Storing off season clothing

It is that time of year that one season's clothing needs be stored and another season's clothing brought into use. This message is cross posted between consumers. frugal-living and sewing with good reason. You will need your sewing skills for this task and a frugal state of mind. ;^)

First in this task is finding correct containers for the job at hand. I divide clothing into three categories. Donations/ Keepers/ Rags. I use a clean cardboard box or large plastic bag or several small grocery store bags for the Donations. I have a lockable steamer trunk purchased years ago at a yard sale to store the Keepers. A laundry bin or any convenient short term use container for the Rags. Now do an honest sort of the clothing.

Garments not really liked, no longer fit, no longer have a use and are in good condition go into the Donations container.

Garments that have use, are comfortable to wear and fit well, and are in at least amendable good condition are stacked near the storage for the Keepers.

The garments that do not belong in one of the first two categories go into the Rags container.

Step two. Get rid of the Donations! Give them to a friend or family member that can use them. Give them to a charity for a tax donation off on next year's income tax, store the receipt carefully. Drop them in a charity bin at the gasoline station. Do something progressive with them. Do not let them clutter up your home or vehicle.

Clean, mend, patch the Keepers before storage. If there is one loose button on a garment, sew all the buttons on. You already have hunted down the thread, needle and buttons. Do all buttons/ fasteners while mending a garment. This will save time next year. Make sure that the container in use is damp proof and insect/ rodent proof. A few moth balls inside with the clothing will help reach this goal. If using cardboard boxes, line the box with a large plastic trash bag before filling. Mark the container so it is easy to find when needed. My private rule is I can only keep what will fit into the steamer trunk I use. This keeps me from having more than two weeks worth of outfits in use. I greatly dislike overcrowded closets. But I make a lot of my own clothing and that makes it easy to overcrowd a closet.

Now for the Rag bin. You will need scissors and possibly a seam ripper for this task. Remove all buttons, thread them together and store in the button box. Remove all good zippers and store in the button box. Remove all fasteners of any kind. Ones in good shape can be stored in a button box for later use in mending other garments. Damaged fasteners, zippers, broken buttons go into the trash. Now cut or tear the garments into useful size rags, fold and store. If you end up with too many rags to fit into the storage area, give them away to the local school, garage, charity or family that can use them. Sell them in bundles of ten or twenty at your next yard sale. Using a sewing machine with zig-zag stitch around the edges slows down raveling and fraying.

Now the job is done for this season and it is time to enjoy the 'new' clothing just out of storage after washing it to remove the mothball odor. ;^)

Reply to
Vandy Terre
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I will keep clothing that is good but doesn't fit, in stackable boxes. In the past, it has saved me from buying a whole wardrobe, as my size went up or down a notch or two.

Don

Reply to
Don K

No it doesnt. Its a lot more frugal of your time to have enough cupboard space to store all the keepers and dont bother farting around moving stuff around as the seasons change.

We'll see...

You arent being frugal with your time, or with your clothing expenditure either.

And you dont necessarily need any real sewing skills either.

You dont need to do that if you dont fart around on the change of seasons.

Doesnt need to be lockable.

Most dont generate enough rags to warrant that.

No thanks, I've got better things to do with my time.

I'm not stupid enough to see clothes stop fitting.

Or just left where they belong, in the cupboards with enough space for all seasons.

You shouldnt be generating enough of those to need any container.

Makes a lot more sense to be more frugal with your original purchases so that there arent any donations.

No one I know is that much of a pov.

I've got better things to do with my time.

Some of us arent that obsessive that we care.

No thanks, I only repair stuff that needs repairing.

No thanks, only some of the buttons see much wear. There's bugger all buttons on most of what I wear.

No it wont if they wont need any repair next year either.

No thanks, I make sure the cupboards are that in the first place.

Makes more sense to have cupboards that prevent the moths getting at what they like to eat, and thats a subset of the total clothes. They dont bother with jeans, only lunch on T shirts and wool jumpers. They dont bother with fleeces etc.

Makes a lot more sense to have adequate cupboard space instead.

Mindlessly silly.

Gets sillier by the minute. Makes a lot more sense to have lots of what you use all the time like T shirts so you can let the dirty ones accumulate until they are a full machine load etc.

You can get medication for your OCD now apparently.

Hardly frugal.

No you dont. Just keep the stuff thats easy to use for rags like T shirts and toss the rest that requires that sort of work to turn into usable rags. Toss them in the general direction of some charity or other if you must.

Or dont bother.

Makes more sense to use new ones instead if you arent frivolously discarding stuff you shouldnt have bought in the first place.

Makes alot more sense to just discard clothes that have lots of those instead.

I've got much better things to do with my time.

I dont bother with yard sales either. And I wouldnt be stupid enough to put that sort of effort into whats being sold even if I did.

Makes a hell of a lot more sense to use stuff like T shirts as rags and use the original edging untouched.

I also use new hand towels as rags, they cost peanuts.

Makes a hell of a lot more sense to have enough cupboard space so you dont have to fart around at all.

Reply to
Rod Speed

----------------snippage------------

There is medication available for OCD.

Reply to
Pogonip

I don't have such a huge wardrobe that I have to do all that stuff. Thank God. I can see how organized the whole thing is, though.

