A couple of weeks ago I was talking with someone about Little One’s winter wardrobe. At the time Little One had 11 complete outfits for every day use. I had found most of her clothes at the local consignment sale or goodwill store and was pleased with how cute her wardrobe was for being purchased for less than $25 total. My opinion was that 11 outfits was plenty. But during the course of the conversation I was told that “It wouldn’t hurt her to have a few more”. To which I replied “Yes, but she has more than enough and I don’t think it’s a good use of money to buy more”. Within a few days she was given 4 more outfits. Now she has 15 complete winter outfits.
I agree that it wasn’t physically or emotionally hurting her to have 15 outfits, but nor was it hurting her to only have 11. I usually do laundry once a week so either way she’d have extra clothes. With 15 outfits, assuming that we don’t have any pajama days or she doesn’t grow out of the clothes first, she would wear each outfit only 7 or 8 times before spring came to Texas. Granted, I enjoy having a few more cute outfits to choose from, but those extra outfits aren’t really enhancing my life or hers. Which makes me ask myself again : Was it really worth the money to buy the extra clothes? Regardless of the fact that the giver of the clothes is 100% debt free and has lots of money to spare, I don’t think so.
Our society feels like we need to have more and more, when really what we have is enough. I Nothing is wrong with having things in abundance. Yet nothing is wrong with having just enough so that we can put the rest of our money toward paying off debt or helping those in need. So why do we feel like we need to have, and give, more and more?
Friends, neighbors, and nearly every one we pass on the street has something we don’t have. We always think the grass is greener on the other side right? Simply put, it’s part of human nature to want. Manufacturers, marketers and retailers certainly try to convince us that we need to have more, because it’s their job. I think it’s our job to have the sensibility to know when enough is enough, and to teach our kids the same.
I agree with you, both about 11 outfits being plenty, and with your take on our society always seeking more, more, more. My 2 kids have both always had tons of clothes, between hand-me-downs and gifts. The effort I put in to constantly cycling the correct sizes in and out, and keeping it all organized, etc is kinda ridiculous. I always appreciate others’ generosity, but it does get to be a bit much at times!
I agree with you, but you are stepping on my toes! I think I will need to be reminded of this in January when the Christmas celebrations are behind us.
I concur completely. We as humans…or maybe we as Americans…tend to want to give a gift to show our love/appreciation. We live far from family and though we make phone calls and write letters, it doesn’t seem to fill that gap for some of our family members. So, they want to buy gifts, hoping that will fill the gap and make them more a part of our kids’ lives. And though it doesn’t really make sense when you sit and think about it, it’s sort of impulse…you just see a gift and think “Oh! Little Katie would LOVE this.” Ya know. I do try to encourage various (inexpensive) ways to help us all feel more connected as a family, and I do let family know that we have what we need, but sometimes I think letting things slide is ok. And I’m not saying you aren’t, I’m just saying that…I guess we can’t control everything, and it’s in our “American” human nature to want to make someone happy with “things” and we need to start with ourselves (and kids) to try and change that impulse and hope that others catch on. (I enjoy reading your “frugal-type” entries. I need to be reminded of some of the things you mention)
It does take a lot of effort to organize hand me downs. Right now I’m at that place where I’m not sure what size Little One will be in come spring because she isn’t growing as fast as we expected. I’ve got a mostly complete wardrobe in 12-18 mo as well as 18-24 mo- 95% hand me downs.
I’m stepping on my own toes too. When we first married and I moved all my clothes from my parents house to our new house I realized that I had enough clothes to wear for about 6 weeks in any season. I’ve been paring down over the past 10 years and am still hanging on to things I don’t need. I really did stand in JC Penney yesterday about to buy a cute outfit for Little One. My argument was that I had a GC. I finally knocked some sense into myself that it wasn’t a good use of a GC to give her another outfit that she’d hardly wear.
Thanks for the reminder about love languages HREC. My MILs primary language and my husband’s secondary language is gifts. I do struggle with accepting gifts graciously and need to find a balance of asking my MIL to limit gifts but still allowing her to lavish what she wants to on my kids.
I don’t suppose any child is harmed by a bit of a Willy Wonka world, I’m just trying to keep it from being so every day that they feel like their entitled to a fairy tale world.