Saving Money With Second Hand Baby Clothes

Bags of more baby clothes

Yesterday, Baby Girl and I were busy colouring and doodling on an old Amazon box (it's essentially free canvas) when the doorbell rang.

I didn't know who it was, but they were carrying many bags of second hand baby clothes.

I heard the in-laws mention that this family was planning on giving us more clothing over the weekend so I assumed it was this family. I had never met them before, so I thanked them for the clothing and took the bags inside.

This particular family (we call them Unicorn family because they gave us a unicorn costume in the past) has a daughter who is 7 months older than baby girl. I suppose they give us the clothing because they no longer need it and they don't have the space to store the clothing.

As a result of the generosity of the Unicorn family and many other families, we've only spent $269.51 on clothing since Baby Girl was born (at least for the first 2 years, not sure about the 5+ months afterwards). That's quite amazing if you think about it. That's extra money that can go to long term savings or future education funds.

Sure we can go out and afford to purchase new clothes whenever Baby Girl grows out of her existing smaller clothes, but Baby Girl is always getting bigger, always growing. That's a lot of shopping. Who has the time for that?

One of the first shirts in the bags.

How does one get free second hand clothing? Well, the most obvious answer is to ask. If you don't ask, the answer will always be no.

However, the way we acquired the clothing didn't involve asking. Mainly, wifey's friends offered to give us their old clothing. In addition, the in-laws friends (also grandparents) also offered the old clothing of their grandchildren (Unicorn family, for instance). 

We've actually received so much clothing, we've actually had to donate them to thrift stores. Some clothing, if they are unisex and wifey doesn't want them, we've given to my cousin and her baby boy. However, most of the clothing we've received are for girls, so we haven't been able to give my cousin much so far (at least clothing wise).

Aside from getting free clothes, how else do you get them? Well, I touched on it briefly. Second hand stores like The Thrift Store or Goodwill. I went in there once to look for some books, but noticed that baby clothing is priced extremely low. Between $1 and $5 depending on what the item of clothing is and the "brand". 

One thing people worry about is the shame of second hand clothing. Frankly, that's a load of crock. Some of the second hand clothing was actually third (possibly fourth) hand and the label on one pair of pants indicated the brand was from Eaton's. Those pants were extremely well made (no wonder they went out of business). 

If you were to look at the clothing of babies and toddlers, you wouldn't be able to distinguish between new and second hand. After a few washes, new clothing certainly feels second hand. 

Baby girl hasn't complained about wearing second hand yet. Though, I'd be surprised if she can notice the difference considering she's not yet 2 and a half years old.

Of course, that's not saying we won't buy Baby Girl new clothes. We recently bought her new Crocs for the summer. We also plan on getting her some snow pants for next winter. Possibly even a new winter jacket. Of course, this depends on whether or not we receive these second hand.

Thank goodness for Costco's extremely generous return policy.