Clothes, how much is enough?

[pam]

That's what I need to start doing.

[Guest Alana]

My philosophy with clothes and toys is the same: use big boxes and as long as they fit in the boxes, we're good.

Here is my laundry system:

Port a crib (bought at garage sale) that all clean clothes go into. Put them away once a week.

Kids each have a big Tupperware box. Their clothes go in there unfolded or sorted. This works very well, the clothes aren't wrinkled, they can get their own clothes without my worrying about them messing things up.

My clothes and husbands go on a bookshelf in our room. This makes sure that clothes are easy to find and it's obvious when we are starting to get too many.

Socks and underwear go in the top two drawers of a dresser, bottom drawers are used for blankets.

As far as how many is too many, I can't say, because each of us has different needs. The kids need more clothes than I do because they go through more (age 2 and 4) and husband has work shirts. Over all it works well though, though husband needs to put clothes away more and i need to get rid of some.

[Guest Alana]

I had a friend who had older kids that had a habit of just dropping their stuff where ever ... she finally laid down the law and said whatever was on the floor or in the laundry baskets was hers. many pieces of expensive clothing went into her barrel and to Good Will. It went unnoticed until the sons $3000 camera became mom's camera and then they started keeping stuff picked up and cared for. Little ones can do this too ... when a treasured shirt disappears it gets serious.

That is what my dad did. If there was something on the ground, it went into the 'box.' We could buy things back from the box for usually a quarter but here was the catch. You couldn't see what was in the box. You had to specifically miss something and ask for that thing to get it back. Occasionally, every few months, we'd get to look in the box. By that point there'd be so many things in there, we could only afford to buy back a portion of the things.

[Heavenguard]

Your kids may be too young to do their own laundry, but perhaps not too young to help with it. Jon and Kate plus 8 has demonstrated that a 3 year old can get involved in folding and sorting.

[Canuck Mormon]

There is nothing in this world i despise more then laundry. Sort it by color, wash it, dry it, sort it again by family member, sort it again by type, then fold and put it away and hang it by type. Repeat.

I think my kids have too much. I can't ever catch up on laundry because there is no place to put it. The dressers and closets are full and i still have a tall hamper and three 20 gallon totes spilling dirty laundry in the hall. This doesn't include the 2 other totes that are holding winter clothes, and outgrown stuff for the baby on the way. My idea. A trip to Goodwill. If i had my way the kids would have 8 of everything, shirts ,shorts,pant etc. and i would donate the rest. My wife doesn't see eye to eye with me and thinks that i don't understand the importance of variety when it comes to clothing. While I'm willing to admit this might be true, I'm also the one who has to do it all.

So how much is enough?

I must admit that when I read the title of this thread, I thought it was about nudism. Then I saw it wasn't started by finnian.

My wife hates doing laundry as well. We separate into 3 bags - whites, reds, darks. My sons stuff gets washed separate from ours, you never know what's in those clothes.

[mightynancy]

My kids sort their own laundry. In the laundry room, there are four hampers: light colors/delicates, whites, darks, and towels/bedding. When one of those gets full, I start a load of laundry. I'll often run the washer in the evening, then put the stuff in the dryer when I get up in the morning. I'm up at 6 and don't leave until almost 8, leaving time, usually, to fold that stuff while it's still warm and unwrinkled. Stacks of folded clothing get delivered to rooms, but everyone puts their own away.

The winter-to-spring transition is the worst for me as far as having too much clothing in circulation. We can go from 70+ degrees to snow overnight, so in springtime the dressers are bursting. I just live with it through April and May, then I can put away the winter stuff, except a few warm things for camping.

I keep a Rubbermaid tub for each kid - it holds stuff I buy on sale for next year, and out-of-season stuff that will fit again in a year. I stash those in the basement, which I'm lucky to have. :)

Also, I can't tell you how much I LOVE school uniforms! One of my kids wears uniforms to school, and it makes my life EASY when it comes to his clothing. He is allowed trousers in khaki or black, and shirts in white or maroon. He has some of each, so whether I've just washed darks or lights, he has fresh clothes. He owns five pairs of school trousers and 6 or 7 shirts. As much as I love to doll up my other kid, I wish the whole district would go to uniforms.

My daughter has folded towels for about 4 years now (she's 8). She is still too petite to properly fold bath towels, but she takes care of all the kitchen towels, washcloths, and hand towels. She also pairs and folds socks. She delivers the folded items where they go.

