Host a Kids’ Clothing Swap
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Save Money on Clothes for Your Children
Do you love to look into your closet and find a fun new blouse to add “pop” to an everyday outfit? Your children may feel the same way! You can have a lot of fun, save money, and get “new” clothes for your children by hosting a kids’ clothing swap.
Often clothing swaps are events that are held for women, often accompanied with wine and lots of laughter. It almost seems that the clothing is secondary to the connecting with other women. For a kids’ swap, let’s bring a bunch of moms together. Let the kids run around outside and play. And get down to swapping clothes to take a big bite out of the clothing expenses this upcoming year.
Invite People
You have a lot of really close “mom” friends. The problem may be that they might not all have children close to the age, or more importantly the size of your kiddos.
You are throwing a party with a goal.
You want everyone to walk away feeling as thought they contributed and they received. If your child is a size 6X, look for moms with children sizes 5-8.
Obviously, many moms have children of all ages. Encourage them to bring clothing for all of their kiddos. Also, look at your space requirements. If you are not limited to a super small group, encourage everyone to bring a friend or two that has kids in a similar size grouping as one of their children. This way, everyone should have someone there to swap with.
I would be remiss if I did not mention that you can totally make this a “mom and me” swap. Absolutely, you can have fun swapping mom clothes while being very practical and swapping those outgrown kids clothes, follow the same format.
When Should I Host a Clothing Swap?
A perfect time to plan a swap is when the weather is changing. Encourage the kids to clean out their closets and bring ill fitting, or no longer loving the way it looks clothes to be swapped.
The problem with this approach is usually people will clean out their closets of the past season’s clothing, so your children will not receive “new” clothing for the upcoming season.
I love the idea of a regular clothing swap with the same people twice a year, at the turn of the season. This way, everyone in the group knows to save their clothing from ie. Summer for the Spring swap. You can even set the date for the second Saturday in April and in August, for example. This way everyone knows when it will happen.
Send Invitations and Prepare in Advance
Let everyone know at least one month in advance about the clothing swap. You want to give everyone time to block that date off on the calendar, clean out their closets, and look at what they already have to assess what they really need.
I am a planner. Ideally, I want all of my friends to drop off all of their “stuff” for the clothing swap a week in advance. This way I can put everything on tables according to size and category.
When you send out the invitations, you will need to let people know if there is a drop off date, what the expectations are for the items, and if you are using a system for “who” chooses “when” you may need to include that. This would be especially important if you are incentivizing dropping off items early.
Establish the Rules
Quantity
Everyone should have an idea of what is expected to bring, how many items, and in what condition. For example, if you require that each person receiving clothes (so if it is a mom and child swap, that means, mom brings at least 5 “mom items” and each child participating brings at least 5 items).
You can set a limit for the maximum a person can bring. This can be a maximum type of clothing, for example, no more than 10 t-shirts, or a maximum for all types, no more than 3 bags of clothing per person.
Condition
Ask all guests to clean out the pockets and wash the clothing before they bring it.
If you have space to hang items, ask people to bring long items (dresses, slacks, or long coats) and heavy items (coats and sweatshirts) on hangers.
Type
Determine how you feel about items such as swimwear, bras, underwear, socks, jock/cups, spanx, and nightgowns. Let everyone know ahead of time, if you say in “new” condition, what that means. Does it mean unworn? Never washed? Still in its package?
To Accessorize or Not To Accessorize
I love the idea of bringing purses, shoes, belts, hair clips and ties, jewelry, etc. These things can really make an outfit. Many people may just be “done” with them at their house, while someone else may think, “That is the perfect belt with my ‘new’ jeans.”
Another classification you can possibly swap is baby paraphernalia. All of the “stuff” for a baby is expensive. Booster seats, strollers, carriers, slings, hammock chairs, bottles and bottle cleaners, high chairs, etc. Establish in your group if you will allow moms who are completely done with the child “having” process to donate their child “stuff” to those moms who are still birthing babes.
I had a lot of developmental type of toys. I spent a lot of money for them, but once the child “aged” out, they were pretty much useless. Can these types of things be swapped?
