Being Satisfied With What You Have & Making it Work

I love cute children's clothes.  As the mother of two toddlers, it's easy to get in the habit of buying clothes for children.  Their clothes are beautiful and so colorful, shopping becomes very enticing.  But this summer, I decided to make do with what I had for the children, many hand me downs for my 18-month old and past summer clothes for my three-year old. The reason, just too many clothes.  Even though I saw many nice clothes the kids could have, I decided not to indulge which saved me a lot of money and space.

Beautiful Made in USA Clothes by Rachel's Promise

In the United States, 12 million tons of textile waste goes to landfills annually, with the average family producing nearly 70 pounds of this waste per year.

It's so easy to buy, buy, buy --- even when you have enough, make that more than enough.

Last year when I brought my then two-year old summer clothes, I purchased 3T so that he could have them for hopefully two-years. And, luckily, he did. Overall, the clothes still looked okay. He is in day camp, so his clothes get dirty quickly, so he didn't need the best. I was very pleased that his clothes lasted for two seasons and I didn't have to buy him any clothes, including summer swim suits. I actually even got some of his swim suits --- from last year --- in 4T, so perhaps he will have the swimsuits for another year.

The 18-month old had considerably fewer clothes than my older son. I was tempted to buy him some clothes because I did not have much 2T summer hand me downs from my older son. But I decided to use what I had since anything summer clothes I purchased for him would only get a couple of months use. I didn't want to have a disposable clothes mindset. I didn't want to just buy clothes knowing that in two months he cold no longer use them.


I am happy that I made do with what I had. The children still have nice clothes that they wear on the weekends. My plan moving forward will be donate the 18 month old's summer clothes that are in good condition and keep my older son's summer clothes for the youngest for next year's summer camp.  We will continue to make do with what we have.