How many clothes? (Full Version)

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3cappuccinosmom -> How many clothes? (6/5/2008 2:13:36 PM)

I am clearing out closets and decluttering as we are hoping to move over the summer. I am half-way through my collection of boys clothes (newborn-sz 6-7) and just culled out about 40 lb of clothing to take to the thrift store. [&o] There was moer that was too stained or worn and I took them out as well to throw away or turn into cleaning rags.

I do understand that living in an area with all four seasons means more clothing (cold weather and hot weather clothes) but still it seemed like it was excessive.

Right now I've decided that for over 2 years old, about 5 shirts for each season, 2-3 pairs long pants, and 2-3 pairs shorts should be more than sufficient. Does this seem reasonable?

I still have to figure out dh's and my clothing situation. I now have three categories: winter, summer, and maternity. Everything in triplicate. [&:]



stellaluna -> RE: How many clothes? (6/5/2008 2:20:38 PM)

You have boys, so I would double that. (Especially since shirts can be bought fairly cheaply at Wal-Mart.) And whatever doesn't get ruined gets passed down, so your budget goes further that way.

When you figure out the adult clothing situation, though...call me. [8|]

[8D]



lexie -> RE: How many clothes? (6/5/2008 2:34:59 PM)

quote:

Right now I've decided that for over 2 years old, about 5 shirts for each season, 2-3 pairs long pants, and 2-3 pairs shorts should be more than sufficient. Does this seem reasonable?


To me, it depends on how much laundry you plan on doing!

For me, it might be a bit more in the summer, depending upon how much they play outside. Also, I would plan on layering clothes for when they go outside in the winter.

I like your idea though. I have four boxes full of clothing in Akeelah's closet, and she is only 1.5. And that doesn't include all the unisex stuff I gave away.

As for adult clothing, put my number on the list under stellaluna's. My closet shows I obviously don't have a grasp on that yet.



3cappuccinosmom -> RE: How many clothes? (6/5/2008 2:57:47 PM)

quote:

I still have to figure out dh's and my clothing situation. I now have three categories: winter, summer, and maternity. Everything in triplicate.


Silly me! I forgot "fat clothes" and "skinny clothes" in that list. [&:]

<sigh>

As long as their not caked in mud, I don't mind the boys wearing their clothes several days in a row, which is why I was hoping to get away with so few clothes. I was hoping to keep it to one full pillowcase (my storage solution [&o]) per size, but I don't know...



uncabeeil -> RE: How many clothes? (6/5/2008 3:10:56 PM)

Depends on how old and active the kids are, too. Any age between 8 and 18 I was good for at least 2 shirts a day. More during football season. Lots more if it rained. With 5 shirts per that's going to be an awful lot of laundering. Those shirts will wear out real fast.



kohls356 -> RE: How many clothes? (6/5/2008 4:57:44 PM)

I would at least have 9 shirts and pants, one outfit for each day of the week, and a couple to spare.



doinkdom -> RE: How many clothes? (6/5/2008 5:04:42 PM)

If it's a simple matter of space for organizing, I would say to invest in one of those Space Bags that you can suck all the air out of and it flattens out to like a little cube.

My mom (who travels from Vermont to Florida seasonally) uses those for seasonal clothing and she puts nearly an entire winter wardrobe in one bag and it takes up very little room.



Auben -> RE: How many clothes? (6/5/2008 6:47:46 PM)

We tend to have 5-7 pairs of pants, 8-12 shirts per boy. The shirts include both short and long-sleeved (which even with our seasons the boys want to wear short-sleeved all the time anyway), although I didn't include sweatshirts, sweaters, church button-downs, etc.

I find that if I cut my clothing down too much then we don't have anything to pass down. I have to factor in a 20-30% destroy rate on clothes and I want to pass something down to the next brother. I figure I'll be buying at least half of a new (to us at least) wardrobe every other child.

I hope that makes sense but I won't be surprised if it doesn't. [:D]

Don't feel too bad, Maggie. If you're anything like us we seem to invite people to give us clothes for the boys. I get bags and bags and bags. [:D] It adds up.

While in general I believe less is more, sometimes a few more than absolutely necessary can save sanity when your a busy mom.



Mrs.Wifey -> RE: How many clothes? (6/5/2008 10:37:07 PM)

I am picky about how Gabby looks in public, basically she gets a clean outfit when we leave the house(we only go out once in a day so it's not like she is wearing 10 outfits). Right now she has about 7 dresses, 5 pairs of shorts, 3 skirts, and probably 10-15 shirts[&o] Let's not talk about how many pairs of shoes she owns, I think I'm raising the next Imelda Marcos.

As for DH and I, it varies depending on whether or not I'm working, and because of our political involvement we do put a bit of an emphasis on looking nice.

For the summer I have 5 skirts, 4 pairs of jeans, a nice dress, and probably 10 tops to mix and match. I also have an entire wardrobe of size 6/8 stuff that doesn't fit right now. I don't even know how much clothing DH has...



Roberta_ -> RE: How many clothes? (6/6/2008 12:45:28 AM)

Honestly? If I knew there was a possibility of having more children, I would save all of the clothing until it was too stained or torn to be worn again. I like doinkdom's idea of the space saver bags.



