As with most new couples starting a family when you're young, money was tight for us. When my kids were little, I'd buy a lot of their clothing from the thrift store. My girls ran around in the sweetest dresses because I could always find them in the thrift store. Think about it... people buy dresses for their little girls... save them for a special occasion... the little girls may wear them once or twice... and then they'd end up being donated after quickly being outgrown. The dresses were always like new and since I got them at about $2.00 or $3.00 a piece, my girls had plenty of them.

And as hard as little boys are on clothing, I was always in search of jeans that didn't have holes in the knees for my son.

I can remember feeling so "thrifty" about outfitting my kids for pennies on the dollar. I used to think... as long as they're young, I can get away with this this. Kids don't know the difference... and oh... the money I saved.

For the record, I buy their underware, bras and socks new. I do have minor standards, lol.

Anything else was fair game...


I figured that at some point, peer pressure to have the latest and greatest would kick in, especially for the girls.

There'd come a day that I'd have to succumb to retail shopping and pay full price to clothe my children.

But... with a 22 year old daughter, a 15 year old daughter and a 13 year old son...

That day has not come.

My kids have never outgrown shopping at the thrift store. My 22 year old daughter Lauren still shops there and *steals* my 50% off coupons from the newspaper to buy clothes for her daughter now, lol. And for kicks, my kids will take $20.00 up to the thrift store when they're running a 50% off ALL clothing sale and come back with a mess of stuff. (The boy needs a little prodding, but even he likes to get cool t-shirts for himself once in awhile)

So as my youngest daughter Sara was getting ready to go back to school, she realized that she'd outgrown most of her jeans from last year and also needed some t-shirts.

We found some really cool *NEW* vintage style t-shirts at a discount store for $7.00 a piece. She got a Rolling Stones t-shirt, an AC DC t-shirt, a Fruit Loops t-shirt and an Elmo t-shirt.

We looked at the jeans there, but she honestly didn't like any of them. So I said, lets go see what they have at the thrift store.

We found 3 pair of COOL! jeans and paid $11.10 for all three pair. Come on... You just can't beat that. She got a pair of Levi's flare's, a pair of LEI flares, and a nifty pair of button fly Hotkiss flare's.



All Sara needed after that was a pair of Converse tennis shoes, which we got from from Payless for $16.99.




Lately I've noticed (around my area anyway) many more commercials advertising "thrift" stores with gently used 2nd hand clothing. It seems to be the "in" thing to do now. Sara and I were giggling yesterday after paying for her jeans how "we've" been doing it that way since she was born.