mommydama | (no subject)

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I'm going crazy over the amount of stuff we have. I've said this before. One of the worst culprits for us is clothing. There is just too much of it and not only does it spill out of drawers and closets, the laundry is just literally never done. With three tween/middle childhood girls and at least one grandma who loves to buy clothes for them and hand me downs it is out of control. Luci's wardrobe is always 3 times as big Maria's and I never seem to get rid of any of it. It is awful. I did some research online and came up with a minimum clothing list for the fall/winter. I'm going to try and get it down to this and keep it as close to this as possible. I know grandma will add to it some and there will be some special outfits here and there, as well as activity clothing (leos, dance shoes, soccer stuff) but this is going to be my goal.

5 pairs jeans or casual pants (cords, khakis, black, etc)
10 casual shirts
3 sweaters/hoodies
3 casual dressy outfits (knit style dresses or skirts)
1 truly dressy outfit
3 pairs pjs
10 pairs socks
3 pairs tights/leggings
10 pairs underwear
10 undershirts or bras
1 pair dress shoes
1 pair everyday shoes or sneakers
1 pair snow boots
1 coat (3-in-1 style, that gives us a light jacket as well, just have to get Maria a new one)
1 pair gloves
2 pairs glove liners
2 warm caps
1 warm scarf

Does this sound like a lot more than we need? Does it sound like too little? What do your kids wardrobes look like?

I must simplify before I go mad!!

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I can't tell if it's because of winter time or not, but we seriously don't have nearly that much. Like...not even nearly nearly. Jake and Isaac, for instance, have about 20 pairs of underwear, probably a dozen pairs of shorts and two pairs of long pants, about 15 tshirts (they're the same size), probaly 5 total hoodies/sweaters/jackets, 4 sets of pjs (they rarely wear them anyway) and a pair of crocs each. That's it.

We have things like socks and scarves in a kind of communal way - when it's the odd cold day we break them out and see what fits who.

I suppose Ananda would be more comparable. I would guess she has 10 pairs of underwear and 12 bras/undershirts right now, 1 pair of jeans, 3 pairs of shorts, 2 skirts, 2 dresses, about 8 tshirts/tank tops, 2 hoodies, 2 pairs of pjs (she mostly wears one pair of pj pants with a cami at night), a pair of sneakers, and a pair of sandals. She's actually a little low right now because she's just growing SO FAST that it's CRAZY. She definitely doesn't have "truly dressy" right now but we don't need it for anything, either. If we did we'd get her something - she's liable to end up with a Christmas or Easter dress but honestly I don't do both of those every year, it's just too much money for something you wear once (that needs shoes, even!)

I would not have this much for summer weather either. But in winter we often do a lot of layering, especially on the ski weekends. Last year I was actually kind of hard put to find enough layers especially for Maria. They often had on two pairs of pants (leggings and jeans or two pairs of leggings), two shirts or a shirt and a sweater or hoodie, two pairs of socks....they would end up shivering all morning on the slopes and then stripping down as the day warmed up. Brad intends to go skiing pretty much every weekend this year, so I have to be prepared.

If they want to go out and play in the snow, the same thing happens. We had such an enormous amount of laundry last year during the winter. It tends to snow here nearly everyday and then melt off and be all muddy in the afternoons. So everyone was always muddy and wet. It was gross. This year I'm determined to be more organized about it. But we do need quite a lot.

We are swimming in clothes too. It's really crazy. When we moved last year I donated so much stuff but still our closets are overflowing. We get so much given to us for Jay that it's just overwhelming. This list is something I will keep in mind when I'm going through our closets soon!

I think the lists look great. I'd probably add another pair of jeans thou.

Thanks! I would probably add another pair of jeans if I had boys too, just because they wouldn't have the casual dresses and skirts.

It looks pretty good to me except (and take into account I am seriously opposed to extra stuff, to the extent that might go overboard) I can't figure out why you need ten of ANYTHING. That seems to me like it would mean you would go 10 days or more (when you figure in the three casual dressy outfits for church and that they can wear a shirt more than once sometimes) without doing laundry. I always figure on a week's worth of clothes at the most, because I do at least a white load, a colored load, and one other (lights, mixed, whatever) each week in addition to diapers.

I see what you mean about layering, but I still can't figure out why ten would be necessary. I'd also go with one hat, but if they're playing in the snow, in the rain, or skiing I could definitely see why they'd need two.

What are glove liners?

I do a load of laundry nearly everyday, so we would never go a week without doing laundry. As for why you would need 10...I don't know. I guess I just went with what the lists online were telling me. Heh.

