As moms, we get to pick and choose our moments. One of my emotional moments is getting rid of certain articles of clothing after my kids have outgrown it. I don’t get attached to every shirt, but I have been known to get overly attached to some of them – especially if it has a character on it that I am quite partial too. For example, I usually keep Ariel, the Little Mermaid, shirts, because I was 5 when I saw that movie and it will always have a piece of my heart. So, when a really cute Ariel shirt is about to hit the outgrown pile, I will stash it away somewhere to keep.
But 90% of my kids’ clothing ends up leaving the house completely (eventually).
Now, I know a lot of moms go round and round with the options for getting rid of clothing, so here are some thoughts and notes I have on the subject. This will probably be helpful to no one, but maybe it will be an interesting read all the same. Who knows!
Unwearable Items
- Trash it. I personally do not throw our outgrown clothes in the trash. Some people do, that’s their business, but, even if a shirt is falling apart, I’ll:
- Downgrade torn up clothing to a car washing rag. As long as the article of clothing can function in some useful way, I’ll keep it around.
- Pet bedding. Again, for torn up clothes I might either give them straight to the cat to lay on, or I might stuff the clothes in an old pillow case and sew it shut for the dogs.
Still in Good Shape Items
- Yard sell it. I never do this myself, but some people love shop yard sales, and other people might clear out your entire collection of clothing that you want to get rid of.
- Ebay it. This mostly works best on more expensive clothing – like items with college logos or upscale, name-brand outfits. But, you can also bundle a decent sized lot of clothes together and clear out a closet that way. Watch out for eBay and Paypal fees, though, as well as shipping charges, because those are easy ways to lose money by selling online.
- Donate it. There are donation centers and bins all over the places these days; some places will even come to your house to pick things up. But, giver beware, many items end up getting trashed by places like Goodwill or the Salvation Army (who, last I checked, would put anything like cribs, walkers, strollers, bathtubs, etc straight into the dumpster). So, if it is a good item and you don’t want to see it trashed, you may think twice about where you donate. Also be aware, some charities will take donations, but all they do is turn around and sell the items you give the charity for less than pennies on the dollar to major thrift stores. So, if you donate a drum set that sell in the thrift store for $200.00, the charity you are trying to help might have gotten around $0.00003 for that item (yes, a far off fraction of a penny). If that bothers you, carefully examine where your donations end up.
- Up Cycle It!!! Saving the best for last – when I get a “must keep” shirt from one of my kids, I try to find a way to make the shirt into something more than just a t-shirt in a storage box that will never see the light of day again. I will cut, stuff, and sew to make pillows, blankets, even curtains out of old shirts. Here is a sample of what many people do with their old sorority shirts:
(I found this in a Google image search, no idea who actually made it).
Now, my final piece of advice on clothing is for the mom who hates letting go of the cute, little clothes their kids have grown out of. If I find myself feeling particularly emotional about the clothes (really, it’s the memory of the kids in the clothes that I get overwhelmed about, but the memory gets assigned to the shirt, like it’s a bookmark of that time period), I will box them up and put them in the attic for six months to a year. Once these clothes are out of the regular laundry rotation and you have time to get them out-of-sight-out-of-mind, then it’s much easier to go through the clothes and get rid of most, if not all, of them. After you get used to the item being gone, and it’s not something that you’ve been lovingly folding and seeing your child wearing every week for a year, it’s not so bad to see it go. Repeat as necessary, and your personal mileage my vary, but, as a huge pack rat myself, that method really helps me clean house. Luckily, my kids are older now so they outgrow clothes ever 2-4 years instead of every three months, but that’s the cleaning trick I’ve used for ten years to fell okay with clothes letting go.
Trying to Mom 