Clothing an entire family isn’t cheap. Kids grow often, and they grow a LOT. Each year, parents can expect to spend nearly $300 per child on clothing. So how can a parent expect to keep up with the rising costs of dressing their growing kids?
Here are some budgeting tips to help you manage your entire family’s wardrobe on a strict budget.
Photo by Alex Green from Pexels
Find Help Where You Can
And I don’t mean hired help, either. Take advantage of your resources. Little conveniences abound in the digital space that will take a lot of the little tasks that burden you off your plate. Managing a family is hard work! Budgeting out their clothing budget, when kids grow faster than you can keep up, is just as hard.
Taken together? Forget about it.
So, identify time-saving, money-saving hacks where you can. And remember not to discount your time! It’s just as valuable as the dollars in your pocket.
Services worth looking into are ones that provide you with great value at a cost you can afford that feels right. They take something off your docket so you have one less thing to think about in the chaos of your life!
Kidpik, a kids clothing box, is a great example of a company that provides tremendous value for a fabulous price. You save time by skipping a visit to your local brick-and-mortar store, AND you save money by spending an average of just $95 a box. It’s important to note that each box includes seven pieces of fashion, including shoes!, that create a minimum of three full outfits when you mix and match. You can schedule boxes for as often or as infrequently as you would like, in accordance with your needs.
And if you totally guessed your child’s size wrong, the return process is free and completely hassle-free. You can return any pieces that didn’t fit your child for free by using the pre-paid return label. All in all, it comes out easier and cheaper than loading up your clan for a trip to the mall.
Invest Intelligently in Staple Pieces
Not all clothing is created equal. A lot of clothing is made to be trendy. Clothes just aren’t built to last anymore—ESPECIALLY children’s clothes.
This makes more sense in children’s clothes than it does coming from adult clothing manufacturers, however, because children tend to grow out of their clothing very quickly. They don’t really need to last longer than it will take little Johnny to reach his next milestone.
But some children’s growth plates have longer dormant periods than others. Just because you know your child will grow out of a piece of clothing eventually doesn’t mean it is acceptable for that piece of clothing to be falling apart today!
Clothing subscription boxes like kidpik can eliminate this problem because they design and manufacture high-quality items in house, and deliver them straight to you. There is no middleman and they stand behind their quality. Boxes like kidpik include a wide assortment of items to choose from, ranging from timeless staple pieces to trendier options.
Shoes are also included in the kidpik clothing boxes. Feet will grow at a different rate than the rest of your child, so you should feel comfortable investing in shoes that keep your child’s feet safe from the elements. That is, after all, what clothing is first and foremost meant to do! So, feel confident when you invest in quality shoes.
Weather adaptive apparel is also a good investment when it comes to jackets. If you live in a region with all four seasons, you can save some serious cash by buying clothes that work year round.
Keep Growth Patterns in Mind
Growth patterns in children tend to be unpredictable. It can be years between growth spurts in some cases. However, when they DO come, they often come with a vengeance. Your child can be growing three inches in the span of weeks and then not grow a centimeter for another year.
And as a parent, you need to make sure your kid has fitted pants through all of it. Such is life!
But you don’t need to keep a growth chart calendar to track how often you should be buying your children new digs. Subscription clothing boxes for kids like kidpik can recur as often or as infrequently as you would like. You can pause or cancel anytime and restart the service as needed.
Incorporate Individual Styles
The fastest way to make enemies out of your kids—and ESPECIALLY teenagers—is to take away their control over their wardrobe. Fashion may be a fun little game for younger kids, but adolescents and teenagers tend to take what they’re wearing more seriously.
And it makes sense. While you want to keep them looking adorable forever, you were once given an opportunity to explore your identity through fashion. You should give your children the same opportunity to express themselves through their unique clothing choices.
However, this can get pricey quickly if you’re letting your kids pick and choose the latest trends. As your children get older and begin exerting their autonomy over their clothing, engage them in constructive conversations about what their clothing choices communicate to the world. Additionally, let them know that you want to accommodate their needs, but you have a budget to adhere to.
Photo by mentatdgt from Pexels
From there, you can help them find clothing that fits within the budget or let them vet options on their own. The process that comes with letting go of your kid’s wardrobe is a long, drawn out one filled with heartache and a lot of unfortunate fashion faux pas. Unfortunately, they are faux pas that you will have to let your kids make and learn from independently.
Services like kidpik subscription box can help parents and children make this transition more smoothly. Because kidpik’s shopping process allows for personalization and flexibility in terms of your subscription settings, parents can rest assured knowing that their children will stay under a certain budget and children can take up to seven days to decide what they’d like to keep out of the seven items that are sent in each box.
Parents love the pricing, and kids love having a say. It can be that easy.