I'm sorry your stuff is out of hand, OP...but I agree that having too much and washing too much are two separate issues. If the kids are changing so many times a day, they need to either stop it or pick up the slack with the laundry. If you can't put things away because there's so much, there needs to be some kind of agreement to purge. It's really liberating to have less! Maybe if your wife won't agree to get RID of stuff, maybe some of the stuff could go into temporary exile in the garage to see how it feels to be free of the excess. I used my spring break to purge the closets, and it felt great. How blessed are we that we can give away so much, and still have plenty? It's an embarrassment of riches!*

*our income is "poverty" according to any chart you consult, yet we have so much we can give away bags and bags, and still have enough. God is good!

[hordak]

Too many post to reply to individually so i'll see if i can do this in one.

Too much clothes and too much laundry is related as there is no place to store clean clothes.

Closets and dressers are full as well as hampers and the dryer.

Thank you for all the replies but the point of this thread was to determine how much clothes (I.E. how many outfits your kids have) is enough so i can learn what a reasonable amount is. As i stated before I would only have 7 of each item but (hate to stereotype) as a man i don't understand the importance of variety or fashion and my number might be too extreme on the other end of the spectrum.

One person answer the original question and doesn't even speak English (American English:p). Do people in the UK really wear vests?

So to clarify how much clothing do your kids have? Number of outfits wise?

Hemi. Laundry for 8 kids.. I suddenly feel less overwhelmed:D

[Guest Alana]

Ok, so for amount of clothes. Husband has 5 pants, 3 shorts, 6 work shirts and about 12 other t-shirts (he usually wears two at a time)

The kids probably have over 50 peices of clothing. It all fits into their boxes, so I'm fine with that. Makes it easy to always find something for them to wear, I've probably spent about $25 each on clothes for them, most of their clothes are gifts or from large lots from flea markets and garage sales (if I see clothes in their size and they are a dollar or less, I ask how much for all of them and get a great deal)

Your question is how many clothes are enough. As long as they fit where they need to go, it's not too much. Kids need more shirts so I would say 10 shirts as long as you're doing laundry twice a week. Pants can be less, 6 is plenty. Plus all those odds and ends (church clothes, underwear, jackets etc)

I already mention this, but I'll say it again. I wash laundry every day but put all the clean clothes in a play pen to be folded once a week. This keeps all the clean clothes in one place, without having baskets everywhere. Good luck!

[Elgama]

T

One person answer the original question and doesn't even speak English (American English:p). Do people in the UK really wear vests?

D

you don't wanna get me started on vests, pants and suspenders^_^

-Charley

[hordak]

you don't wanna get me started on vests, pants and suspenders^_^

-Charley

I know all about you braces fetish:D. But as for vest do you mean

[Dravin]

Thank you for all the replies but the point of this thread was to determine how much clothes (I.E. how many outfits your kids have) is enough so i can learn what a reasonable amount is.

You could keep track over the course of a couple weeks how many outfits they go through (or something shorter like a week) let them have an outfit or two extra from what ever that number turns out to be and get rid of the rest.

Little kids can be tricker because they have a habit of going through more than one set of clothes a day. Me I live off maybe 7-10 (and I could get rid of a couple that are ratty only 'round the house or under a hoodie things) t-shirts, 1 pair of Sunday clothes and 3-4 (well, that's what I'd need for once a week laundry, it gets done a lot more than that so I've only 2 pairs) pairs of jeans (yes, I'm one of those grody people that will wear a pair of jeans more than one day) with and appropriate number of socks and under garments to match. Now of course a job could easily upset that, or kids it could be Jr. soccer or what have you.

Actually how often you do laundry makes a big difference, every three days can get you buy with less clothes than once a week.

[Heavenguard]

It depends on how often you do laundry, or laundry needs to get done. It happens once a week in my house. So I take that week, and a little extra, so each week I can have clean clothes, and a few extra for a bit of variety, for each season. I think that is a sufficient amount of clothing.

Someone I know does the same, except his cycle is two weeks, so he has enough of everything he needs for two weeks.

My aunt's tenant used to change her kids out of their clothes for anything that may have been dropped or spilled on them, no matter how minor. With two young sons, she ended up doing laundry several times every day. Obviously, that is overkill, but if you allow your kids to just be kids, and granted something isn't a huge spill, or going to stain permanently, just let them be in their clothes till the end of the day.

[Dravin]

My aunt's tenant used to change her kids out of their clothes for anything that may have been dropped or spilled on them, no matter how minor. With two young sons, she ended up doing laundry several times every day. Obviously, that is overkill, but if you allow your kids to just be kids, and granted something isn't a huge spill, or going to stain permanently, just let them be in their clothes till the end of the day.

True that, a little applesauce reside left over from lunch on their shirt isn't gonna hurt'em any.