OOps
Could be a “guy” thing, i.e., he views that going to a charity* for his childs clothes indicates a failure to properly provide on his part.
*In his perception.
An interesting phenomena I have noticed is this, and LifeonWry alluded to it in her post. The better off you are financially, the more it’s looked on as an eccentricity almost, and tolerated, if not celebrated. The lower on the economic scale, the more negative connotations it has in social circles, the more it is discouraged.
The thrift stores/consignment/garage sales of the past are not an accurate indicator of the quality to be found for cheap nowadays. It amazes me.
You’d be better off saving the money and putting it in a college fund, than buying full price. Your kid will appreciate it much more.
I refuse to buy Gymboree clothes for him unless they’re on sale, and GREATLY marked down.
At the consignment shop, I found an entire Gymboree outfit, hat and everything, for six bucks. Originally would have gone for around $50. You’d never know it had ever been worn.
So I can’t see going to Gymboree and buying this stuff. I might not get the exact outfit that I like, but it seems like I can come pretty darn close at the consignment shops.
E.
Hi, my name is MsWhatsit, and I buy my kids’ clothes at yard sales.
When I tell people this, they generally refuse to believe it, because my son, for example, has a nice selection of Tommy Hilfiger, Calvin Klein, and other designer-brand clothing (along with the less-trendy stuff too; I’m not a brand snob). To which my response is, “What, you think I paid RETAIL for that stuff?” Yard sales are about the best place to find extremely cheap, good-quality kids’ clothes, because some people will just tend to unload all their outgrown kids’ clothing at a yard sale in the hopes of avoiding the hassle of taking them all to the consignment store, or whatever. I am talking like, Tommy Hilfiger pants for $3, complete Gymboree outfits for $1-2, etc. Granted, you kind of have to be committed to going to a lot of yard sales. If you expect to just hit one or two and find the mother lode, you will likely be disappointed. So there is a time commitment involved in this, and if you want to pay just slightly more and still get good quality, you can always hit the consignment stores. I get a fair amount of clothing from there, too.
I guess there might be a stigma associated with yard sale/Goodwill clothing, but since my kids are still only in preschool, we haven’t run into it with their peers yet. Hopefully it won’t become a problem when they’re older; I think consignment shopping, as pointed out by some posters already, is more accepted these days than it once was.
I tried to edit my last post to address this issue right before Jerry euthanized the capybara an hour ago.
I once told WhyKid it was perfectly acceptable to lie if some nimrod asked him where he got a piece of clothing as a social test. Hey - the shirt *did *come from Abercrombie! We just weren’t the ones that bought it there. 
(He said he appreciated the permission, but if anyone asked him that, it wouldn’t be a person he’d care about impressing anyway. God, I love that kid!)
Since I began dieting, the only new clothes I have bought from non-thrift stores have been undergarments and workout clothes. And shoes, because I can never find shoes in my size. When I’m down to my desired size, that will probably change, but I love thrifting.
Yesterday, I bought a pair of LL Bean jeans and a Gap sweater for $3.95 total.
I love consignment shops. It’s actually become quite trendy to get clothes from Salvation Army, Goodwill, etc. There is a consignment in St. Louis called Rag-O-Rama that has designer clothes and costume stuff. It’s not super cheap but it’s all designer stuff. Right now I am wearing an Abercrombie girls baseball t-shirt for $7. I would have never gone into Abercrombie in the first place, much less paid the $40 this shirt is there. I didn’t even know it was from AF until I got home and looked at the inside tag. I get a lot of cool old kids’ baseball tshirts and stuff, with the numbers on the back too. I almost bought a pristine white blazer from Express there for $18 - still had tags! But I was out of cash and knew I would just ruin it, being white and all.
But a lot of teenagers I know think it’s cool to find neat stuff in thrift stores. And I see nothing wrong with it. Especially in your case, I do not know how people afford babies! They always need new clothes and stuff, not to mention diapers and expensive baby food and all that. I’d say it’s almost worse to buy all new crap they will fit into for a few weeks and repeat that cycle over and over. Too much money.
A while back my wife, who loves thrift stores, wrote an article for the Princeton version of the Reader on them, which involved buying clothes for our girls. She spent $100 on (a lot of) stuff for them, and they modeled some of the outfits on the cover. No one ever reacted oddly to this. of course the fact that they were 8 and 3 at the time and incredibly cute helped. 
I work for Goodwill, they DO NOT CLEAN THE CLOTHES.
Wash whatever you buy, used or new. New clothes are disgusting with the chemicals they spray on them, and old clothes aren’t cleaned after donation.
Goodwill takes the revenue from their stores and puts it toward the mission, which is “a hand up, not a handout” in helping the un- and under-employed get the skills to get a good job.
Is it your first baby? I’ve always shopped at thrift stores, and I still do, and these days I buy my children’s clothes there too. But, when my son was tiny, I had to buy everything new. Which is silly, because of course, that was the time he outgrew stuff the fastest and cared the least. But, he was my new baby and he only received the best. :rolleyes: I remember sorting his little pampers by color, and being sure they matched his outfit. The idea of putting him in used clothes would have horrified me. In fact, I received hand me downs from a neighbor, and never even looked through them; I went straight to Goodwill and dropped them off! Silly, I know, but I did it.
