East Bay Baby

Way back in November, I promised a series on saving money on child related expenses in the Bay Area. New year, new resolution – finish that series! We have already verified that yes, it is more expensive to raise kids in the Bay Area, and tackled saving money on food. This week, I’ll cover saving money on clothes and gear for babies and kids in the Bay Area.

Let me start out by saying that the best way to save money on non-consumable items is to buy them used. I have no problems with buying pretty much anything used. Probably the only kid related items I won’t buy used are breast pumps (no hard data saying that this is unsafe, just…eww), and car seats. Fortunately, in the Bay Area there are lots of options for buying used clothes, gear, and toys. You never need to pay even twenty-five percent of  full price for anything! This is an especially useful money saving strategy when your kids are young, and you don’t have to worry about keeping up with clothing trends, or having them realize that their “new” toy is only new to them.

Here are a few of my favorite sources for used items around the Bay:

Used Gear:

Craigslist. Hands down. Some children’s resale shops also sell baby gear, but in general Craigslist prices are the best. The most effective way to buy baby gear on Craigslist is to do your research first, then search for specific brand and item names. For example, because of all the drop-side crib fiascos recently, we knew that we wanted to get fixed-side cribs from Ikea. We took a trip to Ikea, picked out the models that we liked, and then just searched for those crib types on Craigslist over the next month or two. We ended up finding a lightly used crib and mattress combo for $50, with some free sheets and bedding thrown in.

Used Toys:

Yes, I buy my children used toys. No, I’m not an evil person…really! I’ll stop just as soon as they start caring. Right now my two year old is equally delighted by (and just as quickly disenchanted with) a toy from a yard sale as with a brand new toy, so why not? The cheapest sources of used toys are definitely yard sales. Slightly pricier is the Toy Go Round in Albany. This used toy store is really useful for picking up the vintage Fisher Price toys (they will last forever), big bags of Legos or army men, action figures, used board books, and so forth. The big bags of Lego/army men/plastic animals at the Toy Go Round are an especially good deal, since small toys tend to disappear very quickly around here (where do they go? and why do I only find them with my bare feet?).

Used Clothes:

My favorite sources for used kid’s clothing are:

• Lauren’s Closet in Alameda.  There is a huge selection, especially of older kid’s clothing. They even have a maternity clothes section. It isn’t incredibly well curated, but the prices are quite low.
• Grove Street Kids in Berkeley. A small shop, but the used clothes available are very nice – not just the unholy trio of Carters/Old Navy/Gap! I have been able to find high quality European brands of clothing (e.g. Hanna Andersson) for very reasonable prices.
• Thrift Town in El Sobrante.  There is a huge kid’s clothing section in this thrift store, and the prices are cheaper than any kid’s resale shop, and actually cheaper than most other thrift stores.  It is also really well organized (there are even seasonal items like kid’s snow gear or lifejackets).  However, you need to do your shopping carefully.  Watch out for stains and missing buttons!  If you have the time, you can really pick up some treasures here.

This is part two of a series – read part one here!