Comments on: Take Advantage of Hand-Me-Downs (67/365)

By: maria

maria — Fri, 09 Mar 2012 18:43:02 +0000

i took it as a joke.

By: maria

maria — Fri, 09 Mar 2012 18:41:29 +0000

crowded

By: Izabelle

Izabelle — Fri, 09 Mar 2012 18:37:31 +0000

We all make spelling mistakes, but there’s no age to be able to take a good-natured joke.

By: rebecca

rebecca — Fri, 09 Mar 2012 18:36:59 +0000

I don’t agree with children “deserving” to get new clothes. I wore exclusively hand me downs most of my life. Many times I didn’t really have a choice about what I had to wear because it was all we had. I loved it when the older girls in our church congregation would grow out of things because their moms would pass on garbage bags full of fun clothes to me to use. I didn’t care that they weren’t NEW new, they were just new to me! It was like shopping for me, which I never got to do otherwise, to dig through an entire bag or two to find a “new” shirt or pants.

By: maria

maria — Fri, 09 Mar 2012 18:33:14 +0000

I mean *author’s*, *satin* and *appreciated* and all the other unknown errors…. I’m a 40 something semi-retired accountant not an author or pendant and can barely type with two fingers. Sorry for all the mistakes.
However, I still do not see what is so wrong with a photo of a pile of shirts to represent hand me downs. I just do not see how natural light and pretty dresser would make it more appropriate for this post.
Nicely arranged, sitting on a bright white sunny dresser with a vase of fresh sunflowers would make me think of something other than a bunch of kids hand me downs… Hell my brand new clothes wouldn’t look that good… There on a plastic hanger jammed into a over croweded closet.

By: Izabelle

Izabelle — Fri, 09 Mar 2012 18:20:42 +0000

*learn* I mean

By: Izabelle

Izabelle — Fri, 09 Mar 2012 18:19:18 +0000

I would love to see what a satan hanger looks like ;P

But more seriously if Trent is trying to sell us on hand-me-downs, making the option appealing is part of the photographer’s job. And since she’s an intern, criticism should be welcomed. It’a a tough field and so far I believe she still has a lot to leran to make it.

By: Riki

Riki — Fri, 09 Mar 2012 18:11:15 +0000

Presentation matters, especially if you call yourself a professional blogger and an aspiring professional photographer.

By: maria

maria — Fri, 09 Mar 2012 17:55:08 +0000

Thanks for the photo101 briefing, however this is a “finacial talk” blog. So, really does it make a difference how clean colored cotton tshirts are portrade in a file photo.
Seriously, you think that the author”s message of hand me downs could be better understood if the green shirt was on top with more natural light and on a pretty dresser?
All the hand me downs I have ever received were in a cardboard box or a garbage bag. Maybe i would have appreicated them more if the gifter had them color coded on satan hangers and ironed.

By: Izabelle

Izabelle — Fri, 09 Mar 2012 13:55:21 +0000

@Maria: The choice and order of the clothes’ color. The shot’s angle. The shot’s framing. Where the shot is taken (ex.: on a table next to a sunny window, with lots of natural light, or on top of a pretty bedroom dresser). The lighting. Or even just the subject matter.

There are more original ways to illustrate hand-me-downs, and there is a huge difference between effortless and careless.

Just go to any stock photo site, type in hand-me-down and you’ll see what I mean.

By: CNP76

CNP76 — Fri, 09 Mar 2012 13:55:00 +0000

Really #10? I can think of two or three different ways to display t-shirts to make the photo more interesting and eyecatching, using nothing but the existing shirts in the photo. And I haven’t done pro photography since folks still used real film!

By: Maria

Maria — Fri, 09 Mar 2012 13:30:49 +0000

#5 – The photo looks like mostly cotton t-shirts. What the heck would make folded t-shirts look any better?

By: Joan

Joan — Fri, 09 Mar 2012 13:29:55 +0000

Another way to cut costs for children is to buy all matching white socks. I buy several packages at once and there is no having to find the matching sock as they all look alike. I then just throw away the ones that get mud stained or get holes.

