I may have found my kryptonite. I've purchased very few clothes for my son during his three and a half years on this planet. Between gifts and hand me downs we have been set. Only recently had I run out of clothing for him that fit. I bought him some new summer clothes earlier this year and now the pants he has are getting too short, he's running out of PJ's that fit and he'll soon be needing bigger long sleeve shirts and sweatshirts. So I hit the consignment shop for deals. I found three pair of pants and a nice shirt for $20.18
There was a sale on PJ's this week in the stores where I work, Buy one get one free. That's essentially half off and I have an extra 10% savings since my husband is an employee there. On Friday I got him two new PJ's and then I found a very nice pair of pants on clearance 50% off for $10, total $30.53 for the three outfits.
Yesterday I hit up an online sale and spent another $39.23 on two sweatshirts, a button down, a nice long sleeve, and socks (free shipping and deep discount). I hate to even type it out but this puts me at $89.94 spent on clothing for little Abe this month (with a grand total of $141 spent on clothes for him this year).
I hate clothes shopping for myself. I pretty much always have. I remember going to the mall with my mom or my friends when I was a teenager and it'd be torture looking at clothes or trying to find clothes for myself. I really genuinely have never liked clothing or fashion or shopping. But all of the sudden I'm really enjoying buying new(ish) clothes for my kiddo. Maybe because I haven't had much of an opportunity to do so before now. Well I'm done! I've done enough shopping to last me (or him) for at least 6 months and I'm done. No more looking, no more buying, DONE!
October historically is not a good spending month for me. Last year I made it half way through October and then pretty much lost track of all spending for the rest of the year. I'm NOT going to do that this year. I'm not happy with my spending this month and I'm a few dollars over budget now but I'm not ditching the rest of the year because I over spent. Keep on trucking! I'm not quite ready to look at my daily spending average because it's got to be back over $18 a day again but I'm not throwing in the towel on my spending for the year either. No discouragement here. Nope.
Hey, kids grow....fact of life. And you can't predict or dictate when they do so don't feel badly about spending on clothes for Abe. So you spend some this month.....that means you won't have that expense for a few more months and if you are lucky, not again until the change of season in the Spring.
ReplyDeleteThank-you Sluggy. I shouldn't have the expense for quite awhile because he has a good deal of nice clothes that should last quite a while now. I think just spending so much on this one category in one month threw me off. But it has just gotten really cold and he needed some new stuff so I can roll with the punches. He has some really cute new stuff now AND I didn't purchase one single thing full price so that's a win too right :)
DeleteCome on Rivulet! You can do that $18 a day! (But your son does have to be clothed.)
ReplyDeleteHaha! Yeah, I don't want him walking around in tight pants that are too short :)
DeleteI am determined to end this year under $18 a day and I will. I think I can, I think I can, I know I can!
You can do it!!!! We are in this together - we have been spending like we won the lottery on the house, but have decided once the new french doors are in and that expense is over with we are on a TOTAL FINANCIAL LOCKDOWN!!! Good thing I do my Christmas shopping/crafting during the year because whatever we already have is what people are getting!!!!
ReplyDeleteWe CAN get this back under control!!!!
You are the best Sue! I am always so encouraged by you. We are in this together!!!
DeleteYour little guy is at the age where it gets harder to get nice used clothes because they start to wear them out. You can still get them at used stores but most hand me downs for over two year old boys tend to be pretty worn in my experience. You still got good deals on what you bought.
ReplyDeleteI would spend money on my children and have only one dress for church. I did make clothes for them. But, when my son turned 3, he wanted pocket pants. He wanted belt loops. Those aren't hard, but I had an infant girl that I preferred to sew for, making ruffles instead of belt loops. People gave me clothes for my son that were only play clothes. That helped. My children wore clothes from a children's specialty shop, a high-end store out of town, yard sales, hand--me-downs, and homemade. It all worked. Kids cost!
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