Out with the old, in with the old

I remember a time, long before I had children, when I actually enjoyed shopping for clothes. Now, with my free time whittled to a fraction of what it once was, it’s about the last thing on my priority list. And when I’m shopping for kid’s clothes I’m acutely aware of just how quickly they’ll be outgrowing anything I buy. So I do almost all my shopping for the boys at consignment sales and thrift stores.

Luckily, I have friends who give us wonderful hand-me-downs and relatives who give Will and Owen the gift of nice new clothes here and there. But mostly when it comes to clothing Will and Owen, we get things second-hand. It’s a combination of my thriftiness, my laziness and my desire to recycle materials beyond soda cans and newspaper.

This year Will’s about to bust out of his springtime pajamas as we await next week’s Just 4 Kidz Consignments sale. (Why buy new ones when I can probably scrounge up something there?) I go to the bi-annual event every fall and spring with a list of Will’s dire needs and I usually get enough stuff to make it worth the trip. So if you live near Columbus and aren’t averse to getting stuff used, check out the details on this year’s sale here.

Post script: I only wish I could be as non-consumptive as my friends Brad and Jenn – who made a pact to buy nothing new (with the exception of perishable items and certain essentials like underwear and socks) for a year. In fact they stuck to the pact, and then decided it was so easy that they’re doing it again this year. Read about the pact on this June post from Brad’s blog (which is worth reading regularly).

And speaking of non-consumption, I kind of like the message behind this Simple Living Network web site, which (under the headline “Wake Up and Smell the Rebate) criticizes the recent economic stimulus package as the silliest sort of remedy for an ailing economy and suggests we'd all be better off if people focused more on saving and less on consuming.