The main thing, for our family, is a smaller amount of clothes than most people have. When it gets cold, or when it starts warming up, we go through the clothes to see who can wear what. In the end they each will have two sets of clothes, with 4-7 outfits.
First, I will give out play clothes, which usually amounts to whatever they wore the year before. My girls are HARD on clothes and hardly anything lasts beyond one season, at least that's fit to wear outside our home. This will amount to about four outfits. They are suppose to rotate them and wear something different each day. They never do...but that's another blog post. They are also suppose to wash them when they get dirty, but I always have to tell them when their clothes are dirty. Am I the only one?
Then we will go through and try to match up nice outfits and secure some dresses or skirts/shirts for church. This will usually amount to 4 outfits and a couple dresses. The sum total of all clothes cannot be more than seven per category: 7 play outfits, 7 nice outfits.
Usually I have to buy a few little things to make sure everyone has enough. But I can pick up quite a lot of what they need at garage sales. and I NEVER turn down someone giving us clothes. As I've mentioned on here many times, we live pretty simply so we don't need much.
These outfits I have allotted have to last through the seasons until the weather changes. Then we put up what they can wear the next year, or what will fit the smaller child. I use to save everything, but now I only save what will work the next year.
So that keeps us from having to wash lots of clothes that may not even be dirty....as you know children will do. Even if they decide to wash everything (like Kati does, so she doesn't have to clean her room, by putting her clothes away) there just aren't that many clothes.
What about you?
3 comments:
re my blog... you can play! especially if you are learning to knit... but you can make anything... a scrapbook page? you should do it : )
I go thru my clothes of my 2 boys after each season. I don't count how many items they each have but you are right that they always tend to wear the same stuff. As far as jeans go, they each may have about 5, maybe less, and probably the same for shorts. They do have more shirts but not a ridiculous amount. They share a room and a closet (that's almost child abuse these days since they don't each have their own rooms).
Off topic: What does your family do regarding cell phones for your kids? My youngest (11) had an assignment this week to write a paper/paragraph on "what you would do if you didn't have a cell phone". He doesn't have one and thought the whole assignment was absurd. By the way, he and another student were the only ones in the class without one. Just curious what your thoughts are on the subject.
Take care and good luck in the laundry department!
Karen
Karen, I think cell phones for kids are silly. I think I'll do a blog post on this next week. But I agre with you. If my kids were in public school, they would be the weird ones without cell phones. What do they need them for???
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