Organize a Clothes Swap!

Do you have any idea how much Americans spend on clothing each year? If you guessed about $80 billion dollars, you’re pretty close. An estimated $82 billion dollars are spent on clothes each and every year in the United States alone. That’s a whole ‘lotta cash! What happens to all of those clothes we bought last year? Clothes are either cheaply made and need to be thrown out, go out of fashion, or just become “boring” after a certain amount of time to a lot of us, so we feel the need to go out and buy MORE.

What if I told you that you could still find decent, quality and stylish clothing without spending a dime? Round up some friends and organize a clothing swap!

How to Organize

First you need to decide if this is going to be a small event amongst friends or if you will be inviting people from the community. The venue you choose depends on the amount of people that you have coming. Apartments are great for small gatherings, but will probably be inappropriate if more than just a few people are coming over. Try renting out a legion hall or school gym. If it is non-profit and promise to completely clean up everything on your own, you may be able to do this for free.

TIP: Be sure that you set up a private area for people to try on the clothes.

How to Advertize

The more people, the better the variety so if you want to get the community involved, make some fliers and post them up around the town. Many businesses will let you post non-profit fliers up for free. You can ask your local newspaper if you can place an advert for free, post one online for free, or even create a “group” or event on an online social networking site (such as Facebook, My Space or Twitter).

What to Bring

Everything! Anything that you have in your closet that you no longer wear or that doesn’t fit, toss it into the clothing exchange pile. I especially love doing this with my children’s clothing (which they seem to out grow every 3 months!). All clothing articles that are left over can then be donated to goodwill.

TIP: If you find that two or more people want a particular item, keep it light and fun by hosting a draw or creating a game for the item. For instance, if you are having a clothing swap with your bingo group, have them play a game of bingo to determine who claims the “prize”.

Happy “shopping”!

photo by Roger Kirby