Cheap Clothes for Ender!

Being as we don't have a ton of money to spend on little boy clothes, I'm trying to get this one dressed as cheaply as possible. Since it's summer/ fall and garage sales abound in the Midwest this time of year, I'm in luck! 

I went to one well before we knew it was a boy (though I already thought he was!), and found lots of boys' outfits. The lady doing the garage sale had them all nicely hung up, the outfits put together, and everything was organized by size. I ended up spending $10 on the clothes & several outfits below.

One weekend was our city-wide garage sale, so I bought a book to check out which ones had baby stuff and which ones didn't. (It was a whopping $1, but I think it was money well spent!) I went out two days to about 10 sales each day. I was a little disappointed that the vast majority of the clothes I could find at sales were little girls' clothes, but I did manage to find two sales that had plenty of clothes! 

The first sale I hit with boys' clothes (actually they had twins, one girl, one boy), was selling the clothes for $4 for anything you could stuff in a bag! It was a lot of onesies, sleepers, and well-worn clothes that I can use as play clothes for Ender. I even found a cute purple Reebok windbreaker jacket for my niece that I stuffed in the bag.

The next day I went out, I found, again, lots of girls' clothes, but not so many boys' clothes... until my last stop! They had a large snowmobile trailer they were using as a table with bins of boys' clothes lined up along the edges, sorted by sizes, with a sign that said 50 cents each. Jackpot! I got 66 pieces of clothing, and asked if they'd take $30 for it, and they did! Most of their clothing was nicer stuff to begin with, and was in better shape (not so many onesies & play clothes), so I didn't mind paying more for it. There were several things I can put Ender in to wear to church, and two swimsuits. I even found a pair of dress pants with a vest, sweater vest, and button up shirt (on the right side of the picture)... that alone would probably cost me $30 in the store, and it looked like it had been worn maybe once.

The other place I love to find clothes for kids is at consignment sales. I went to the Munchkin Market, and spent $41.50 on clothes for Ender (plus another $10 for a winter jacket & matching snow pants for Big Girl E). Granted it wasn't as many clothes, and I spent more, but the lowest price you see at a consignment sale is usually $1 (unless it's a discount day). Plus you're not wasting gas driving from garage sale to garage sale in hopes of finding what you need. It's all baby stuff, and there's A LOT!!!

I've also been lucky enough to get clothes from two different friends who have had boys. (With Big Girl E, the vast majority of her clothes were either hand-me-downs, or bought by grandma. So we still haven't had to spend to spend much money on her clothes.)

Now I just have to wash it all, and go through to see what sizes I'm going to need to fill in more, and which ones I should stop buying! But for $86.50 (including the cost of the garage sale listing booklet), I have a pretty good start on a wardrobe for him for the first year. Not bad, if I do say so myself! :)