school clothes

so I've been starting to sort through all of ce's clothes.. we tore apart his room the other day and I found a TON of clothes that are too small stacked in his closet (haha apparently I was organized one day) which prompted me to start going through the clothes he wears regularly. He's pretty rough on his stuff (ie he likes to cut his jeans.. :/ i'll be making those into shorts soon LOL) so I'm going to be needing to get some extra stuff for the school year obviously..

so what's a good like # I mean.. he's a boy.. so I can go simple.. jeans.. t-shirts.. and hoodies for the winter. How many pairs of pants/tops etc do you generally get for your kids? I really want to get the bare minimum - and keep a few outfits for "play" clothes because his wardrobe has been overwhelming the past year or so.. and he just trashes it, there's no point.

for pre-k my son had too many clothes but for kindergarten he has to wear uniforms so he has 1 for each day of the week (just in case i don't wash them during the week he won't run out)...he still has clothes from earlier this year that he can wear after school...

it depends on how often you do laundry. For my boys my minimum is 5 pairs of jeans and a variety of shirts and such so I can get through a "work week" without having to do laundry.

Id say at least one for everyday of the week possibly a week and a half just in case. For us my sons wear shorts pretty much year round so I like them to have at least five pairs of school shorts and three or four pairs of jeans and maybe two pairs of sweats/jogging pants. A bunch of t-shirts because they seem to wear through them faster then their bottoms and a lightweight jacket. We dont really do heavy winter coats because a hoodie and long sleeved shirt is usually warm enough.

Definately depends on how often you do laundry. I make sure he has at least 5 pairs of jeans just incase he gets one dirty or something, but we found jeans on sale at Old Navy for $10, so I bought 9! And I think I'll save a couple for when these get holes, then I'll have new ones to bring out. Shirts, we always have WAY to many, but if you have at least 7, I would think you'd be good.

We just did this last night.

Abby has 13 new tshirts/tops. 5 pairs of shorts, 2 pairs of leggings and 1 pair of pants. I'll worry about jeans and long sleeved tops later but my plan for that is 2 or 3 pairs of jeans and 10-12 tops.

ETA I do laundry twice a week b/c of Jeff's work jeans and such so it won't matter that she doesn't have 5 pairs of jeans.

we have uniforms too...but she has a bottom of sorts for every day of the week ( 3 pants, 2 skirts , 2 shorts). I'd say as long as you had 4-5 jeans and some shorts he'd be fine

I however..sigh do laundry almost every day lol

Right now I have:
7 pairs of shorts (we wear shorts until December)
2 pairs of jeans
tons of solid T-shirts (Walmart has them for $4 each)
7 polo type shirts
a few button downs

No long sleeve clothes yet. No need. LOL!

I got Garrett jeans from Crazy 8 for $11 each.
http://www.crazy8.com/shop/dept_category.jsp?FOLDER<>folder_id=2534374306230882&bmUID=1250282725217

They also have lots of Tshirts on sale:
http://www.crazy8.com/shop/dept_category.jsp?FOLDER<>folder_id=2534374306244696&bmUID=1250282725140

The jeans will go fast so I would jump on them!

Here is a code I found- SUMMER for $10 of $30. But if you get on their mailing list they mail you couons all the time.

Oh! And don't forget that they might be required to have a change of clothes in their backpack.

My kids have to wear school uniform, even in preschool (age 3 and 4). My son (last year in preschool) has about 3 pants and 3 long sleeve shirts but one rugby top - these are expensive. Which means I have to wash that jumper nearly every day because my son is a little piggy . For summer he has 2 shorts and 3 t-shirts. My daughter (grade 1) has to winter tunics with two turtleneck shirts, one woolen jumper and for sports one shirt, one pair of leggins and the rugby shirt. Yes, I do wish sometimes to have more so that I don't have to wash but I am not willing so spend so much money on school uniforms and they don't wear them that long cause they outgrow them so fast!

are you a part of the local Freecycle group?

here's a link to yours if you aren't already a part of it:
http://freecycle.org/group/United States/Rhode Island/Woonsocket

you can giveaway old stuff and request stuff too... people are always getting rid of kids clothes and stuff and lots of times it's in great condition too and i'm sure you could get lots of play clothes!

you could also find those packs of like Hanes undershirts to get more for your buck. one of my boys is a notorious clothes wrecker (last year he took up CUTTING things w/ scissors during school.... the tops of his socks off.... the bottoms of his shirts..... yeah....) so i appreciate you not wanting to spend a lot.

