The cost of everything seems to be going up these days.  I want to cry at the gas pump, and at the food store forget it.  I feed my son as much organic food as possible, and it's not cheap.  I needed a way to try and offset some of life's costs and came up with a great way thru eBay.  My son's growing out of his clothes every couple of months and the cost of these cute outfits at Gap, Gymboree, Children's Place, or Kids R Us run about 15-25 dollars a pop. 

According to the government the estimated annual expenditure for children the ages 0-8 run in the neighborhood of $13,000 annually.  I actually looked it up on a report by the United States Department of Agriculture.  By my estimation I could be purchasing up to 120 outfits a year for my son which puts my clothing cost around $1800-$3000 dollars per year.  I think this would be a reasonable number to assume if you do all of your shopping at major retail stores, and quite frankly it's probably on the low side.

Now by purchasing used clothing lots on eBay and reselling them when he grows out of them I'm able to clothe my son for virtually free.  I learned about this thru a friend of mine who was in a similar situation.  She was selling her clothes on eBay and told me that she cut her clothing cost to almost 0 for the 2 of her children.  I was hooked, but always thought used children's clothes would be a mess.  I went to her house to see what she was selling and was amazed at the brands and the quality.  She said that she is part of a Yahoo mom's group and that alot of other mom's she know sell her children's clothes online as well.

So I took the plunge and bought my first clothing lot for my son.  I bought my first lot for less than 2 dollars per outfit and the name brands were amazing.  Everything I couldn't afford to buy in a retail store I was able to get for a fraction of the cost.  Now when he grows out of them I either lot them up and put a higher reserve on my auction or just try and get the same price I paid. 

What I find on eBay is this.  Alot of lots are thrown accross the bed, photo snapped, item listed, item shipped, and done deal.  But I found alot of mom's and dad's who are selling their children's clothes aren't taking the time to put up really amazing photos of the lot.  I have learned that if you take 1 good group shot of the lot when selling, along with individual photo's of each item that the lot sell's for even more than you paid.  Sometimes if the outfits are really cute I will try and sell them individually and this has worked great as well.

By any means the moral of the story is that when you list your items for sale on eBay the more photos "the more better" so to speak.  Between grandma's outfits she buys and my eBay purchases and resale of clothing lots I have been able to eliminate my child's clothing cost.  So what to do with the extra money?  My husband and I have devised a way to be smart about our savings. 

We figured out that a reasonable average cost per month if we were to shop retail for our son's clothes would have ran us about $150 per month.  So instead of spending this money we have done a $150 a month auto draft per month for our child's education and put it into a savings account in his name.  By the time he is 10 we should have accumulated over 20k in the account for college.  Wow, just a little ingenuity and late nights listing and shipping his used clothes and we should be able to pay for 1 semester of college when he gets there.  LOL...

If prices keep rising like they have been in recent years, we will need all the help we can get.  At least this is a start.  At this pace the 20k we hope to save just on clothes over the first 10 years might only pay for a couple of pages of a book by then.  Who knows.  I'm just trying to figure out the teenage years and hope my son won't be too proud to wear used clothing, but we will try to teach him well and to not be too proud. 

Hey when we grew up we all got handme down's but they were all from relatives.  With the advent of the internet I get the handme down's from some rich lady in Idaho who can afford to shop where I can't.  Gosh, you have got to love the internet. 

Stay tuned for more articles guys.  If you like what I have taken the time to write please rate the usefullness of this guide I hope that it helps someone out there come up with a creative way to save

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