Now you’re probably wondering how many different free ways does she have to clothe her family!? The truth is, I have at least five ways that I get both adult and kids clothes for free.
I have a hard time stomaching regular price on things, especially clothes. We’ve always been frugal, even before accruing six figures of student debt.
Now that we have trimmed our budget to nearly the bare minimum, we really try to keep clothing costs down. Every dollar that doesn’t go toward clothing can go toward our debt! Just remembering that motivates me to spend as little as possible on clothes for our family.
I’ll start by sharing all of the ways I get clothes free, then I’ll share with you my favorite! Hopefully you’ll find some ways that you can stretch your clothing budget too!
Consignment store credit
When your kids have outgrown clothes that are still in good shape, you can bring them to your local consignment store. Someone will inspect your items to make sure they meet the store’s standards. Quality and inventory standards vary by store. They will price your items and do the rest of the work.
When your items sell, you will get a percentage of the price. The percentage varies by store, but is often higher if you choose to receive your payment in store credit instead of cash. Even though you’re only keeping a percentage, it adds up because consignment stores are able to charge higher prices than you would make at your own garage sale. As your earnings add up, you can spend them at the consignment store for clothes that you need.
Pro tip– When you’re at a yard sale or thrift store that has a “stuff a bag for $1” sale, this is a great time to get a stash of clothes to consign. Just be sure to look items over well so that you only grab clothes that your know the consignment store will accept.
I haven’t consigned anything since we were in law school. Since we live in the boonies, we don’t have a consignment store close and our time in town is precious (and busy).
Hand-me-downs
Depending on your childhood experience, you either love or hate hand-me-downs. I am the oldest in my family, so any hand-me-downs I received were from outside of my family. I was always excited to look through any clothes that were outgrown by older kids of family friends or people at church.
I know that others, who were further down the line in their family were less excited about hand-me-downs from older siblings, as the items were not as fresh and exciting.
Hand-me-downs are a great way to get clothes for free! Sometimes it is awkward for people to offer hand-me-downs, so it’s important to let others know that you are open to receiving them. Ever since college, my younger sister (who is much more stylish than me) has let me dig through her give-away box before she brings it to the thrift store and I always find treasures for myself, my husband, and kids.
Clothing swaps
Whether it’s through your church, mom’s group, or just a group of friends, a clothing swap is a great way to freshen up your wardrobe without making a dent in your budget.
It’s simple to set up. Everyone brings clothes that they want to give away and all the clothes are displayed together. Then everyone can take home whatever interests them. You can have rules if you want (take as many items as you brought, start by choosing only x items, etc.), but rules are not usually necessary, especially if you have a small-scale swap.
Clothing swaps are easy to organize. You just need a location (church, community center, someone’s living room, etc) and friends. If you plan a swap in spring cleaning season, you’ll all be cleaning out your closets anyway. Better yet, do a swap after your book club reads The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up.
Pro tip– Organize the swap by size and gender so that people can easily find what they are looking for without digging through everything.
Schoola
Schoola is an online seller of used clothing that gives 40% of the proceeds from each sale to schools. When you donate, you can choose the school you’d like the proceeds from each of those clothing items to go to. This is my kind of fundraiser. Way better than having your kids pester friends and neighbors to buy overpriced cookie dough or wrapping paper.
But back to how I get clothes for free. After I tried Schoola for the first time, I shared my referral link. It’s easy to share your referral link with your friends by email or on Facebook or other social media. With the referral link, you’ll get some store credit after they make their first purchase.
And now, my favorite way to get clothes for free….
ThredUp
My favorite way to get free clothes is on ThredUp. ThredUp is an online used clothing boutique for women’s and children’s clothing. They are very particular about the clothing they accept. They only take top name brands that are in pristine condition. Most items that I have received from ThredUp are nearly new.
Their high standards can be frustrating if you want to send clothes to them to earn money, but it’s great for shopping. I have been pleased with the quality of all of their clothing.
My strategy to get clothes for free from ThredUp is similar to what I do for Schoola. When you sign up, you get $10 of store credit.
Pro tip– To make my credit go further, after choosing the size I’m looking for, I sort by “price low to high” (the default is “newest first”).
After spending the initial credit, I share my referral link. Each person I refer gets $10 credit to spend. After they spend their credit, I get $10 of credit too. Because I have been so pleased with their clothes, it is natural for me to tell others about them. As with Schoola, you can share your referral link with friends and family on social media or share directly through email.
Once you start getting clothing free, it’s hard to go back to paying for it. If you’re ready to cut your clothing budget, I recommend trying out some of these ways to get clothes free! You’ll never pay retail again!
How about you?
- Do you get clothes free for your family? What is your favorite strategy?
- How do you keep your clothes budget at a minimum?
I am spoiled rotten in that I barely need to buy any clothing for my family except underthings. In my area of New England, places called swap shops are common. They’re like a Goodwill or Salvation Army, set up in town donated space. Town residents donate gently used clothing, toys, small household goods, linens, books and such, and town residents may shop and take what they want for free. It’s one big, giant swap! I volunteer at mine and shop ahead, watching for quality items in a size or two up for my kids. It save me literally thousands of dollars a year between clothing, toys, books and household items. I wish everyone had what we have in my area. If anyone’s ever considered trying to get such a thing going, go for it! It’s an incredible help to many and keeps tons out of the landfills, too.
