Buying A Back to School Wardrobe

I've spent the past few days cleaning out my kids' closets and dressers in an effort to figure out their wardrobe needs for school. Our budget for school clothes is rather tight this year due to these tough economic times. Even with shopping at thrift stores and garage sales, you can still spend quite a bit of cash on clothes for school. I wanted to figure out what they had to wear already and what would have to be bought. The whole thing prompted me to start thinking about how many clothes, shoes, and accessories that kids actually need. How much is enough?

But how do you decide what your child actually needs? My husband was convinced that each child should have 5 complete school outfits, but I disagree. I realize this makes sense, one outfit for each day of the week, but when kids reach a certain age, well clothes are important. I've never been a parent who gives in to my child's "need" to have brand name clothing like all the cool kids, but I do feel a little variety never hurt anyone. So, i wanted to keep some variety in their wardrobes without breaking the bank. It turned out to be much easier than I thought.

The first thing I buy every school year is a ten pack of socks and a ten pack of underwear per child. That way I can just toss the old, worn out ones and start fresh. Kids are so hard on both these items that it really makes since to invest in new ones for back to school. In my mind, these are must buy items.

Then I purchased each child four pairs of jeans or pants of choice. Both my kids choose jeans, as they love wearing them and they match pretty much anything. If you buy pants or slacks, be sure to get neutral colors. You want to be able to mix and match your pieces of clothing.

Next we went in search of shirts. Both kids have ten shirts, some t-shirts and some nicer button downs. All the shirts we purchased look great with the pants we bought. This gives them enough shirts for two full weeks of school. By shopping various sales and thrift shops, we were able to get all the shirts we needed and not blow our budget.

Finally we needed shoes. Each child needed a pair to wear to school as well as a pair to keep there for gym. Shoes are often the most expensive part of buying back to school clothes and this year we did spend more than I would have liked. But, when you need four pairs total, it's hard not to spend a good amount of money. Just watch for sales and try to find the best price you can for what you need. During the school year, the kids wear their shoes to school then immediately change into older "around the house" shoes when they get home. The only place the new school shoes are worn is to school. The shoes they wear at home are either last year's school shoes, if they still fit, or cheap sneakers from the local dollar store. By doing this, the nice shoes stay in good shape longer and do not wear out as fast.

This is how we handled buying the kids' back to school wardrobe. If they wanted additional items they had to purchase them on their own. I think it helps kids to get an understanding of the value of a dollar this way. I am quite pleased knowing that the kids are fully outfitted for the new school year, we didn't over spend, and we didn't give in to the urge to buy things they did not need. We managed to find an amount of clothing that worked just perfect for us; not to little and not too much. I wish you luck in doing the same!