BlessedMamaofmany -> RE: How many clothes? (6/7/2008 7:37:59 AM)

I think you should defintely keep some reserve. I have bags and bags in the garage that I haven't gone through yet. But, I'm going to invest in some of the space saver bags too. With the possibility of more kids...I'm keeping what I can store.
I divvied the clothes (it's still a work in progress...) by sex and season. Girl/winter, girl/summer, boy/winter, boy/summer. I'm finding that to be much easier to keep track of as opposed to size.
Sandy



3cappuccinosmom -> RE: How many clothes? (6/7/2008 3:13:14 PM)

Oh, Sandy, by seasons and gender is a good idea. When we move I will have to think about doing that. Maybe get some big tote lockers or something to put them in. I like that!



peculiar_lady2 -> RE: How many clothes? (6/7/2008 7:06:43 PM)

I have our clothes divided by gender then size...then in that size bucket I have a piece of cardboard dividing the summer and winter stuff. If there isn't enough of one size for one bucket the I have it divided into four sections with cardboard just placed in there.



Auben -> RE: How many clothes? (6/7/2008 7:17:22 PM)

I only have one gender so I separate mine by size. [;)] Summer on one side of the Rubbermade; winter on the other. Each boy has his own color (red, green, blue, clear) with his name on it and I put the size above him in that container, plus any seasonal clothing we don't want to use.

I was actually thinking of this thread last week. My oldest son managed to get holes in the knees of half of his jeans (3-4 pairs) and suddenly the rest didn't fit (too tight). Don't ask me how he managed to do that all in one week. We just went to the basement and pulled out 2-3 pairs of the next size from his tote. I'm glad I had them because I just didn't have time to patch pants during the last week of school.



zoebob -> RE: How many clothes? (6/7/2008 8:06:41 PM)

Rigiht now my ds has a ton of clothes. He gets hand me downs by a boy at church just a size bigger than him. This boy's dad makes good money and he goes to the Christian school with a dress code. I recently bought hangers so he could hang up all the button down/polo style shirts (chruch or looking nice clothes) and I had to buy 20 hangers. However, the rest of the clothes fit in his dresser. I don't have to buy him many clothes at all.

My girls are hurting more becuase they are becoming teens and growing each season. They have one tote that holds all off season/too big clothes for the two of them.



PrincessDonna -> RE: How many clothes? (6/7/2008 9:11:44 PM)

quote:

I find that if I cut my clothing down too much then we don't have anything to pass down. I have to factor in a 20-30% destroy rate on clothes and I want to pass something down to the next brother. I figure I'll be buying at least half of a new (to us at least) wardrobe every other child.


I have found the same thing. I would have at least twice as much as you stated, Maggie, because most of it will be passed on to the next kid anyway.

Our kids have a lot of clothes, but most of it was given to us. I only buy when they really need things, which is not every kid every season. Noah is the most often bought for...because he is the oldest and at his size, the hand-me-downs have slowed waaaaay down to practically nothing. Eight to twelve year old boys are very hard on clothes, I guess.[&o]

I separate clothes in totes by gender and size. Then I go through them and pick out what season I need. And really, there are only two seasons here...COLD and HOT. LOL



isaacsmom -> RE: How many clothes? (6/10/2008 9:10:25 PM)

Isaac has 6-7 pr. of nice shorts, 5 pr. play shorts, 10-15 shirts, 2 pr. nice jeans, 3 pr. church pants. During the summer, he needs that many clothes because he gets so filthy. Sometimes 2 outfits/day and I like having enough clothing that I don't have to wash clothes every single day. Plus, that wears the clothes out faster and I like to be able to pass them on to our nephews.

During the winter, I like to have 4-5 sweatsuits/athlethic suits he can wear around the house to play in and keep him warm. Then he has maybe 4-5 nicer church/town outfits. Not as many clothes for winter because he doesn't get as dirty.

Isabel has about the same amount of clothes, but she also has about a half dozen dresses in her wardrobe for church, etc. She gets just as filthy as her brother, sometimes even worse. I have to change her about once per day usually, especially if we're going somewhere. I'm able to pick up a lot of clothes for her at yard sales and thrift stores, girl clothes are easier to find used.



creationtalk -> RE: How many clothes? (6/11/2008 9:26:25 PM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: 3cappuccinosmom

Right now I've decided that for over 2 years old, about 5 shirts for each season, 2-3 pairs long pants, and 2-3 pairs shorts should be more than sufficient. Does this seem reasonable?


certainly wouldn't work in my house. My son can go through that much in a couple of days. Plus, I do laundry only once a week (if I'm lucky and don't have to work the weekend, in which case it might stretch longer)..so we have to have minimum 7-8 days worth of clothes (8 so that we can wash 7 outfits...)

Now if you do laundry every other day or so, you might be able to get away with so little.


Maybe you could try this: cut the clothing down to what ever you figure will be needed, and put the excess in a storage container for a few weeks to see if you can get by with what you have. That way if you find that you need more than planned, you will simply take the needed clothing from the storage container and won't have to buy more. Once you've reached the optimal amount of clothing for the season, you can give the rest away. You will probably need to repeat this for each season since certain seasons children are more prone to get dirty/need to change clothing.



Consecrated2God -> RE: How many clothes? (6/12/2008 9:41:12 AM)

I try and keep at least a week's worth of clothes per kid in their drawer. Since we have six kids, things tend to get lost in the laundry easily, and it's amazing how fast they out of clean clothes. I fold a mountain of laundry twice a week. Having less clothes wouldn't give me less laundry, I'd just have to do it more often.

I keep tubs in the basement with all the sizes, and only throw out when I can't stuff anything else into them, or they are too stained up or torn up to pass down. I let them keep as much as they can fit into their drawers and they still run out of clothes sometimes when they don't bring their dirty laundry to the laundry room.



3cappuccinosmom -> RE: How many clothes? (6/12/2008 2:43:47 PM)

Hmmm...part of my problem must be storage space. I was really running out of room in the one closet available for storage. That must have messed with my perspective of how much we had. [&:]



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