Buying baby clothes on a budget

In this week’s baby bargainista column, Rebecca Atkinson talks about shopping for clothes for her baby daughter who is growing by the minute and cute as a button.

As Jenny pointed out in a previous post buying baby clothes can be an expensive proposition when your little one constantly grows and no two manufacturer’s are alike in their sizing.
Given this the rapid changes in weather this summer and our darling’s early delivery, it wasn’t long before we were on the lookout for discount baby clothes in Toronto.

Here’s what we were able to find:
Value Village – when babies aren’t yet crawling, walking or spilling stuff on themselves, their clothes tend to stay in better shape, so Value Village is a great spot to find baby clothes at discount prices.

The Children’s Place – Depending on which location you go to you may end up with a gold mine of discounts: clothes priced between $1.99 -$4.99. I’ve been to three locations in the GTA and here’s what I can tell you. The Toronto Eaton Centre has a small discount area and is worth checking out. Yorkdale Mall’s store has the smallest discount rack I’ve ever seen. However, the motherload can be found at Vaughan Mills, with the biggest discount section – especially for infants.

Old Navy – Again, Vaughan Mills has a large discount area and we were able to buy a ton of her summer clothes, paying no more than $4.99 per item of clothing. I’m not sure about other Old Navy locations, but it could be worth a try.

Obviously, these are pretty Toronto-area specific discount shopping options, so surely there are other options across Canada. Where have you been the most successful?

Seasonal sales and sundresses

In this week’s baby bargainista column, Jenny shares her shopping tips for scoring big at seasonal sales while buying sundresses for her pre-schooler.

It’s a cliché, but it’s true – kids grow up quickly, right before your eyes! When the first heat wave of summer arrived I reached into our first-born’s closet for the summer sundresses bought last year, hoping that a few of them might still fit, but it seems Girl #1 has sprouted about a foot in height, almost all of it legs. Even the sundresses bought a size larger at the end-of-season sales last year are no better than tunics now.

So, I headed out to find our beanpole some summer wear. Luckily many stores have already started marking down summer merchandise. I first went to Old Navy and H&M in the Eaton Centre; both had big SALE! signs in the windows and I rejoiced! My procrastination was about to be rewarded.

Old Navy may have had kids’ dresses, but the day I went the children’s section was a mess! Picked over, understocked, and understaffed, with many items misshelved so that it was hard to tell what was on sale and what was not. I couldn’t find anything in my daughter’s size, and when I asked a passing staffer for help, she told me it “wasn’t her section”.

Thoroughly dissatisfied, I headed a few doors down to H&M. There I had the opposite experience: sale racks and individual items were clearly marked, and despite the crowds, when I asked a passing staffer if anything else was marked down she happily directed me to another sale rack hidden in a corner. I found nearly a dozen summer dresses but eventually settled on a half-dozen, including the $10 sale item pictured above.

Bottom line? When shopping seasonal sales, remember to:
1. Ask sales staff if any other merchandise is marked down – sometimes sale items aren’t clearly marked and you might find more bargains

2. Buy up for next year – if you can’t find anything in your kid’s current size, there’s no harm in buying a size or two larger – they’ll grow into it!