by Ashley
Raising kids is costly!
One of our largest expenses, which actually costs more than our rent, is our children’s preschool (and they only go part-time! Yikes! See full budget here). Beyond that there is the expense of feeding, diapering (ours are THIS.CLOSE to being potty trained, but still wear diapers overnight), and clothing them!
Thus far, we’ve been very lucky with the clothing part and have spent only a tiny amount of money on clothes for them. Early on we were gifted tons of clothes (at baby showers and such); we also received a lot of hand-me-downs from friends (particularly from other twin moms, as there seems to be a bond between us); lastly, our families have been very generous to gift us clothing for various occasions (particularly for their birthday and Christmas). All in all, we’ve been very fortunate.
But one area where their clothing has been decidedly lacking lately has been in pajamas. And therefore I’ve come up with a solution to stretch their old clothes longer….cut out the feet!!!
My husband thinks I’m crazy. I call it thrifty! ; )
Seriously, though. Our girls are very small (in terms of weight) for their age. But they’re still a normal height. That means that the pajamas still fit perfectly fine (not too snug), but were becoming too small length-wise.
In the past I’ve tried to resale or donate our old clothing (particularly since we were generously given so many hand-me-downs I like to find twin moms who I can give our used clothes to as a pay-it-forward type thing). But since we’re running low on jammies I figured I’d rather just keep these going as long as possible, even if it means cutting out the feet and making it impossible to ever resale or donate. It stretches their use that much longer (these are size 18 months, and our girls are 2.5 years), and keeps us from having to spend money on PJs for that much longer, too.
So I think its a saving money high point. I’d call it a win (even if my hubs thinks I’ve lost my mind). ; )
What do you think?
What do you do to try to stretch your kids’ wardrobe and/or your clothing budget?
Hi, I’m Ashley! Arizonan on paper, Texan at heart. Lover of running, blogging, and all things cheeeeese. Freshly 40, married mother of two, working in academia. Trying to finally (finally!) pay off that ridiculous 6-digit student loan debt!
My mom always cut the feet out of footie jammies to extend their life! What’s smart idea.
This makes total sense to me, especially sine you live in a warm place. Plus, most footy pjs have slippery feet, so cutting them makes them safer, too 😉
Great way to extend the life of the pjs.
We also looked at seasonal clothing (Boston definitely does seasons) that would be outgrown by next year as fill-in pjs. For example,our daughter loved wearing her character tops/bottoms to sleep in.
That’s a great idea!
Smart!
My boys are very tall and thin and refuse to wear pants and long sleeves. It is amazing how long shorts will last on them – many many years. Nothing I really planned but is how it works out. We usually make them wear pants (Northern CA) in Dec and Jan but this year we didn’t even bother because it was so mild. We do turn pants into shorts a lot of the time by cutting off the legs, since they grow more up than out.
That’s a great idea! We’ve had a really tough time with pants because their waists are so tiny! Pants in the appropriate length are way too big at the waist (like, falling off). If they fit at the waist then they’re always way short in length. I have them wear them anyway (I call them “capri pants”….even if they’re intended to be regular pants, lol). But cutting them off into shorts would solve that problem all together!
I too did this when mine were little. They are 21 and 24 now. Keep it up you are moving in the right direction :o)
Very clever!