Overwhelmed by clothes

Agutka

There are clothes everywhere in my house, I haven't got to the bottom of the FOUR washing baskets for months, wardrobes have some space in as clean clothes never make it that far. I can never find anything to wear, for me or the kids. The only person who can mostly find clothes is hubby, because his wardrobe is so simple, it's the first to be tidied away.

The kids clothes (ds 4 and 2) are divided into too big for eldest, too small for eldest - waiting for younger, too small for younger. Then there are the good ones and the will do for messy play, the winter and the summer clothes. I attempt to sort these out from time to time, but they get messed up again sometimes and I can't cope anymore.

I receive clothes all the time from well meaning people and sometimes you find gems, but mostly it's yet another bag of trousers that ds might fit into one day grrr.

I need you to convince me that I only need to keep the clothes I like the kids to wear.
I am NOT going to make money selling the kids clothes (need money and attempt internet selling from time to time, in the meantime the clothes hang around in a huge mess), so I might as well give it all away free.

HELP!

bossymoo

Do you not have a "cash for clothes" type place near you? Think they pay about 50p per kilo.

I've got rid of loads lately it makes me feel so much better...

gibson123

1.Get the old suitcases out of the loft and chuck all the winter clothes in there.
2. Put them away in the loft..
3. Get a big bag for life or ikea bag, throw everything that is too small in there, put it at your front door.
4. Get another one throw everything too big in there.
5. Put the too big one in a cupboard.
6. Sort remaining clothes into good, ok and rubbish.
7. Put the good clothes into drawers and wardrobe.
8. Pick out 2 outfits from the OK pile for messy and put them in the drawers.
9. if the drawers are full put the ok and rubbish clothes into a bag and put it at the front door.
10. everything at the front door, put into that charity bag that came through the front door the other day and call the charity number on the label.
11. Pour yourself a large glass of wine.

BitterAndTwisted

Start in small chunks of time: say in fifteen minute stretches and maybe on the kid's underwear first. Get some empty cardboard boxes. Keep in their rooms anything which they are currently wearing. Start a box each for summer and winter (they'll need their summer clothes now, obviously) and pack away by the age/size and label the boxes. Find somewhere to store the boxes with the ones you will need soonest the most easy to get back out again. Discard anything worn, ragged or unsuitable. Stop when one of their drawers or a hanging-shelf is full as they don't need any more to wear right now. Most children when not wearing their school-clothes only need a couple of outfits for playing and one for "best". Anything not suitable for storage can be taken to the charity-shop as they get paid for rags if they can't sell them on.

System

I must admit, when my kids were little i never really passed clothes down to the younger ones. For one reason, the clothes for the boys were pretty worn or shabby by the time they had outgrown them. The girls, well i never passed their clothes on either as one was a tomboy and wouldnt be seen dead in a dress, the other was a girly girl and wouldnt be dead in a pair of jeans and a jumper.

PixieDust

We always used to get given clothes, too. Some things were great, most ok and a few were "over my dead body". Those went straight into a charity bag without passing "go"

The "too big" were bagged up in the loft in approximate sizes...when the children were running low on clothes the next bag would come down and the current "too small or too grotty" clothes would be washed and bagged up for charity.

There really is NO point (imo) having messy clothes. They're kids - as long as they were clean when they went out in the morning, just let them be kids and wash it all off later. I was never a "Persil" mum though Just have enough that you could pack for a 5-7 day holiday...any more than that isn't necessary and means that you HAVE to keep on top of the wash basket at home.

That's what works for me anyway

floss2

B&T's advice is good. The only thing I would add is that when your kids are bigger and wearing similar size undies or socks, that you give each a different colour and stick to it...DS1 wore black socks & boxers, DS2 wore coloured boxers and matched coloured socks, so they (and I) knew which belonged to who...

When they were younger, they had hand-me-downs and I'm-not-wearing-that's.....the latter got passed onto the local branch of the hospice shops for someone else to get the wear out of.

Spendless

I'd start with the torn, stained stuff that just isn't going to be worn. Here, we can put stuff like that in our weekly green recycling box.

After that I'd start on the clothes which your youngest has outgrown and the ones that you just know will never be worn by either child. These I would bag up for charity/bag2school/cash for recycling.

Other than currently worn clothes that should leave you with the clothes you like and are waiting for each boy to grow into. Bag these up and label them with the sizes,seperating them into summer, winter and all year round clothing.

cheeswright

This is another way of thinking about stuff like this.
you DONT want this stuff because

an average uk house cost £226,887
its 15.8sq m or 94.8 m cubed

that means each binbag full of surplus clothes requires you to pay £2,393 to store in your home
or if you have a mortgage
£4,786.........:eek:plus ths cost of whatever cupboard you need to hide it in...
I often think of the figure this way when I see something i want - but dont need - its not the cost of the thing - its the space it takes up.......

I was once given several bags full of beautiful largly unworn kids clothes by a well meaning relative.....I should have taken then straight down the clothing bank....the stress - the constant sorting...finding the space ...the clutter....and she wasnt really doing me a favour at all - just making herself feel better about having spent far too much
kids need very little...they grow too fast , as you know

I'm with spendless on this - just pick out what they can wear now -
but I'd go further - chariterise the rest and be very wary of future gifts

the less stuff / things you have to look after the more time you can spend on enjoying yourself:D

Cat501

Thanks for this thread, you sound exactly like me OP! Clothes don't make it into drawers, everything gets messed up, can't find anything to wear - that's exactly what it's like here too. Then I get too scared to start sorting the piles out in case of .......spiders!!! I know, I know....:o

Thanks too for all the helpful advice, one day soon I really will follow it! Or at least try:o

oldtractor

try 5 outfits each, bin the rest.