious label on it. I have masters degree in marketing and I taught my kids early on how the general public can be manipulated to buy "brand name" clothing.
I remember a few years back we were shopping at Kohl's and there were masses of Hannah Montana clothes dirt cheap. My girls looked at them and out loud said "Why would anybody want to wear clothes with somebody else's picture on it?" A woman with her arms full of the stuff heard them and had a puzzled look on her face and slowly put all the garments back without saying a word. I guess what she heard made sense to her and she reconsidered.
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