What a fabulous opportunity Kay! That’s amazing!
ThredUp is wonderful! I both sell and buy and love my experience with them. The selling process is super slow though. It’s hard to be patient waiting to see how much you made. Also they have been having a lot of 20% off sales lately. I used 20% off plus $11 I’m credit from items I sold and ended up buying 4 pairs of jeans (that look new) for $10 after shipping.
That’s awesome Jessica! I also love when they have free shipping with no minimum!
Buy Nothing Groups!
I wish they ship to Canada. We do not have stores like you guys. I never hear about TreadUp. We have Once Upon a child. they pay you at the spot, but it is not a lot.
I wish our church would do a clothing swap. They have a donation center that they use to help the needy in the city and often don’t take extra donations because they say they don’t need more.
We don’t really buy that many clothes for our kids. When necessary, we ask for them when relatives ask for ideas for gifts, but God has really provided for us through hand-me-downs and the occasional thrift store score.
Hi Stephanie,
We are trying out ThreadUp based on your recommendation. Actually letting my teenaged daughter do some shopping. Thanks.
Hi Angie! I hope she finds some treasures! 🙂
Hi Stephanie,
We excitedly tried thredup, sent in a bag of clothes, used the credit we had based on your referral (thanks) and my daughter added two nice things to her summer wardrobe. Win, win, win. The entire process was very smooth and easy. Honestly, I loved it. It was even easier then dropping the bag at the local thrift store.
One small downside however, thredup currently has a marketing promotion that features individual moms – o.k. – so far so good – but they feature the mom as a “bad____ mom”. Why? I wondered.
I sent them feedback. Their reply mentioned positive comments they’ve received about the mom features. Sigh.
When allowing or even encouraging my teen aged daughter to shop or research on line, appropriate language is a factor. Not that she probably hasn’t seen or heard inappropriate words already, just that as her mom, I can’t foster participation. Sigh, again.
As a parent I lose credibility with my kids (teenagers especially) if I’m inconsistent about this, especially just to save a few bucks. Another big sigh.
Thanks for listening.
Love your ideas and your blog.
We’ll see how far we go with thredup.
Hi Angie! I, too, was disappointed when I saw that promotion on the front page of the site. 🙁 I’m glad you took the time to voice your opinion. It’s too bad that they don’t realize that they can have the same, awesome, successful campaign and use family-friendly language too!
I rarely buy clothes online, I may have to give it a try. I usually wait till garage sale season and get most of my kids clothes there. My youngest wears hand me downs mostly but I do treat her to a new outfit occasionally. I also get my kids new shoes and a couple new outfits when school starts back. I guess we are just really simplistic. It seems as though my kids have a lot of jeans, shorts, and khakis that i can just add cute shirts/hairbows to complete the outfit. I guess my biggest money saver is I always buy things at yard sales that they can grow into so it seems we always have a “wardrobe in waiting” at my house.Even if it’s 2 or three sizes bigger I store them at the end of the closet in order of size, but very visible ,so I won’t forget about them. It’s also a good idea to inventory clothes every 3 to 4 months so you know what you have and can figure out what you still need.Forgotten clothes is wasted money.
I love yard sales! When I go (which is rare now that we live in the boonies), I always shop seasons ahead too! There’s some serious savings in buying ahead, but you’re right– it’s important to keep track of what you have and be sure to use it! 🙂
We love our local consignment store! I recently scored a number of items that I need for our next baby for just $0.25 out of pocket (https://www.instagram.com/p/BCOrWx7TDLO/?taken-by=onemamatoanother)
I hope that something like ThreadUp and Schoola come to Canada because they sound like a really neat idea.
We keep our eye on our local Freecycle group for clothing giveaways and belong to some free groups on Facebook that sometimes have clothes.
We also shop end of season sales for next year and I keep a kids clothing inventory so that we don’t buy things we don’t need. http://onemamatoanother.com/organizing-childrens-clothing/
Keeping an inventory is a good idea. Mine is currently a mental inventory, which isn’t always reliable. 🙂
Hand-me-downs have always been my go to for clothes. My two boys are towards the end of the grandkids on my husband’s side, so lots of clothes from cousins. I “inherited” all of my maternity clothes from my sisters-in-law and luckily don’t care too much about the style, as long as I’m comfy.
Our church has a swap every six months and I’ve been able to supplement my kids clothes for the upcoming season from that. Finding clothes for me is harder since most women (including me) bring clothes that no longer fit, and they don’t fit me, haha!
Hooray for hand-me-downs! And maternity clothes are great to inherit and pass around since everyone only wears them for a few months. Kids clothes are definitely easier than adult clothes when it comes to swaps since there is less variation in size.
I have tried ThreadUp, thanks to your recommendation, and I agree that the quality of the clothes is top notch.
Right now, probably the only thing that we really do outside of shopping at places like ThredUp to keep the clothing budget in check is not to shop unless we need something. I’m going to be in the market for more black slacks soon since I wear them for work five days out of the week, but unless something is wearing out like that, we just avoid going to the store. If you’re not in the store (or surfing the online version), it’s pretty hard to spend money.
I totally agree Amy– don’t shop unless you need something!! That is a very wise tip!
I would love to try ThredUp but I live in Germany right now. In the past I sold used clothing (maternity Pants) on Ebay but the hassle was not worth it.
Yes, selling on Ebay can be a hassle for sure!