Up to speed? Right, I thought I'd post about it again to let you know how it's working out.
I love it and am so proud of myself for doing it! (I know that sounds daft, but it's how I feel!)
It's worked out incredibly well for us. Anytime the boys need anything I just dip into the boxes and they are thrilled to have instant new clothes. I'm thrilled to not have the expense of new clothing as we recover financially from emigrating.
As we had been warned to expect, clothing in New Zealand is much more expensive than in the UK, plus there is less variety, fewer places to shop for it, and the quality can to be lower too. I am so pleased that I have boxes of beautiful, good quality clothes for the boys for the next few years.
Recently I decided to reorganise all of the clothes. I previously had sizes mixed together in big 80-liter plastic boxes like this:
It was a bit of a mess as I'd have to sort through two or three sizes to find what I wanted, which meant unfolding or half-unfolding things to check the labels. I decided to put each size in a different box.
I bought some 40-liter boxes on sale to store individual sizes in:
I also went through all of the clothes, updating the spreadsheet since I've added to some sizes and taken clothes out of other sizes. This is what we currently have on hand. There are lots of gaps in sizes 9-10 and 10-11 because that's what Daniel is currently wearing and he'll pass on clothes when he's outgrown them, so I'll then know what still needs to be bought and pick up things on sale.
I labeled each box by printing out the size and putting it inside the box with a piece of tape holding it in place - once I'd added the clothes the labels were wedged in well and weren't going anywhere. (Font used is Sketch Rockwell.)
Here's how they look:
They are labeled on one side (see above pic) and on one end:
Recently the boys asked for new T-shirts so I pulled some out. When I was buying the clothing I would pick up whatever was on sale and in this instance there happened to be two different sizes in the same T-shirt. Well, Daniel and Noah were so excited to be dressed alike that they ran off and put on similar denim shorts too so that they could be twins!
I am so, so, so happy I did the clothing bank, it has been a huge blessing and a big money-saver for us!
