My house is creaking under the weight of outgrown childrens clothes. Help!

[QueenPeaHead]

What do I DO with them all?
dd1 is 8. do I keep her clothes for dd2 who is 7 months? surely not - will I or she even like them in 8 years time? it will be 2014 - eek.

ds1 is 6, ds2 is 3. I keep ds1's clothes obviously, but when ds2 is finished with them, what then? they are pretty well loved by then so not good enough for ebay but still lots of life in them, can't bear to chuck them in the bin. our local charity shops won't take childrens clothes. do I keep them in the hope that my sister has a son one day?!!! (not all that unlikely - she is preggers, so a 50/50 chance)

dd2 is the biggest problem. at 7 mths she has outgrown 0-3, 3-6 AND 6-12 months and the porker is in 12-18mths. her room is FULL of piles of cast off clothes, most of it new, because dd1 was always tiny and in 3-6mth clothes for about a year and the seasons for her later stuff are all wrong. I could put it all on ebay but it will take forever and the thought of 200 trips to the post office makes me feel sick.

HELP HELP HELP HELP HELP

honestly there must be about 2 tonnes of the stuff. what do you all do?

Car boot sale!

My 10 month old is starting to outgrow 12-18mnth stuff too because she is a porker.

Did one last sunday and doing another this sunday - baby stuff sells so well! Made £76 on sunday.... Bargain! Ok so its an early start, but well worth it - and you know some other kids are gonna get the use out of them

do you not get the charity bags through the door and fill them up and then they collect from your doorstep, that might be one solution. Or you could do a carboot sale

Ebay. As I buy on sale a year out from needing it - we would be literally swamped with clothes if I didn't sell them (I use Trade Me because I'm in NZ).

I think carboot sales are too much trouble. We sold heaps of childrne's clothes but only profitted £18 on the day, hardly worth it. (but maybe that's just my area).

You could offer them on Freecycle, then people who want them will come collect. Or put an ad up in Sainsbury's (usually free). Or just put some notices up around the school, somebody will come forward.

car boot!!!

now WHY didn't I think of that. duh! so how does the pricing work - I price eveything at a quid and people try and bargain me down to 75p, or is it a bit more sophisticated?

that clearly is the answer. more information please! there is a colossal car boot every sunday down the road.

don't have charity bags and doorsteps here in deepest rural wiltshire down a dirt track, sadly

car boot sale, and nicer bits on ebay. i have just been looking at the boden stuff as am after an 12-18month size duffle for dd3 for winter, i refuse to pay full price. dd1's duffle fitted her for 2 years, dd2 will be in her 2nd winter in it, and dd1 got a new one in the last winter sale. 2nd hand boden sells well, even the more worn stuff.

do you have any family who you can lend stuff to?

i priced most of my stuff at £1/50p depending on item.

no one bargained with me either!!!

selling at car boot sales is great.

Have clothes neatly folder/laid out is the one thing that I've learnt.
If your stall looks nice and tidy you'll have dealers and genuine customer flocking around you.

our recycling people take clothes (lucky I know) so stuff I can't hand on or isn't fit for charity shop goes out in the red bag.

take a hanging rail as well if you can.... also works wonders.

Agree with tidy stall... dont let it look like a jumble sale! Folded and neatly displayed really does help. The last one i did before the most recent, I only made £30 but it was because i had everything in baskets rather than laid out.

Big difference in takings this time around.

QPH, if you're in Wilts there's a huge car boot at Seend - mind you, it's disheartening that people will always haggle and moan however low your prices are. Ebay is just too much hassle - too many people selling already. Some people sell at NCT sales, but most of ours goes to Oxfam - at least it helps somebody!

brilliant. it is all washed, ironed and stacked in boxes by age and sex so I'm all ready to go really. now just need to get up early one sunday...

ooh, never done this before, hurrah!

you will love it!!!

I cant wait to do another one on sunday!

there is another massive one at christian malford - takes up about 3 fields! which is closer to me than seend, but thanks for that ticky

our oxfam won't take children's clothes which I think is a bit bloody cheeky, frankly

Wow, we were selling baby clothes at 5-15p/item and it still didn't all sell.

Find a local antipoverty charity. We have one called The Basics Bank where families are referred a limited no of times by health professionals and can fill up binbags with essentials, inc clothes for all ages.
There's also one for young people on their own and they always need baby clothes and equipment.
I quite often dye things with tough stains on too.

Or give them to Women's Aid??

I have just bhad a massive sort out of all our stuff in Turkey (leaving tomorrow for good) and it is all stacked and sorted,ready to go to a local children's home.

We took all our baby stuff, including toys, pram, cot and baby clothes to the local women's refuge. They were also glad of women's clothes and clothes for older children. They were much needed as obviously some of the families there had to leave their homes quickly and without any possessions.

I'd much rather give it all to a women's refuge or somewhere I thought it would go to good use. I don't know what there is around here, but there must be something similar...

Maybe I'll get on the phone with the yellow pages and see what I can sort out.

The front 'reference' section of the hard-copy Yellow Pages is pretty good for contacts - we found a place a bit like BucketofDinosaurs' Basics Bank where we could take old furniture and curtains.

phoned a couple - they both said that they didn't need anthing at the moment as they had been given good donations recently and were short of storage space.

will keep trying...!

In our local evening paper, people advertise bags of children's clothes for a set price. They just give details of age, sex and sort of clothes.. ie labels or not. Strikes me as a lot easier than car boot sales.

Was going to suggest Women's Aid too!

How about your local hospital or maternity unit?

Local church? I went to a Catholic school and the Headmistress used to give bags of clothes to some of the poorer parents or parishioners.

If your not worried about making a bit of dosh then give it away on Freecycle (like zdl said). I've just got rid of loads of stuff, including an old cot and stroller plus loads of clothes,toys and books. What's better is that people actually come and take it away and it does feel nice. Have you got any friends or rellies you could pass the really good bits on to?