How will you give moms “credit” and allow the to swap for other items if they bring in these type of items? Is it a “if you bring any item you can swap for any item” or is it a “if you bring an item that is in a category on this side of the room, you can swap for an item on that side of the room?”
I encourage you to think outside of the box. This is your kids’ clothing swap. What do many of your moms need that many other of your moms can happily provide?
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Get It All Ready
Hopefully, the hostess has help. You have also, hopefully received the items in advance. Figure out your “flow” for traffic and items. Put the tables out so everyone can easily see what is available. A mom may think they want something and then later decide they don’t want to use one of their tickets for it; they don’t want it anymore.
Have a system for where to put unwanted items and how to get them back to where they belong or how to get it so others can see those items.
Know, in advance, how you will assign everyone their places for choosing items. Will everyone just rush in at once and grab? Will you have a numbered system where the person who is number one gets to choose one item, then it goes to number two, and so forth, but when it gets to the last person, that person chooses two items, because the “line” comes back up the numbers the opposite way? For example: 1,2,3,4,5,5,4,3,2,1?
Keep track of what “duties” are being assigned that I talk about in this article. You will want help throughout. Ideally, someone to help with organization, set up, the day of, giving numbers, putting “unwanted” items back, check out, clean up, and donation.
How will you assign numbers?
You can have everyone draw one randomly. Or, and I love this idea, simply because I want people to get me their stuff as early as possible, you can give someone a number as soon as they drop off their items. The first person to drop off their items at your house is number 1.
Logistics: How Does it All Work?
You are “buying” other items with the items you bring. If you bring 10 “acceptable” items, according to the rules your clothing swap group sets up, then you can, in turn, “buy” 10 items.
The clothing swap will need to have system of “currency” for exchange. This can be tickets, stickers, coupons, whatever, but something is needed to give a mom when they bring in, for example 6 items and then she needs to be able to give something individually for each item she then “buys.”
You can just keep a coupon with “hash” marks. I don’t like this system as well, however.
This naturally leads to a check out system. When you are setting up your categories and tables you are establishing the flow of the clothing swap. You will want to try to have a “funnel” that creates a beginning and natural ending point after moms have been able to see all of the tables.
At the end point, you can have a check out point where moms can give their tokens, stickers, “clothing swap currency” for the items they have chosen.
Let the Fun Begin!
The hostess has provided a place and set up all of the tables.
Have everyone else bring the food-make it a potluck.
It is helpful if you can assign “kid friendly” meals or snacks to half of the moms and “mom friendly” meals or snacks to the other half.
I also like having an online sign up so that everyone can see what is being brought. This way you do not have repeats and people can see if there are obviously holes, for example, wow, no one is bringing drinks!
This is a great time. It is casual, fun, and pat yourself on the back, it is a major money saver. Moms are feeling great. Your children are out having a lot of fun, possibly meeting new friends.
Provide a way for moms to further their connection so that they can arrange play dates. It is a lot of work to create a Facebook Group, or a monthly newsletter, someone has to maintain those. However, there should be a way for everyone to be able to get in touch with others.
Even if it is the old fashioned clip board with a voluntary “Put your name, child’s name, cell phone, and email here if you are willing to have this go out to all of the other parents for possible get togethers.”
And Breathe a Sigh of Relief
You have taken the kids out for a day of fun with friends. You have gotten them all a few “new’ items for the year. Everyone had a fabulous day laughing and connecting with their friends. Now it is time to donate everything that no one wanted.
There is a human need to hold onto things we deem have value. We think, “Oh, maybe I can sell it on EBay,” or some such thing. Consider the wins you just had by gaining new items at the clothing swap. Mark the rest of the items as done. You already went through closets. You already cleaned and organized. Do not take a couple of giant steps backwards by bringing those clothes back into the house!
A kids’ clothing swap will give everyone the opportunity to clean out their closets and reorganize their seasonal wardrobes. They will also be able to swap those clothes that may still fit, but that they just don’t feel comfortable in or want to wear.You can plan a clothing swap to be an event that is practical, but also full of fun, food, and laughter.