Grasshopper New Media Presents...

The goal of this column, A Little Greener, is to introduce ways for the GNMParents’ community to reduce, reuse and recycle. There are a ton of great “Green” resources on the web, like Green Options, which provide a whole host of fantastic information about being kind to the environment. We urge you to check them out and incorporate their suggestions into your daily life.

But for some of us, the information is too overwhelming. There is too much to be done and it paralyzes us so that we make little or no changes. Step in “A Little Greener” and suddenly you are reading bite size pieces of information that you can slowly work into your lives.

This week, the topic is clothing.

The largest expense for many parents is clothing their children. The little buggers grow like weeds and keeping then in school clothes and play clothes and nice clothes can certainly add up quickly. As they get older and more finicky about their duds, the cost can rise at an incomprehensible rate. In addition to the monetary costs, purchasing new clothes has an environmental cost as well.

To combat this expense I urge you to hand down your clothes to a family who will appreciate them. I urge you to talk to friends and acquaintances about passing clothes down to your children. Babies grow so fast that often times when they outgrow an outfit it is still in excellent shape. As the kids grow and become more active they are harder on their clothes, but you can still find great play clothes and certainly many dressy clothes that have kept their value.

If you don’t know children just a bit bigger or smaller than your kids then you can make the effort to organize a clothing swap. This article might help you figure out the how to best plan such an event. You can advertise at a preschool, a church, or a library as well an any local community bulletin boards. The most effective advertising might be word of mouth. Tell a few friends to tell a few more friends and you’ll quickly have a group of people to participate.

Aside from a clothing swap, you can reduce your cost and the impact on the environment by buying pre-owned clothes on eBay, at local consignment shops, at Goodwill, at The Salvation Army, or yard sales. Freecycle also offers opportunities to find and donate clothing- but act fast because kids clothes move fast!

School is fast approaching. Start now and reduce your school shopping expenses!

Our family recycles clothes. It saves us lots of money and we feel good about reusing clothing that still has a lot of life left. What do you do?Is it all new all the time? Do you have a steady stream of hand me downs? Do you pass on what you’re done with?

Here are a couple of online clothing swap resources:
Clothing Swap
Swap Style

[tags]parenting, financial, recycling clothes, used clothing, save money, reuse clothes, pre-owned[/tags]
Photo graciously provided by Rachel-B, through a Creative Commons license, some rights reserved