So, how does one go about clothing a very large family for essentially free? (Well.....not free.....you'll see what I mean after I explain.....)
Well, first of all, you must take my husband with you. I think that must be the trick, although I have found some pretty substantial bargains myself different times.
Every year, Paul and I have a tradition of going on a big clothes shopping trip "after walnut season". This is where we clean out everyone's ratty, stained up clothes and replace them with new or next to new items.
I was going to spend a bunch more time preparing for it than I actually ended up with, but I did race through the drawers this morning to kind of get an idea of what we needed.
In a family our size, there is a considerable margin of error. If I buy the wrong size of something, it is bound to fit someone eventually. That and we have plenty of friends with children in all sizes as well. My uncle laughed hysterically about the time I bought 75 t-shirts (all colors, all sizes) for 50 cents each from a sale rack. He says the store people probably figured I was stocking another store somewhere.
I have boxes lined up in a corner of one of the bedrooms marked with "Clay", "Trevor", "Clark", "Miles", and "Trent". (The bigger boys' wear mens sizes that vary wildly and can no longer be cleverly handled with my box system.) What one boy grows out of gets put in the next younger brother's box (if not directly into the next brother's dresser drawer). I was letting this particular thing slide for a long time and laundry was backing up expotentially and irritating me to no end, so the boxes were sanity savers for me.
We chose to go shopping on a WEDNESDAY. Wednesdays are half off most colors at the Salvation Army stores in the city about an hour from us (that alone saved $60). We arranged to meet two of our food customers to deliver items, which further made our trip worthwhile.
Paul dropped me off at store #1 while he went to make a food delivery. He picked me up and we both went into stores #2, 3, and 4, then we made another food delivery. After that we stopped at store #5 and finally #6. After #6 we buzzed on down to our friend Doug's in the next county to pick up his chickens that we will be dressing tomorrow. (Ahem.....I don't know if it is readily noticed by the casual observer, but we can NEVER seem to do ANYTHING that doesn't include something farm related at some point or another.....)
Back to the free part of the shopping trip. I have on my kitchen table all the purchases for the day. I didn't get anything for the girls. They pick their own stuff out. So does Logan. I couldn't find pants in Garth's size (hard size to find). He'll go to the farm store to get his. I got pants for Clay, Trevor, Clark, Miles, Trent, Brady, Brock, and Paul: 28 pair in all (most new with tags).
There are 5 new sweatshirts from the sale rack at a NEW store.
A new package of socks and unders for each person.
One new pair of insulated coveralls for Brady.
Two used coats.
Six books (we always buy books!).
3 thermoses for the tractors.
3 new games for the children.
A belt.
3 sweatpants for myself.
A softball bat.
3 VHS tapes ( history of something or another....I thought it looked interesting.)
A small Craftsman torch, complete with box. (???? Who knows, it was Paul's purchase....)
4 shirts for Paul. (I didn't think the boys had dire need for shirts this time.)
And....for the purchase of the day.....8 pairs of steel toe work boots marked for $49.99. We intially were buying a pair for Brock. They rang up $2. The store ladies tried a couple times and the manager finally told us we had a steal of a deal right there and said, "Hey, the rest are that price, too." So, Paul went back and cleaned the shelf off of the other 7 pairs. We got 8 pairs for the 1/3 the price we thought we were going to be paying for 1 pair!
I just looked on ebay. Those work boots have recently brought $80 a pair. 7 x $80 is $560, if we'd sell them (but I think we have enough feet to put them on eventually----well, that is if everyone winds up wearing size 9.5!).
All told, our entire shopping trip only cost $300 to start with (which I thought was exceptional), so if we'd sell the boots on ebay for the price they're currently going for, the trip would've actually netted us $260 instead of costing anything.
So, that's how you clothe a family this size for free---or next to it.
~Colleen