I really want to get the bare minimum -

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I usually just pick up a couple of new outfits when school starts just so they have something new, but they mostly continue to wear the older stuff until it starts to get colder. Then, I just pick things up here or there as they are on sale. I hate shopping at back-to-school time -- too crowded and to expensive.

DawnMarch said:

I usually just pick up a couple of new outfits when school starts just so they have something new, but they mostly continue to wear the older stuff until it starts to get colder. Then, I just pick things up here or there as they are on sale. I hate shopping at back-to-school time -- too crowded and to expensive.

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This is what I did too. My kids really never got anything right at the beginning of school. I always made sure they had enough jeans and t-shirts...a few sweatshirts, and that was about it. My kids were so bad about leaving sweatshirts at school too, so the only ones they were allowed to wear were the really cheap ones I could find on sale places. Sometimes, I'd go to the school when I knew they were putting all the clothing out that was left at the school during the year, and I always found several sweatshirts from all of them!

I hate crowds, so I go when things are on sale. I've gotten jeans for as little as $5 at Old Navy. I even found some for my dh, and we stocked up on work jeans for him!!

My oldest has a TON of clothes. I desperately need to go through them and weed out his closet. He probably has 10 long sleeves from last year that still fit plus I just bought him 3 new ones b/c The Children's Place is having a sale (3 for $20 plus a 15% coupon). I think he has about 4 pair of jeans left over from last year that are still decent so I bought 2 more pair. He has a ton of t-shirts but some are getting pretty ratty so I bought him 5 new ones for school. He has a couple of hoodies from last year that still fit and I just bought 2 more at The Children's Place (on sale for $15 each plus the coupon). That will do him for this winter. I'll have to buy more shorts next summer but he's pretty set for a while otherwise.

The little one doesn't have quite as much. I'll probably find a good sale somewhere next month and stock up for him then.

Oh, and I NEVER pay full price for anything. It has to be on sale or I have to have a coupon. The price of clothing is RIDICULOUS these days!!!

This is our first year of school so I'm kind of playing it by ear and just picking a few things up before school starts. Keeping it under $200. It's so flippin' hot here that I'm not really worrying about jeans until October.

Oh Amanda...thanks for the coupon! I love Crazy 8 and I have some things in my cart that I
wanted to pick up for Emma for school!

I like to have 7-10 outfits. I tend to do each person's laundry once a week, and having more than 7 allows for the days when I forget to move everything to the dryer or when DS spills something and needs to change.

I try to buy things on clearance the year before, so we bought most of my kids' school clothes in the spring when winter stuff was marked down. Jeans is the one thing we didn't get then because sizes and fit can be hard to predict in advance.

I don't get my kids new clothes for school, I just get things when they seem to need it. They don't really have any rules for what you can wear to school here, so they just wear their regular clothes.

My kids are the only girls in the family, all their cousins are boys, so we are lucky that everyone loves buing girls clothes, they keep seending them stuff

I ususally only buys stuff when the weather gets colder, and when I see something on sale.

Alex wears a uniform to school, and he has a change for each day - plus a couple of reserve shirts as he trashes his too.

I get him to change as soon as he is home, and he either wears jog bottoms or jeans and tshirts. My mum buys most of his clothes from Asda (UK equiv of WalMart) as she feels this keeps her involved in his day to day life (she lives a long way away from us) - but neither she or I pay full price for things, we stock up in sales, knowing Alex is roughly 6 months ahead of his age size and very tough on his clothes.

Lots of stores here will have uniform sales in Oct/ Nov, and thats when I will get stuff for next year - storage is a bit of an issue but the savings are huge (especially with coats)!

Our school has uniform sales, where parents can take in and swap or buy the next age for their child - its all run by the parents, and the cost is virtually nil, but the school gets any proceeds.

Shoes and winter coats are our biggest expence...

BTW, I recently docked Alex's pocket money for deliberately destroying a pair of jeans and a tshirt - I felt mean (he cried!), but he was quite careful with his clothes for a while after that. I'll do it again if he gets too bad with them again...

We don't do school shopping either because I tend to buy stuff at end of season sales. The boys each have about 7 pairs of pants and about 10 tops plus a couple pull overs. I'm going to need to get some more long sleeved shirts in mid-winter because one or both of them will out grow their current sizes. But I'll buy them here & there as sales allow.

I love consignment stores & our local Goodwill for pants for the boys, especially jeans. I bought 5 pairs of Old Navy jeans in great condition for $12 at Goodwill in May.