Okay I did some more research and I seem to be hitting the average with my list. This is not a minimalist approach I guess, but I think I'd get bored seeing my kids in the same outfits over and over and over. Heh. I can actually imagine paring it down more when a child's favorites are found and worn more often, but I am afraid if I started with less I'd end up with two shirts one of them would wear. And we DO need at least two stocking caps. They sweat in them like crazy and they get nasty. There were days last winter when they needed a hat nearly everyday and I need a chance to wash them or they get really smelly. Glove liners are thinner gloves to go inside waterproof gloves for warmth. They are also good for warmth when you don't need waterproof. You can buy expensive moisture wicking ones, but I usually use those cheap little stretchy knit gloves you can get in the dollar bins at various places.

As horrible as it seems, this is probably less than half of what they have now. Yes, really.

I wonder if it would help your clutter if they HAD the "proper" amount of clothes, but you only kept the amount they really need to wear at the time in their drawers. That way you could always go "shopping" in the garage if something got stained or ripped, or you discovered they just never wore two of their shirts and needed to swap. When I worked for the Currans (and Kari was the most anti-clutter person I had ever met) I was always going through the girls drawers and packing most of it away in the garage. Most of the problem there was that Mary Catherine changed her clothes about five times a day and threw the discards all over her room.

That doesn't help here, since everything we own goes in the same 450 square feet, so extra stuff is extra stuff no matter what.

this is a good idea--- "shopping" in the garage or somewhere else for storage

You need three more than a week's worth of anything you wear everyday.

I'm devoting a whole room to clothes in the new house. Seriously. And it's not excessive. You need enough space to keep everything nice, and if you don't keep it nice you can't pass it on, it gets wrecked and that's wasteful.

I would LOVE to just devote a room to clothes. It would simplify so much. I'd like to have a huge laundry/mud/dressing room with wracks and shelves like crazy so that I could put clothes away right from the dryer. Kinda like the Duggars, I guess. That is like...my dream. Think of how nice and clutter free kids sleep/play areas would be?

Okay, now you've got me really thinking. I *think* my laundry room might be big enough to store at least the girls clothes in there if I did it right. Especially if I really pair it down like I want to and store out of season clothes somewhere else. Hmmmm...this could be life changing. :P

dooooo iiiiiiiit

Another thing this makes easier is the inevitable lice/bedbug/scabies infestation.

I'm going to FL in November. I'm EXPECTING lice this time. Tea tree oil is my friend.

for myself, I store out of season clothes in the basement in big rubbermaid tubs. that helps. except for times like now when it was 90 plus humidity last week and this weekend, in the 60s and rainy.

Emily used to only have enough clothes to make it through the week. I did her laundry every week. she now has about 12 pairs of undies but she isn't completely potty trained so. she has a million socks, which I need to pair down. she has 2 sweatshirts, probably 7 sweaters, only 3 pairs of jeans, a skirt, maybe 3 long sleeve shirts. I still have to go through all the hand me downs in her closet from my niece (Emily wears a 4 and we have clothes as big as 6 from my niece). I expect that I will probably add a few pieces here and there as the season goes on.

I have a small laundry basket for her and generally I wait until that is full then do her own load. if there is not enough, I put hers and mine together (hubs does his own laundry). I' wondering if you picked a day for each girl and did their 1 load a week if that would be more helpful. oh and I don't separate colors--- they all go in the washer at the same time (well, except red). good luck!

I'm in the tropics so we have just one wardrobe and can do daily laundry. We have a dryer for monsoon season when it rains too much to hang clothes out, but basically we do 1-2 loads a day.

We simplified when we downsized and I have no regrets. I'm about to go down again - we're giving away about 500 books, clearing out closets and so on, and it is just so much better. Like, I bought a beautiful bird shapred white wire basket for the kitchen and have been happy looking at it everytime we go in, but it was needed. So I could go and buy something beautiful and more expensive than a plastic box, because there would be just one.

New flat next year, we're building in lots of storage especially for clothes for the reasons CR suggested, but it's still pretty minimal. Have enough for a week's worth of laundry, and specific outfits - I have a work jacket, three night dresses, and six day dresses, for example, but then I'm more minimalist.

Oh! Try packing away most of their wardrobes and then see what has to be brought out, and leave the rest. If a month later you haven't needed to touch it, it was just extra stuff. We got rid of a bunch of stuff that way.

It may not be for you, but paring down hugely has been emotionally and practically fantastic for our family. Muoi has a shoe habit so she has like thirty pairs, but collectively, we have very little stuff, and Jim and I both have very little. Narith has maybe thirty matchbook cars, and two remote control cars, and that's it. The rest, they make or share like board games. The girls had a couple of dolls each but the rest was - collective or they had to make it. Wow, we sound crazy. But it really is good.

Also, being able to buy one beautiful thing instead of three okay things is lovely.

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