Your Guide to Buying Gently-Used Clothing And Toys For Babies and Kids in Mississauga

With the winter season quickly approaching, I wanted to compile a resource for buying gently-used baby and kid items in Mississauga, Ontario.

Babies and kids go through clothes and toys quickly; I figure why not purchase used items and save some money for Christmas gifts, am I right? Aside from social media connections, check out these worthwhile Mississauga resources:

Value Village
Referred to as "The Village" by my mommy friend, their Halloween section (with new costumes!) has the best prices from what I've seen locally. Clothes are usually decent quality, but what I also appreciate the most is the way items are organized by size and/or age.

Talize
I find the used clothing here a little dated, but depending on what you're looking for, they're slightly better quality compared to Value Village.


Kid to Kid Mississauga
Out of all the gently-used clothing places I've been to, this has THE best quality in used shoes. Prices are impressive, too! Bonus: if you sell your used items to the store, they'll give you cash or a store credit worth 20% more. (My advice? Take the store credit if you've still got kids. Think of it as "trading.")

Mom-to-Mom sales
Check out your community centre or parks and recreation guide for upcoming events; vendors consist of different local parents selling used clothes and toys. Sometimes these sales consist of an admission fee, but usually they go towards a great cause.

OutGROW OutPLAY sale events
Events happen twice a year; register as a consignor and OutGROW and OutPLAY will sell your old clothes (plus toys and baby equipment) for you. Or, hey, just shop around. Also, when you volunteer your time at an event, you can get up to 80% off your purchase.

Did I miss any other Mississauga stores or events? Let me know if I did; just leave your comments below, thanks!

I survived Mom to Mom, except one thing happened ...

As you already know, I'm an advocate for buying gently-used items. So last week, I was ecstatic when the Mom-to-Mom sale happened at the Frank McKechnie Community Centre in Mississauga!

Look to the right - see that pile of clothes? I got those, plus the clothes you can't see underneath, and new sandals for ...

$28.50!

I paid 50 cents to a dollar per item.

However, I got so excited, stupidity kicked my ass. Here's why: I didn't properly look over the clothes! When I got home, I noticed one shirt had a small stain on it (I was able to remove it, thank goodness!). Then it turned out the zipper came off of a hoodie I bought - d'oh!

Learn from my mistake, ladies and gents: Always double, triple, quadruple check gently-used items - after all, there's no return policy!

Have you ever made gently-used shopping mistake? What happened?

The result of a random visit to Once Upon a Child ...

I've been borrowing clothes for my daughter since was a newborn. But now that she's past two years old, I'm slowly running low on my "borrowed supply."

I was in the Oakville area and randomly stopped by Once Upon a Child. See to the right what I bought for ... $5.25.

That's right, you saw the total bill correctly! There was a $1 clearance sale.

Now here's the big question: Did I really save money? Mom-to-Mom and garage sales are just around the corner. I guess I'll see when the bargain-shopping season begins!

Markham baby news you don't want to miss

You know it's beginning to look like spring when ... you hear about Mom-to-Mom! If you've been following my posts, you know I'm a huge fan of this series of sales.

I got the latest Markham Mom-to-Mom details from their email newsletter today. I've never been to the Markham sales, but I hear they are amazing – and I can believe this. See below for info.

Markham Mom-to-Mom Spring 2013 Sale

SATURDAY APRIL 6TH 9 A.M.- 1 P.M. (Vendor Spaces Sold Out)

SUNDAY APRIL 7TH 10 A.M.- 2 P.M. (New 42 Vendor Spaces Left!)

Markham Fairgrounds

10801 McCowan Road

www.momtomomsales.org

$3/ person admission for shoppers

free parking

strollers welcome

If you want to be a vendor, click here.

My onesie wonders

When I browse through store racks, nothing pisses me off more than finding a designer onesie for $20. I'll be brutally honest with you: I have NOT had to pay over $1 for onesies — no joke! I went to a Mom-to-Mom Sale before my daughter was born and I purchased these onesies:

• Four plain white Carters' onesies (size 6 months) for $1 (so $0.25 each).
• Two long-sleeved onesies by Gymboree for $2 ($1 each).

But my BEST deal of all is when I received THREE free onesies from Huggies. (I have two right now and one is on its way in the mail.) All I did was plug in points from their jumbo pack of diapers. For my daughter's first birthday, she received an American Express gift certificate, which we used towards a jumbo pack of Huggies diapers at Costco. (P.S. I'm totally against buying diapers at Costco because they're super expensive! However, with the gift certificate, we ended up paying $0.06 per diaper, so it was the only time it was worth it.) At home, I plugged in the points and voila — Huggies said they would send me a free onesie, I just had to pick the size. A few months back, I also bought two jumbo Huggies packs at Walmart and since I put in four codes, they sent me two onesies. Not bad, eh? 

Obviously though, my daughter has used more than nine onesies in her 13 months of existence! So here's why this method is a money-saver:  I've barely spent money on clothes because I borrowed infant and toddler clothes. So the lesson here is, infant and toddler clothes won't last forever — deals with gently-used clothes or taking advantage of brand promotions can go a long way. (Remember, I've only spent a total of $3 on onesies!)