I must say though, that this has been a productive morning. It is that time of year again when I realize that summer and/or Family Camp are merely weeks away and my children may not or may have nothing whatsoever to wear. Yesterday’s quick perusal of their under-the-bed boxes of clothing-to-grow-into confirmed that at their current clothing levels, several of my children would indeed be wearing naked this summer if some serious shopping were not done.

Huzzah for consignment sale season! Okay, maybe not “huzzah” because that word irritates me. It always looks like it should be a palindrome (which, of course, is the nickname of Sarah Palin’s pet dromedary), but never is which I have decided to take as a personal affront. Anyway, today I got out of bed at the crack of 7am (hey, it’s a Saturday. Seven is a crack for Saturday.) and dragged my sorry self all the way down to the Expo Center with a wad of money and high hopes. Also coffee.

And… mission: success! Here’s what I bought:

Henry:

• 4 pr shorts
• 9 short sleeve shirts (5 tees, 4 church)
• 2 swimsuits and a rashguard
• 2 long sleeve shirts (maybe 3, I forgot already)
• 2 pr long pants
• 1 pr jammies
• 1 hat
• 1 pr brown tennies (soooo cute!)

Faith:

3 pr pants ‘cause she outgrew all her long pants in the last month

3 short sleeve shirts

1 shrug sweater

1 pr church sandals

Kyra:

4 short sleeve shirts

3 pr shorts

1 skirt

1 dress

1 pr brand new water sandals

1 pr brand new church shoes

Anika:

1 pr shorts

1 tank top

1 dress

1 pr pajamas

1 pr water shoes

1 pr church sandals

Trinity:

1 purple dress that she’s going to flip out about

1 swimsuit

1 pr church sandals

2 pr ballet shoes

Georgie:

2 pr shorts

2 pr swim shorts

1 very nice pair of water sandals

So, what does all that make? I have no idea. Kinda curious though. Let’s see: 1 hat, 2 pr ballet shoes, 2 pr pajamas, 4 skirts or dresses, 5 pr pants, 5 swimsuits plus a rashguard, 8 pr shoes, 10 pr shorts, and 19 shirts plus a shrug.

And how much was all that? $235. Henry is completely dressed for the summer and I’m mostly done with most of the others. Yay! The whole shebang in three hours and only a little over half my summer clothing budget. Yay! Wanna see how nerdy I am? Here’s my shopping list I took with me:

Yes, me = giant nerd, I know. But how else will I remember what I’m supposed to be getting for which member of the nerd herd?

Well, it is now 3:30 and I guess I should probably head home since I finished shopping three hours ago. Me and my laptop have been sharing some quality time at Panera. Mmmmm, French onion soup and solitude. What could be better? Actually, going home after consignment shopping is always pretty fun. It’s kind of like being Santa Claus for the day. Ciao!

Rachel

Okay, several people have been asking if I am going to publish a new list, and since the first sale is next weekend it seemed like I should probably get on that. I know I haven’t posted in a couple months, but I’m hoping to get that back together here after I get settled into our school routine (homeschooling week 1 is completed and went well). In the meantime, here for your thrifty shopping pleasure are the biggest of the sales I went to last year:

9/18-9/20 @ the old Gresham Goodwill Store ~ Super Kids Resale

9/25-9/27 @ Portland Expo Center ~ Just Between Friends

9/25-9/27 on NE Sandy and 16th ~ Pass It On

10/16-10/18 @ Washington County Fairgrounds ~ Pass It On
If you sign up to sell with either of the Pass It On sales, please put my name in the Referred By box when you sign up so I get extra $$ (that would be Rachel Shubin in case you are totally daft and have forgotten).

11/14-11/15 @ Red Lion Hotel at the Quay (Vancouver) ~ KidKonsignNW
These guys have a 65% payout for consignors (as opposed to the 70% starting bracket that everyone else has); however, they are the only one that has a presale on Saturday night for consignors (usually the presale is for volunteers only) for the 50% off on Sunday.

They all have a presale the day before opening for volunteers and consignors, and that’s a good way to get the really nice stuff. Also, I think all of them are allowing first time Moms into the presale too, but you have to go check their individual websites and sign up for an entrance pass. So, can you all guess what I’m doing next weekend?

Rachel

Ha! I love a deal. Tonight we decided to take the kids to their favorite restaurant, HomeTown Buffet, since we’ve been all broke and haven’t taken them out in ages. But you know, I don’t like going out and paying full price, so naturally I started scoping around for coupons.

There was one in my wallet from HTB that I pulled from the paper a couple weeks ago. It was Get Two Free Kids Meals with One Adult Meal and today was the last day before it expired.

Thinking maybe there was another one of those online somewhere, I started surfing around and found a site saying that if you sign up for HTB’s mailing list, they’ll send you a Buy One Get One Free Adult Meal coupon. Hmmm, didn’t I sign up for that a while ago and never use the coupon? A quick search through my inbox said, “yes.” One problem: coupon expired in February. Oh well, it never hurts to put on your pathetic face and ask if they’ll make an exception (dragging six kids along with you helps too). I stashed the printout in my pocket and off we went.