So maybe it’s just new baby protectiveness, or something. If it is, he’ll get over it. At least, I did!
Yep, he’s my first.
And I dug a little deeper with ElzaHub when I got home tonight. It’s not actually the fact that the clothes come from the Salvation Army/Goodwill - he thinks you’re not supposed to shop there unless you can’t afford clothes elsewhere. So I explained to him that anyone can shop there, and they use the money they make to help people. He actually seemed fine with that, and he doesn’t care if I get **Baby B **some clothes at the SA. So it wasn’t what I thought at all.
(Oh, and all clothes get washed, no matter where I buy them, if they’re new or consignment…Baby B has really sensitive skin, and has to have clothes washed in dye-free, scent-free detergent. It’s so bad that his grandparents all wash their clothes in the same detergent so that they don’t give him a rash.)
E.
In her first years of college, my sister worked at our local Salvation Army store. Unfortunately, the building it was in raised their rent too high, and they had to close. She found some DAMNED good bargains there-as long as you’re willing to look, you can really make a killing. Sometimes, they have things that are brand new.
Oh, what a sweetie! I’m glad you talked with him again and got to the bottom of things. Not snobbery at all, but good heartedness and a bit of self-sacrifice. Yay for him!
You realize you’ll have to take me shopping now, right?
I’ve never been very happy with any clothing at the local thrift stores, which is unfortunate because I do love a bargain and I see nothing wrong with shopping there. It’s just that whenever I’ve given those places a try, I found that things seemed to be very worn or very dated. But if a place has some decent finds, I’m all for it.
For baby clothes, there’s no question. The kid only wears something for a few weeks before it’s too small anyway. Sure, a few brand new baby outfits are nice to have, but for the everyday clothes it doesn’t make sense to be spending so much money. A cousin of mine had a kid, and made it very clear that they didn’t want a bunch of used things as presents. Well, fine. They got a $20 toy instead of a huge stack of books and toys and clothes that I had been collecting at yard sales. Their loss - I gave all that to a pregnant friend and she was just elated.
Yeah, he’s a good guy :D. He has a heart attack over the price of baby clothes, too, so I thought that was a little out of character for him.
Antigen, my aunt goes to yard sales constantly - thanks to her, Baby B has an entire toy box (and the toy box itself) full of books and toys, an extra stroller at his grandparents’ house, an extra carseat and two bases at his other grandparents’ house, and a TON of clothes. She goes nuts and shops for us - every time we see her, she gives us a huge bag of clothes and toys that she’s found. I’ll happily take yard sale stuff, and I appreciate that she goes to so much effort for us - the most important thing to me is that Baby B has a large collection of books to read, and it makes no difference to me if another kid enjoyed them first. I LOVE my aunt :D.
E.
My problem is now trying to justify shopping anywhere else. Nearly everything in my closet currently is from thrift stores or Value Village. I finally broke down and bought a new winter coat at Burlington Coat Factory after failing to find what I wanted at the thrift stores.
I consider it wasting money to buy new clothes (except for socks and underwear, and suits - too hard to find anything that fits decent in that regard.) I can get five shirts and pay for their drycleaning for less than one shirt at even Ross or TJ Maxx - which I loved when I lived in Chicago. Give me a few more years, and I’ll be raiding the donation boxes! 
St Louis also has what I affectionately call “Thrift Row” - a decent SA, Goodwill and St Vincents all within walking distance of each other on Forest Park Blvd. Sadly I think even Rag-O-Rama is overpriced now.
I havent seen any stigma, but then I dont really associate with anyone that would feel there was any. In some ways it is becoming ‘financially chic’ to brag about one’s latest and greatest find in a thrift store.
And I was fortunate in being the oldest boy, so I didnt have to deal with hand-me downs, but for the younger kids, a ‘new’ shirt or blouse was new simply by the fact that they were the first one (in the family) to own it.
And if my sisters wanted to keep my nephews in more than diapers, they would head to the thift shops first, then Sears or Target. Boys clothes could be hard to find since they tend to wear them out past the point of donation.
Exactly.
At my high school, it was the middle-class kids who shopped at Value Village, sporting worn flannels and ripped cordoroys. The poorer kids were all about new clothes.
When I was a grad student, me and a friend, a guy from a wealthy background, were always bragging about our from thrift store treasures. It was the grad students from more working class backgrounds who would scold me whenever I told them I shopped at Salvation Army.
So depending on who you talk to, yeah, there could be a stigma. But the people who would look harshly on you are people who are stupid enough to buy Nikes for their ten-month-olds. Do you really care what they think? 
Exactly! Thrift stores are selling clothing and giving the money to charity. The clothes aren’t meant as charity.
I’m much rather have slightly worn better clothes from a thrift shop than new cheap clothes.
The Goodwill around here has expensive clothes and it’s packed. Most people donate their old expensive clothes and throw away their junk.
I wash everything from Goodwill. I also was everything I get that’s new. Even with new clothes, who knows if they were tried on by someone with a fungus or crotch rot, or wore the clothes and returned them?