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hand me downs? PP 2.8

AnneofAlamo

AnneofAlamo

Slippers IN sunshine? Even better!
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Aug 30, 2009
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Today is no school due to parent teacher conference.
One of the things we do on these days is clothes clean out, and living room shopping trip.
All the shirts and pants go in piles by size, unfixable and stained go to garbage, those too small for the littlest go to thrift pile.
Then we have a shopping trip.
The two littles are the same size...so they have the best time.
"buying" the outfits they like
the oldest pick out the ones they want to keep
and we box the rest for the next livingroom shopping trip!
for the record, this is when I see the gaps in their wardrobe and can fill on my thrift store finds and buy new (lol)
What are your thoughts on hand me downs?
 
I was the second daughter in my family growing up and I hated that hand me downs made up most of my wardrobe until I was around junior high. Fortunately, however, my kids have never minded! In fact, my second daughter has been overwhelmed with too many clothes at times, I think, because not only did she get clothes from her sister, but we've had several friends pass on their clothes to us. My son has mostly been clothed in hand-me-downs for most of his 9 year old life, thanks to friends. He cares the least of all of them! I appreciate hand-me-downs so much now. They fit into my philosophy of re-using, recycling, and spending money on experiences rather than stuff.
 
I was the oldest Granddaughter so no hand me downs for me.
Nikolai got hand me down for a bit from his cousin but that stopped about 2 years ago because Nikolai & Nolan have different tastes. As in his cousin loves Minecraft & sports so most of his shirts are/were related to those. Nikolai will run screaming from the room if you turn on any sport and he doesn't do computer games. I do shop sales though and with one kid clothing is not that expensive.
 
I have a circle of friends where clothes have gotten passed around a lot. Now my two are only one size apart so I basically just give outgrown stuff to the next in line, but when they were younger, I often gave stuff away and got it back again for the next kid.
 
I was the oldest, and I got some hand me downs from my older cousin, but since she had a sister my age, it was only if she had way too many clothes in that size! I had one other cousin just older than me that I got hand me down's from until we lived too far away to make it worth it.
My son is a hand me down kid! My mom has clothes from my brothers that come to him, and we pass his back to the littlest brother. Since he is getting taller than my brothers, we are back to thrift store shopping.
 
I confess I am not a huge fan of hand-me-downs. But I know that's completely colored by my own experience with them. My sister is 11 years older than I am. And sometimes my mom dressed me in her hand me downs. So here I was in fifth grade in 1987 wearing clothes from 1976. I didn't, at that time, think that was so cool. :/ The styles were so different and not at all "me" and well..there was no love for retro in those days.

All that said, I'm not "anti" hand-me-down. I know for families with lots of kiddos and those close in age to one another, it can be so so fabulous. And, later in life, I really have enjoyed traversing a thrift store. I will not hesitate to snatch up a good find.
 
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Uhhh, yeah, if mine were that far apart @scarletsierra no way! I can't imagine having clothes for ELEVEN years that no one is wearing them. Seems like a waste to me since there were probably kids in 1977 and 1978 that could have used them and wouldn't have been so embarrassed. But then I have no storage space so I know that colors my view of keeping things around!
 
I pretty much dressed my children in garage sale clothing. If we did shop in a store it was always off the clearance section. Wearing a flowy sweater vest right now that I only got for $15 last week. And at that I almost didn't buy it but my daughter threw it into the cart and told me to stop being so cheap. LOL
 
We buy new for my oldest and then hand them down to my youngest. My youngest isn't that happy about some of the things he's had to wear (like a winter jacket his brother picked out, but at $75 for the jacket, it's going to be used for both of them). I love your idea Anne about having a living room shopping trip. What a great idea!

What never seems to get handed down is shoes. They get worn out before they could go to the next kid. And since we've got a sports guy, we're buying runners, indoor soccer cleats, outdoor football cleats, it gets so expensive!
 
My brother and his wife have small children that are just a few months apart from their friends' children, so they hand clothes back and forth all the time. I think it's awesome, because I'll buy outfits for my niece and nephew knowing that these other little sweeties will be wearing them once Sophie and Finnegan outgrow them...and at that age they grow so fast!

My husband and I don't have kids, so the hand-me down thing doesn't really apply for us. But I would totally do it if we did and our kids were the same gender and close enough in age that things didn't look dated.
 
