Consigning Clothes

Admittedly, I'm a clothes horse.  So is my mother-in-law.  Combined, we have passed this trait on to my stepdaughter, who, at 9, is very conscious of how she looks when she leaves the house.  Fortuantely, none of us are caught up in labels.  Unfortunately, it seems that for all of us, more is better, and letting go of something is heart-wrenching.  The three of us all have closets bursting with more clothes than we really need. 

For me, I love buying new clothes.  It's not about how much I can spend...on the contrary, my game is to figure out how much I can get for the least amount of money.  For my birthday last year, my mom gave me $75 and took me to the mall and said, "Get whatever you need."   I squeezed every last penny out of that $75;  my take added up to:

• $20 on a watch (the one thing I really NEEDED)
• $13 Victoria's Secret bra on clearance
• $42 - the rest of it on:  3 shirts, a pair of shorts, a skirt and lip gloss

Point being, while I love getting new things and the feeling of wear said new things out in public, I end up with a lot of unused stuff in my closet.  I used to do a purge once a year and take about four garbage bags of clothes to the thrift store as a tax write-off charitable donation.  (And when I cleaned out the Star's closets, that donation would double.)

Since we've had our spending slow-down and I've been really conscious of money going in and out, I've looked into other avenues for no-longer-used clothing.  A local organization does a huge kids clothing consignment sale twice per year.  I used to shop this for great bargains to add to the Star's closet; now I use it as a way to clean out her closet.  (Although, any closet-cleaning that I do has to be done when she's not around; she has the same outlook I have on clothes that haven't been worn at all: "But I might want to wear that sometime...in the distant, far-off future.")

So far, I've made an average of $30 per consignment sale.  I'm sure my husband would say that's not worth the time it takes me to sort and label all the clothes, but to me, I've got more time than money, and it's $30 I didn't have before the sale started. 

Unfortuantely, I think I'm running out of things to cull out of her closet - this kid is going into fourth grade and has been wearing the same size since the end of her kindergarten year.  Her body shape has changed from short and chubby to tall, long and skinny, but the clothing size remains the same.

For my own clothes, I've started taking them to a new consignment shop in our town.  So far, I haven't had the best of luck.  The first go-round, last fall, I would go into the store and see my stuff on the racks and tagged for sale.  The way this shop works is that if your stuff doesn't sell in three months, they'll call you to come pick it up.  Well, after the three months, I didn't get a phone call, so I assumed they must have sold everything and I'd have some money there.

Not so much.  Apparently, all my stuff disappeared into a black hole - after my first three months of consigning, I didn't have a red cent...nor did I have any of my merchandise!  I've got a bunch of clothes back in the shop for a second go-round now. 

And, amazingly, after 6 weeks, I went in this past weekend and discovered that I'd made some sales and the store had kept track of my money!  Three pieces of clothing had sold and my take-home "profit" was $7.58.  Unfortunately, I went into the store with little Miss Star, the one who loves to shop.  At first she was eyeing up some shoes, but I pulled her away from them - what 9-year old needs clear plastic stillettos?  But then she found an adorable top that she had to have, plus we found a bracelet that would go perfectly with what we were giving my mother-in-law for her birthday. 

So we plunked those two items on the counter and paid out $7.34.  And I made 0.24 for six weeks of consigning.  But I've got a few more items on the racks in there - next time I go to pick up money, I'll leave the kid at home!