Bonita

Vandy Terre wrote:

Reply to
Bonita

You make a lot of assumptions here. First, that folks even keep out of season clothing in storage to begin with...second, that people would even have the time to do all this :)

-Irene

Reply to
IMS

...

Let's not forget the biggest assumption, that people have seasons and therefore seasonal clothing. :)

Anthony

Reply to
Anthony Matonak

I agree. What's the big deal. I just simply hang up my shirts and pants in my closet and I use whatever's appropriate for the weather. No big deal. I don't do anything special for the clothes that are out of season, they simply don't get worn and hang in my closet until the weather is right to wear them.

Reply to
Shawn Hirn

One of the tricks I learned about keeping too many clothes that are no longer used; when you hang them up in the closet, turn all the hooks facing one way when you first put them in the closet. When you take clothes out to wear during the season put them back in hanging with the hook in the opposite direction. When it comes time to change the closes for the next season, any clothes not hanging in the "currently used" direction, are candidates for the storage/donation bin. This is a great way to keep your closets from getting overcrowded with seldom or never worn clothes.

John

Reply to
John

I don't have so much clothing these days that I need to worry about storing anything 'off season'. Coats and other dry-cleanables get cleaned, bagged, and hung at the far end of the rail, and jerseys get washed and folded neatly and put away in the drawer. Everything else it pretty much all year round: I may wear the short sleeved T shirts more often in warm spells, and leave off the socks and wear sandals rather than boots, but that's about it. Fleeces tend to get swapped from 'indoors coz I'm chilly' use to 'outdoors on a cool day/evening' use.

Anything too big goes off to the charity shop: I have ONE pre-weight loss outfit to remind me, and THAT'S IT! I ain't going back there again!

Reply to
Kate XXXXXX

We dont have " off seasons" in the mountains where we have 70 degree changes in 24 hours is not rare. We have 70 degree days in January and 30 degrees in at night in July.

Reply to
rick++

Here in California we don't have seasons...it's all sumfalwinsprin. So we can wear the same clothes year round. If it gets too cold...say

65-70 degrees..we might break out the light jacket. I agree with the other posters; no need for this whole ritual. Unless you're Bree Vandekamp.
Reply to
Seerialmom

I know plenty of people who work in Professional type jobs who DO own that many clothes. Having a method of storing off season wear is necessary in many parts of the country. Personally, I don't own enough to make my work this detailed, but I do put my sweaters away once the temps get above 70. I usually pull stuff out at the same time that I've not worn in a year or so, and decide whether to donate it or just pitch it. Some older cotton t-shirts DO get cut up into rags, if they are white. I also cut buttons off of items that are being tossed.

As far as winter coats, they are placed in the family room closet, and lighter weight jackets are brought to the front closet. Boots are put in the basement, gloves/hats/scarves are placed in a small box and stored on a shelf. When all 4 kids were living here, it was more necessary to keep items organized. Just because a person is organized doesn't mean they have OCD.

Melissa

Reply to
Melissa

Melissa snipped-for-privacy@neo.rr.com> wrote

No it isnt anywhere. The obvious alternative is to have enough cupboard space so you dont need to store the off season stuff anywhere, it just stays in the cupboards that its always in.

The most that might make sense is to have the various seasonal stuff in separate areas of the cupboards.

Makes a lot more sense to have a separate drawer etc for them and just stop using that drawer etc when it hot enough to not need them.

Makes a lot more frugal sense to be more careful about buying in the first place.

Makes more sense to use them uncut.

Makes more sense to just buy spare buttons so you have plenty of spares.

Makes more sense to have more closets in one place.

Then you dont have to fart around every time the seasons change.

Its never necessary if the closets are adequate in the first place.

She clearly is doing a hell of a lot more than just organising.

And it makes much more sense to organise adequate closets so she doesnt have to fart around every time the seasons change.

Reply to
Rod Speed

You're absolutely correct. But when that need for organization overtakes all, and becomes extreme, then it is possible. Organization is one thing, alphabetizing spices, making lists..of lists, being unable to leave a room without straightening a picture or lining up a rectangular box on a square table...these can all be symptoms of a greater disorder. The elaborate organization described by the OP is suspect.

Reply to
Pogonip

Just curious -- they're RAGS. Why do you care what color they are?

Reply to
The Real Bev

Never mind the psych-jargon, how do I get her to come stay at my house for a few months?

Reply to
The Real Bev

The white rags must go in the white rag bin. Red rags go in the red rag bin. Blue rags go in the blue rag bin. Aqua or turquoise or teal rags may result in a nervous breakdown. Heaven only knows what would happen with lavender, purple or mauve rags. This could result in an International Incident.

Reply to
Pogonip

I alphabetise my herbs & spices - that way I don´t have to look through the whole rack to find what I am looking for. Also I can see when somenody else has half-inched a jar for nefarious purposes (my 7yo loves to "cook").

Lizzy

Reply to
Lizzy Taylor

I don't keep my rag bag segrated by color but for some purposes only a white rag will do. Like cleaning the muddy tail splat marks left on the white walls of my hallway by my BCs during the recent wet spell. At least that way any lint caught by the sandy texture will at least match the paint.

Kathleen

Reply to
Kathleen

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