False economy (merged threads)

Nutty_Netty

hi im a newbe poster so hope this goes - ok!

RE: shoes for children from charity shops - my daughter has foot & hip problems and i was told by physio NEVER to buy scond hand shoes for children as they will have moulded to the original wearers foot shape and could cause damage to a childs feet even if they had only been worn a couple of times. As a single mum i try to buy the best i can afford - so keep an eye on clarks sales and buy the same style as my daughter currently wears but in a bigger size and put by until needed. You are on your feet all your life so you need to look after them!

emh_2

Marigold123 wrote:

Overall, though, the quality of Asda's 'whoops' fruit and veg definitely isn't very good. Unlike Tescos, which, I have discovered, seem to have really good quality mark-downs, with a much longer life.

Its not just their 'whoops' fruit & veg that is poor quality, Asda have gone really down hill with their quality of 'fresh' fruit & veg, with loads of in-date food going off in my house before their best before date. I am so sick of taking fruit back that I shop elsewhere for fruit & veg now, and just get my basics and non-perishables from Asda thesedays.

moggins

emh wrote:

Its not just their 'whoops' fruit & veg that is poor quality, Asda have gone really down hill with their quality of 'fresh' fruit & veg, with loads of in-date food going off in my house before their best before date. I am so sick of taking fruit back that I shop elsewhere for fruit & veg now, and just get my basics and non-perishables from Asda thesedays.

I noticed that today, I normally get my bananas from there but peeled one today for my little girl and it was all brown inside. I ended up having to throw it away as she won't eat them if there are any brown bits on it

blossom30

I find that you can still buy good quality stuff on a budget e.g. wait until Debenham sales and you can get good quality items there really cheap.We buy most of our clothes there at the sales. I bought a john rocha leather jacket last year which was £120 reduced to £60 and it still looks the part.You just have to be a keen moneysaver!!!!

Gangstabird

I do buy Clarks shoes (I don't want to, but our local startrite has closed down). They are usually good leather, so if you polish with a brush etc every few days they do look good and you can sell them on ebay too.:beer:

However, with my second child, I bought one pair in Clarks and as she has just started walking thought it was the best thing. Next thing I know, a blister on her instep so have now bought a pair of softer shoes from George which seem much wider.

MrsBartolozzi

Gangstabird wrote: »

I do buy Clarks shoes (I don't want to, but our local startrite has closed down). They are usually good leather, so if you polish with a brush etc every few days they do look good and you can sell them on ebay too.:beer:

However, with my second child, I bought one pair in Clarks and as she has just started walking thought it was the best thing. Next thing I know, a blister on her instep so have now bought a pair of softer shoes from George which seem much wider.

If your daughter has got a blister from badly fitted shoes, take them back to Clarks. They will check the fitting and give you another pair which fits perfectly. I did this when my DS1 outgrew a pair of shoes in 13 days! My argument was that they must not have been fitted properly by the fitter, after all that's why you go to Clarks. (All I had to pay was £1 as the size he needed was in a higher price bracket but if the same price I would have got a straight swap IYSWIM.)

HTH MrsB.

Gangstabird

Really, thats outrageous. I didn't think they would return them like that. I now have a perfect pair of Clarks first shoes that were only worn briefly. I doubt very much if I have the reciept though. It was about 2 months ago.

What do you think my chances are.

BrandNewDay

In America, people don't really care about getting shoes properly fitted for small children. At least, it's not something I ever gave much thought to. Stores like KMart and Walmart had a much wider selection of toddler/kids shoes than you will find at Asda. I refuse to buy Clarks that will be outgrown in a couple of months. I find shoes at Asda or that cheap place on the High Street and my kids' feet have been just fine.

Bungarm2001

My kids are both grown up with kids of their own.

When they were young, I could never afford to buy Clarkes shoes, no matter what, so they had cheaper shoes that I felt fitted well and were sturdy enough to last a while. They never had sore or misshapen feet from wearing them, even tho my mother could never resist warning me that they would. :rolleyes: She like others was brainwashed somehow into thinking Clarkes were the ONLY shoes to put on kids, and somehow you were failing as a parent if you didn't.

The irony is, my younger son took his daughter to Clarkes to have a pair fitted to her very awkwardly shaped feet (long and narrow) and the shoes that the assistant sold them within days gave her a huge blister. He took them back, exchanged them for a different style, and the same thing happened. He eventually got the money back, and now she gets shoes that fit her perfectly from the likes of George at Asda and Matalan. No more blisters.

One of my other grandchildren has always had Clarkes shoes, and also at times had very sore and blistered feet. His mum won't even hear of him maybe having shoes from anywhere else; she is totally convinced that she is doing the right thing.

Maybe they were just unlucky? I think not. I think that buying shoes from a 'name' is false economy as my and my grandchildrens experience seems to prove.

Olliebeak

I think that if your child has 'average fitting' size feet, then most shoe shops will be fine. Unfortunatley it was very obvious when my eldest was 2 mths old that he had very wide feet - those little baby shoes with a bar across and plastic button wouldn't go anywhere near his feet! He only ever wore little white socks or bootees until he needed proper shoes for learning to walk. At 10 mths I took him to Clarks for measuring - he was a 4 1/2 'G' fitting (the 'G' had only just been introduced then - 1973). It was a sign of 'things to come' with him! He started school (4) in a size 10 and by the time he left school (16) was in an adult 9. By 20 that had gone to 13's! With foot growth like his, those feet just had to be properly measured.