By: lee

lee — Fri, 09 Mar 2012 10:36:39 +0000

I did all of this with friends and relatives.
However with my daughter there was a twist to it. She was very much smaller (still is )than my two friends daughters of the same age, despite weighing 8lbs at birth. So two years later she would be wearing her friends old dresses etc and by this time both she and her friends had forgotten who they had originally belonged to.(and no one was bothered anyway.)
I had some beautifull dresses from my friend who had an only child and whose child was the only grandchild. Needless to say these all got passed on in due course.

By: Youngandthrifty

Youngandthrifty — Fri, 09 Mar 2012 03:14:24 +0000

I agree, make use of recycled jeans and T-shirts for children. They will out grow it within 2 days anyway!

By: Andrew

Andrew — Fri, 09 Mar 2012 00:19:43 +0000

By all means, take advantage of hand-me-downs. It’s foolish not to.

However, every child deserves new clothes from time to time. Something that is just theirs, that didn’t belong to their older siblings or the kids down the street. It is incredibly easy to make children feel as if they don’t matter, and never allowing the joy of the new is one way to do so.

Also, by turning new clothes into an inflexible taboo, you are guaranteeing an extreme reaction later in life; frugality can breed materialistic excess.

By: Izabelle

Izabelle — Thu, 08 Mar 2012 21:50:33 +0000

Despite what the photo would have us believe(!), hand-me-downs can look nice!

By: Roberta

Roberta — Thu, 08 Mar 2012 21:05:57 +0000

It helps if your kids are either the same gender or you buy/inherit gender neutral clothing. My sister bought everything in pink and purple or covered with flowers or lace for her daughter which severely limited the handmedowns for my four boys. While you can’t dictate the color of things that are passed along, to fill out the wardrobe it helps to stick to a color scheme. I bought white and light blue sleeved shirts, and khaki and navy shorts and pants for years. That made everything interchangable for church or other occasions requiring better dress. (My husband used the same concept when he moved to a job which required civilian clothes – 10 light blue shirts, 10 pairs navy pants which he wears every day unless he’s outside the office seeing clients and needs to wear a suit.) Makes getting dressed as easy as his old uniform days.

Since my youngest is now taller than me and outweighs me, we have reversed the process. My at-home-parent role largely does not require a professional wardrobe, so I wear “hand me ups” – the shirts, jeans, sleep pants etc which they have outgrown. As a woman, I draw the line at their boxer shorts, although at least some of their athletic socks are usable.

I have also found hand me downs are not welcome in some neighborhoods. I offered them to three different mothers after we moved here. One actually wrinkled her nose and said her boys deserved new clothes of their own. One declined politely. The third looked through the stacks and hanging racks of clean, unstained, ironed clothing, and took one team logo sweatshirt. After that, I started donating them as they were outgrown to the local battered women’s shelter to be worn or sold at their thrift shop. It feels better knowing they’re going to someone who really needs them, or are being sold to support the shelter.

By: Brandon

Brandon — Thu, 08 Mar 2012 20:49:42 +0000

I can understand what you mean Nate. I thought Trent was on point until he messed up the math in the calculation. If you handed down 75% of the clothes, you would only need *15* outfits in each size.

Either way, I would say that 12 outfits in a size is a gross underestimation once you get above 12 month unless you really like doing laundry all the time or live in a climate that never changes. You probably need somewhere between 12-15 “warm weather” outfits and 12-15 “cold weather” outfits plus I dunno 5 pairs of pajamas.

Nonetheless, his thesis is right. Hand-me-downs are awesome. Sometimes the quality is bad (stained, etc.), but we just typically don’t use those outfits. Other things just aren’t to our taste, but you can’t beat the price and we plan to pass it along to the next person that can use it!

Incidentally, we had some luck with a friend in “borrowing” clothes. She wanted to ultimately have them back in case she had other children, but she didn’t mind us using them. It was a great way to round out his wardrobe, and she had similar taste to us so some of the outfits we borrowed became my very favorites!

By: Nate

Nate — Thu, 08 Mar 2012 20:10:02 +0000

I really think Trent should leave out the pseudo-mathematical calculations he tends to do in articles like this. They make so many assumptions that they’re basically meaningless. Though I guess it’s slightly better than an unsubstantiated claim that “this can save you thousands of dollars.”