I would graciously thank my sister for sending the hand me downs. I would typically only keep about 20% of the clothes for my kids as we didn't have the same taste and some of what she sent had stains, etc.
I think hand me downs make a ton of sense especially when they are babies and just lay in the clothes- they don't wear them out....

My son is 4 and I've barely had to buy him any clothes because of the hand me downs from the 4 boy cousins ahead of him. I love it. I certainly plan on returning the hand me downs back into the cousin rotation once we're done, but we may end up being the last ones, so I'll see what MIL wants to do (she's become the clearing house).

Anonymous wrote:I give with one expectation. When you are done - you pass it on and not sell it.

I tell the expectation when I pass things along. If people do not want to abide - they do not need to accept.

My SIL took all of my "high end" hand me downs and sold them through the consignment store b/c her child did not fit / wrong season (note - I was pregnant with my next when she told me this). She told me how much she made from our stuff - and her comments ended there. Nothing like - let me cut you a check for 1/2 OR - here are my kids stuff for your new baby.

After that I decided -to put my rule in place.

Wow....just curious, how much did she make?

I received a ton of hand me downs that I then passed on or donated. Now, at least half of my son's day care wardrobe is from Value Village.

No, no one ever hands me down anything, but I don't mind if friends/family hand me down clean & in good shape clothing to my 2 kids (one boy & one girl). I also buy decent quality clothing when they are on sale in store/on internet, so actually they are not that expensive at all. I never shop at thrift shop for my 2 kids because I have no ideas where they are coming from.

Yes. But I will only pass it to my family side only because all items were purchased new & are still in good shape/quality. I want to see my little niece/nephew wearing them. I have bags of clothing divided by sizes, and a ton of toys/baby furniture (big & small items) sitting in storage room that waiting for them to take them for free & they can sell them/donate them whatever they want after they are done. I just hope that they decide to have kids soon!

YES and YES.

Thanks to my older DD's friends, my DS (3 years younger) got hand me downs from age 0 to 10. I kept what I wanted and passed a lot of stuff to others.

Some friends gave me so much great stuff that I gave gifts in return - little gifts for their kids. I saved thousands of dollars over the years.

I pass stuff along (but don’t have much anymore because my kids are hard on clothes). We don’t get too much anymore-just a few dressy things from my sister’s kids. I’ve been known to buy things from goodwill though.

Yes to both.
I would never expect hand me down clothes back (how do you even remember what’s what?) but I am lending my friend a car seat and pack n play that she will give back doe baby #2.

No, I don’t want hand me downs.

I donate my kids’ used stuff.

I gladly accept some but we ended up with a girl at the wrong season for my friends to help out. I ended up sharing a lot of clothes and items with 3 close friends who had younger girls m in same season. It all came back to me with extras since they didn't keep track of who gave what and I gave the most. I have a lot of storage space so I'm currently the holder of 4 giant bins of 0-3yrs girl clothes. Great since I just found out I'm having another .
If nothing came back to me I would have been perfectly fine with that as well.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I give with one expectation. When you are done - you pass it on and not sell it.

I tell the expectation when I pass things along. If people do not want to abide - they do not need to accept.

My SIL took all of my "high end" hand me downs and sold them through the consignment store b/c her child did not fit / wrong season (note - I was pregnant with my next when she told me this). She told me how much she made from our stuff - and her comments ended there. Nothing like - let me cut you a check for 1/2 OR - here are my kids stuff for your new baby.

After that I decided -to put my rule in place.

Er, how do you enforce this? It’s impossible.

I don't enforce it - I just put the expectation out there.

When I gave my baby clothes to my SIL - I sort of expected things that were still in decent shape back. I did not take inventory - but she knew we were thinking about having more kids. I am of the mindset - you do not know what gender your next will be, size, season etc. So pass things along so that someone can get use out of it. I did not expect for my SIL to profit off of my generosity. I would have consigned the clothes myself.

Yes, love them.

My sister has kids older and younger than mine. So she passes stuff to me, we use it, then pass it back. I add in any other stuff I've bought that is the same size.

I will be sad when our kids are too old to do this!

No, will never accept hand me downs. I donate all the clothes my kids have outgrown to Church.

I LOVE hand me downs!

Grew up in a huge family and twice a year my mom and her sister would give hand me downs to each other, to include kids' clothes. Worked out great for me; my then-teenage girl cousins were fashionable.

Continued the tradition now. I still give my siblings and kids bags of everyone's hand me downs. Once a year, we get together and do a swap. We dump it all out and it's like Christmas. Anything left over from that is bagged and I take it to Goodwill.

Anonymous wrote:I give with one expectation. When you are done - you pass it on and not sell it.

I tell the expectation when I pass things along. If people do not want to abide - they do not need to accept.

My SIL took all of my "high end" hand me downs and sold them through the consignment store b/c her child did not fit / wrong season (note - I was pregnant with my next when she told me this). She told me how much she made from our stuff - and her comments ended there. Nothing like - let me cut you a check for 1/2 OR - here are my kids stuff for your new baby.

After that I decided -to put my rule in place.

Being charitable with strings attached ... niiiicccce. You're not generous. You're controlling.