paying for friends second hand clothes

[olliesmom]

I always give my children's old clothes to charity or pass them onto friends who have children. One friend has just come round with some clothes she thought that I might like for my new baby, I was getting excited and started searching through the bags but then she started asking for £10 a bag. AIBU in feeling upset about this or am I silly for all these years giving my clothes away when I could of been making some money??

Thanks for all the responses, really interesting to see what we all do with our old clothes to me it was simple just pass them on, think i am over the initial shock of the whole situation and feeling presured into buying but I don't think my friendship will ever be the same with her again (all for the sake of £20!)

she shouldnt have brought them round and let you start looking at them and then said she wanted money for them, that was rude imo.

i give stuff away if i am giving away and if i want to sell it i will say to a friend that i have some stuff i am going to sell and do they want to have a look before i advertise it so that they get first dibs and i will also sell them to a friend for less than i would ask for otherwise, its the nice thing to do isnt it?

I agree 4madboys that is plain rude and sneaky. Not much of a friend if you ask me, I have never come across somebody who did that.

On a side note - my older sister lives in Ireland in the middle of nowhere and one of the local shops used to just have bins with childrens clothes in where you could just rummage through and take out what you wanted. No pressure to donate any money, you just put clothes in when your children had outgrown them. A little old lady used to sort them about once a month into ages. Lovely idea, though I suspect that if you did it here someone would come and get all the best stuff and try and flog it to their mates!

What a meanie! Still remember being 'given' a second-hand car seat and then being asked for a tenner for it. I was a lone parent on benefits at the time and she was a stay at home Mum with a working partner on a reasonable salary. I felt obliged to pay up but consequently it affected our friendship as any further offers she made I expected a price tag attached. Each according to their means!

Swanky in answer to your question, I don't know yet! In my close group of friends there are three couples each with one child, not all the same sex, so clothes haven't been passed round that much yet. The Moses basket has gone to a few people outside that group too but they are used for such a short time it hasn't had a chance to wear out yet. I also found with little baby clothes (eg 0-3, 3-6 month stuff) it was worn for such a short time, before babies are moving/eating etc, that items of clothing can easily be passed on to multiple children. My son has now been in 12-18 month trousers for about 5 months, with no sign of outgrowing them any time soon, but yet they have all worn through at the knee, so they won't be fit for anything but the bin by the time he's done.