Monday Q&A | Clothing for boys + food waste for small families

Every Monday, I answer a few of the questions that my readers send me. If you have a question you’d like me to answer in a future Q&A post, just leave me a comment here or email me (thefrugalgirl [at] gmail [dot] com) and put Q&A in the subject line. I look forward to hearing from you!

I am new at frugal living and I am trying to cut down on our clothing budget for my growing boys (4 and 2). I mostly buy clothes for my oldest boy, as he outgrows the last size. Have you been able to find good boys’ clothes at the thrift stores? It seems that at several consignment and thrift stores, the boys’ clothes are not in very good shape. I think boys are harder on clothing than girls are! Also, do you think it is worth getting better quality clothes if they will last longer and be able to be handed down to other children in the family? Can this be done frugally?

-Christy

I’ve noticed the same thing about the difficulty of finding second-hand boys’ clothes. I think part of the problem is that overall, boys do tend to be pretty hard on their clothes, but I also think it’s because we parents tend to overbuy girl clothes more than we overbuy boy clothes (girl clothes are so much fun, after all!).

My theory is that this excess means that girl clothes don’t get worn as much (there are so many, they can only be cycled through so many times before they’re outgrown), so they’re usually in better shape by the time they get donated. Plus, there are more of them to be donated, which gives us a better selection.

Anyway! The fact of the matter is that boy clothes are just harder to find second-hand. So, here are my suggestions:

• Say yes to any hand-me-down offers you get, and put the word out that you’re looking for hand-me-downs. Even if some of them aren’t in fabulous shape, you can keep them around for times when your boys are going to get extremely dirty. 😉
• Buy items that can be mixed and matched easily (I’m a huge fan of neutral pants, like jeans or black sweatpants) so that you can make multiple outfits from a few shirts and a few pairs of pants.
• Don’t overbuy. If you do laundry regularly, you can function with a pretty limited wardrobe.
• Shop clearances off-season. In January/February, buy winter clothes for the coming fall. In July/August, buy clearanced summer items for next summer. Occasionally you may guess a size wrong, but overall, I think you’ll find that you come out money ahead. I’ve found excellent clearance deals for Joshua at Kohls, Old Navy, and Children’s Place.

As far as quality items go, I’m really not sure what to advise. It seems like boys wear holes in the knees of cheap jeans just as soon as they wear holes in the knees of more expensive jeans, so paying more for an item doesn’t always save you money in the long run.

Any tips on not wasting food when only cooking for a small family? I feel like I do follow most of your suggestions about not wasting food, but I inevitably waste quite a bit only feeding 3 people. I think this happens because I buy in bulk from Costco, but still, it seems cheaper than buying elswhere. Our local grocery stores (Giant and Safeway) often seem overpriced. I’m guessing one place that could save me money is ALDI, but I *have* to use Costco because we buy the supplies for our church, and going to one more store each week seems burdensome at this stage.

Anyway, one thing I have thought would be a big help is some guidelines about what things can be frozen and what can’t!

-Rebecca

I have definitely found that Aldi’s prices meet or beat most of Costco’s food prices. However, at Costco you can more easily get brand name foods, so if you’re very brand-loyal, Aldi may not be helpful to you.

I definitely understand not wanting to add more stores to your shopping routine (I started shopping bi-weekly because I don’t even like going shopping once a week!). To that end, is there any way that you could purchase two week’s worth of church supplies from Costco and then shop at Aldi the next week? That way you’d only have to go shopping once each week and you’d have the benefits of both stores.

When you shop at Costco, it’s important to keep in mind just how large a quantity you’re buying. Because your family is small, you may have to sacrifice variety in order to reduce waste. For instance, you may only be able to get through a block of mozzarella in a week, so you won’t be able to buy Swiss and Cheddar that same week. And you may only be able to get through a few Costco-sized containers of produce, so you may have to buy only grapes and pears instead of grapes, pears, strawberries, blueberries, and pineapple.

Now, onto the freezing topic! I’m going to assume that most of your Costco waste comes from perishable items like dairy, produce, and meats, since that kind of waste is more common than pantry waste (like crackers or rice).

Meat

Most any type of meat can be frozen, so if you’ve bought more than you can use promptly, definitely consider freezing it. Even lunch meat can be frozen. The texture of it isn’t quite the same when it’s thawed, but it’s still good for cooking purposes, like for panini sandwiches.

Dairy

Milk and butter can be frozen, as can shredded cheese. Block cheese does not freeze well, so if you need to preserve it, just shred it before you freeze it. Sour cream, yogurt, and cottage cheese do not freeze well, but if you store the unopened containers upside down in your fridge, they’ll stay fresh longer.

Produce

This is not so easy. The quantities at Costco are just so large that a family of 3 would have a really hard time eating it all before it goes bad. If you absolutely, positively must buy produce at Costco, I’d try to buy a limited number of items, and I’d go for produce that keeps well (grapes vs. strawberries, pears vs. bananas).

Produce can be frozen (though if you’re going to do that, you might as well just buy frozen produce because it’s usually cheaper and fresher) and you can use it in baking (bananas, squash, avocados, and apples are all good for baking), but of course, a family of 3 can only eat so many baked goods!

Do consider Costco’s frozen produce…their bags of frozen fruit are great for smoothies, and if you don’t mind eating frozen veggies, those are a great option as they keep for a while in the freezer.

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Readers, how do you clothe your boys frugally? And I’d love to hear about food waste/Costco shopping from those of you with small households!

Today’s 365 post: Jellyfish or Bowls of Soup?