Clothing a baby on the cheap...

Hi everyone!

Thank you for the supportive comments on my last post xxx

Each time I write a post, things will have got a bit worse at home, which is why there are gaps in my writing. Daisy is fine though, happy, chatty and walking really well now. She brings joy to us each and every day and is very much worth the struggles we face.

Just lately, my son's girlfriend has introduced me to buying from a facebook group which is local. Now I don't like facebook and I don't have facebook because in my experience it can be used as a vessel for people to bully and be very cruel behind a computer screen or phone. This 'for sale' group was accessed via my son's girlfriend as she has purchased some items for Christmas. She works in the town and picks stuff up to or from work so she doesn't need to go out of her way. She purchased two bundles of baby clothes on my behalf. They cost £20 in total and I had not seen what I was getting for my £20. This was risky, but I trusted her judgement because she knows Daisy's style that I dress her in. I have been moving towards more leggings and jogging bottoms and less dresses because of the crawling, but now Daisy is upright for most of the day. I have been going for darker colours because so many of her clothes have become stained where she is a messy eater (but feeding herself) even with a bib.

I have bought Daisy new clothes, but I do back up my supplies with as much second-hand stuff as possible. At a carboot sale, I would pay 20p for a vest, 50p for a babygro, top or bottom and £1 for a dress or jacket. Snowsuits are worth £2 to me and I normally stick to these prices when buying. I also sell for what I would be prepared to pay and this seems to generally be the going rate for baby clothes. So with this as a guide, I actually did really well with my bundles! I received 71 items and I broke down my purchases to se if it was good value to me:

10 x vests = £2

4 x babygro = £2

29 x tops = £14.50

20 x bottoms = £10

4 x dresses = £4

1 x cardy = 50p

1 x jacket = £1

1 x snowsuit = £2

1 x knickers = 20p

This little lot would have cost me £36.20 at a carboot sale, but I got it for £20! There was a massive saving here and there was only a couple of tops that I didn't like (leopard print is too old for a 1 year old in my opinion) which I will carboot myself and probably easily sell.

Daisy has had new sleepwear recently and other bits and pieces and we will buy her some nice outfits for Christmas and obviously her new shoes in Clarks very soon, but when she messes up her clothes so easily, I am so glad for clothes just for playing in. When I was a little girl (and for my own children), you had clothes for best (visiting family etc) and school uniform and clothes for playing in. You had wad we called 'scruffs' for playing outside in too. It didn't matter if these were ruined because they were 'scruffs' and that was what they were meant for!

I think I'm getting the balance right for clothing Daisy without breaking the bank.

Thanks for reading,

Mandy x