When we got there, we must have shown up right in the lull between big mobs of people because we walked right in. The cashier started counting everyone and I flashed my first coupon at her. She asked if I only had one (!!), and I told her that I also had a really old one if they could maybe take that. She said she didn’t think so since it was from February, but she’d go ask the manager since we had eight people in our party. He sweetly decided to let us take it, and we ended up with George, Georgie, and Trinity being free. That amounts to $23 of our $43.59 bill. Yay for a cheap night out!

Rachel

So last fall when I had my what-are-my-kids-going-to-wear flip out, I ended up consigning a bunch of stuff at local consignment events and then buying new stuff at the same.

The payouts for these are much better than consignment stores, averaging between 65% and 80%. For stuff I had floating around that was too ancient for eBay but still in good condition, it worked beautifully. I think I made around $400 which immediately got spent at the next sale.

I found a lot of really nice things at great prices and am never buying shoes at Payless again because I found tons of really good quality things for between $5 and $10 (got Kyra a pair of gorgeous red leather boots from some European brand for $5. Pretty happy about that!).

So the other day I checked up on the dates for all the biggest ones and thought maybe some of you guys would like that information as well. I am a bit behind on a few of my kids’ summer wardrobes and am planning on filling in the rest at the consignment sales (except for Georgie who I found nearly nothing for last year).

3/13-3/15 Gresham Armory ~ Super Kids Resale
3/14-3/15 Red Lion at the Quay (Vancouver) ~ Kids Konsign NW
3/28-3/29  Oak’s Park ~ Pass It On Sales  
4/17-4/19  Washington County Fairgrounds ~ Pass It On Sales
4/24 -4/26  Expo Center ~ Just Between Friends

These look like the biggest. The other ones I scoped last year either aren’t there anymore or have no spring info on their site. If you would like to consign and need a tagging gun (you can use safety pins but if you have a lot of stuff that becomes a huge headache really quick), you can get one here for $7.99 including shipping, barbs, and all that. It takes a couple weeks for it to ship so order it early:
Tagging Gun.

Also, Old Navy stores give away free hangers when they are done using them and I hear that OshKosh and I think Carters outlets do the same. Just ask an employee when you get there. Dollar Tree and Bi-Mart carry pretty cheap kid sized hangers too.

So mark your calendars and don’t buy the stuff I want to buy (but you are allowed to buy what I’m selling).

Rachel

Yeah, okay so the men are supposed to be the hunters and blah blah blah. Well, yesterday I conquered the shopping beast and it was awesome!! Brief backstory (stop laughing. I can be brief if I want to!):

Usually I buy the kids clothes for the following year at the end of the previous season because it’s much cheaper (so in January when winter stuff is on clearance, I buy it all up for them to wear the upcoming fall).

Last year we were uber-broke and I didn’t do it, which made last fall when the economy worsened and took our finances with it really unpleasant.Vowing to never make that mistake again no matter how broke we are, I have been consistently swiping a little bit of each paycheck for the kids’ clothes and filling in their boxes a bit at a time. $5 sweaters and $6 pants from Old Navy, $4 shirts and $8 pants and dresses from Gymboree have been pretty consistent price points.

Which brings us to today. Our brilliant government has decided that
everything that can be sold to or for children under age 12 has to be tested for lead and that the law is retroactive so if stores have stuff that was in production prior to the law that wasn’t tested, they can’t sell it. The law goes into effect February 10th. Baaaaad for businesses; today, good for me (after the 10th, not so good).

Gymboree, my favorite kids’ clothes store, has their semi-annual sale going on and their markdowns have been good. Yesterday though, they marked down about a gazillion things to $1.99 at both their retail store and their outlet stores.

Many of the marked down items have rhinestones on them, leading to speculation that these items were would be problematic under the new law. Other rumors are that the economy has made Gymboree’s earnings post badly and they need to unload as much as possible before the end of their fiscal year.

In the seven years I have been buying Gymboree for my kids, I have never seen them mark down this much. After calling the local stores to get a sense of what their inventory was like, I headed out to the Clackamas Town Center store, which didn’t have a whole lot at $1.99 but a few things, and then on to the Troutdale outlet which had tons. What did I get?

1 dress
4 sweaters
8 pairs jeans
15 shirts

Regular retail price: $568. My price? $56. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHA!!!! I am the hunter back from the successful kill. Bwahahahaahhaaha! And here’s a picture of me with my plunder:

Every single thing on the floor there cost $1.99 (except for me). There are duplicates in different sizes in there, of course, which is not a big deal because I have a bunch of girls who will match and they like that. Plus, baby shower gifts! Yay!

Okay, so maybe the story wasn’t short. Ha! I actually condensed down 2/3 of what I originally had written so it is short. Well shorter. Okay, off to go pack all that stuff into the kids’ under-bed boxes for next year. Heehee! Yay!!

Rachel

P.S.
Gymboree will continue offering these items at this price point until
they are all gone so you might want to call around and see who has the most stock left. Generally lower traffic stores have better sale
inventory. The Salem store is pretty quiet and often has good clearance stuff, and the Troutdale outlet seems to have more clearance than the Woodburn one.

I’d also call the Vancouver store and maybe Pioneer Place and the new Bridgeport store. Clackamas is usually kind of medium and Tigard is almost always totally cleared out. Don’t know about the Lloyd Center one (I never go there).Good luck!