Unfortunately there is 10 years difference between my 2 sons so we don't keep many hand me downs, fashions and tastes (not to mention elastic gets brittle in pants) change too much in that time and I'd rather someone else gets to use them. Having said that, we did keep some of our eldest's t-shirts which Henry happily wears.

Our daughter is in the middle but will happily wear stuff found in thrift shops. Her best friend in high school was very well off (father passed away and she was only child, too much money for a teen but that's another story) and when she got sick of clothes/shoes etc she would hand them over to Meaghan.

My SIL had a boy in between our first two children and we lent her a heap of stuff as she was a single parent - we made it clear it was just a loan but she went and sold everything at garage sales - including jumpers my mother had knitted - was totally peeved about that...
 
I was the oldest so I didn't get hand-me-downs. Neither of my younger sisters did as well because my sister after me have very different taste (she was a tomboy so she didn't want my clothes). My youngest sister got some hand-me-downs from me but not alot because we were 5 years apart.

My son gets hand-me-downs from my nephew. They are 4 years apart but they are very close in height. My sister has good taste so I don't mind the hand-me-downs :) My daughter gets some from her older cousin as well but not alot since they typically go to her younger sister. My daughter gets the dresses and skirts since her younger cousin doesn't like them. So we mostly get new clothes - and by new I mean, I shop clearance and sales - and I will buy next year's size to save money. I used to buy thrift but since my son's sizes are rarely in thrift stores, I stop going. I find better stuff with clearance/sales/discounts.
 
I am the oldest, so my sister got hand-me-downs from me...and my mom made a lot of our clothes when we were little. As far as my kids, the first 2 were boy and girl, so not much sharing went on. There is 14 years between my oldest and youngest son and the youngest was a bit of a surprise, so needless to say, there was nothing of his left to hand down.
 
I was an only child and a girl amongst a lot of boy cousins. Almost all my clothes were made for me by my mother and Nana. I don't know where they went after I had them. ? a lounge time ago. ;) But when I had my two boys, the 2nd one did get his older brothers until they got to the stage where the elder wore them out first. Also my sons were 4 years apart and sometimes the right size didn't fit the season #2 was that size.

fwiw, my daughter is dirt poor but manages to clothe herself ok and her daughter very nicely from a variety of charity shops. She's a savy shopper and to look at my granddaughter you'd have no idea of where her clothes came from.

So I say Pro.
 
I still get hand me downs...LOVE them...especially because the hand downs we get are from my rich part of the family, so we get Prada, N Farhi, Dolce & Gabbana, Gucci, Moschino, Kors..... my cousins use the stuff longest a year...then it all goes to my mum who puts them in a suitcase, until we travel or she comes over and brings...sometimes they give her money for her to send (as we spent 5 years unable to travel; until end of 2014...)

When I was living in Madrid, I had a routine going to the Rastro, the ,market and bought old 40s and 50s clothes for cents.... (dont think is like that anymore) I was amazed when I came here with the amount of charity shops in London..... the prices have changed a lit since I arrived 25 years ago..... mainly because we live in a very high class area.... but I was working all over London so hardly ever brought anything new.....
Pregnancy?
all fro, charity shops and hand me downs from family and friends...
and Sarita was the best dressed baby/toddler/kid ...always with stuff second hand..... she still loves shopping that way...but now she works on Vans...she gets stuff for free there.... so is like we are lucky blessed with the dressing up side of life :)
 
Chel said:
I was the oldest Granddaughter so no hand me downs for me.
Nikolai got hand me down for a bit from his cousin but that stopped about 2 years ago because Nikolai & Nolan have different tastes. As in his cousin loves Minecraft & sports so most of his shirts are/were related to those. Nikolai will run screaming from the room if you turn on any sport and he doesn't do computer games. I do shop sales though and with one kid clothing is not that expensive.
Click to expand...

clever boy, Nikolai!!!!!!! LOL
I am NOT a sports person (the crutches get on the way LOL) and I brought Sarita up with no video games , at all......
 
We love hand me downs. My sister has 2 girls and I have 3 - so we get sister and cousin hand me downs and most of the time the girls really enjoy them.
 
I love hand me downs and practically used everything. Mostly for me though. Few happened in our house directly though because my sons were never similar sizes or shapes in similar seasons. I got lots of stuff from friends and likewise passed on what didn't fit and was in good shape. Lots of stuff to Sun Youth and Good Will too. Especially winter jackets which we didn't use.
 
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