Today we have a post from Mercedes of Common Sense With Money! Her blog is one of my daily reads for the scoop on the latest deals and coupons. Here she shares her tips for saving money on clothes by shopping at consignment stores.

About Mercedes:

Hi, I am Mercedes of Common Sense with Money. I am a Certified Public Accountant and MBA who left the workforce to become a stay-at-home mom for my two sons ages 3 1/2 years and 10 months old. I was born and raised in the country of Honduras where I grew up learning how to be resourceful with the limited income that we had.

I started my blog in October of 2007 because I wanted to share my money saving efforts with other people. We are a family that lives a frugal lifestyle while still being able to achieve the goals we have set out for our future. I wanted people to see that you can not only “make it on one income” but you can thrive on one!

As much as I like to bargain hunt up until recently I did very little consignment store shopping. Regularly I save money by buying clothes on clearance at the store or online, shopping off season at the outlet stores or by hitting garage sales .

However, as my children get older, I am finding that it is getting harder and harder to predict their size next summer or next winter. Suddenly that coat I bought at the end of last winter is still too big for my oldest to wear or the winter clothes that I had saved from my first are too small on the baby. Last month I needed to find a winter coat for my oldest right at the beginning of winter season but I didn’t want to pay the premium price from shopping for the item when there’s the most demand for it.

I was lucky enough that a consignment store recently open here in my town. I figured it was time to explore this new possibility for saving money. I was pleasantly surprised. After speaking to the store owner I found out that you can save money at consignment stores because you can find gently used clothing at a deep discount. This appealed to me because usually when I go to garage sales I find very worn items of clothing. But at a consignment store the owner usually selects items of clothing that are in good shape to sell in the store. After all it is the store’s business to make sure that an item sells and worn out items don’t appeal to anyone.

But the savings don’t stop there. You can make money too by bringing your own gently used clothes and leave them for sale on consignment. By doing this not only are you making sure that you get more for your used clothes than you would probably get at a garage sale but you also get money you can use in the place where you can stretch it even further.

This post originally appeared on Common Sense With Money in November 2008.

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