My daughter already had a decent clothing collection before she was born, thanks to baby shower gifts we received. So, before she was even born, I spent about $10 on 30 little pink hangers from Babies ‘R US to hang all of my future daughter’s little clothes.
While these hangers, at about 33 cents each, certainly weren’t expensive, I wish I had realized sooner that there’s an easy way to obtain little hangers for free, a strategy that is today’s hint.
The trick: Save the hangers the little clothes come on and use those.
I’m embarrassed to admit that I didn’t think to do this until recently, and now the little hangers that come with our purchases from Zulily and elsewhere augment the original hanger collection in my daughter’s closet.
It turns out that I’m not the only fan of this trick – and I’m not the only one to realize it a bit too late.
Jennifer Marino Walters, who blogs at Double Duty Twins, for instance, writes over at Baby Gizmo in a great post on ways to save money on baby items, that, like me, she “ran out and bought tons of tiny baby hangers” before her babies were born. The, like me, she “realized that when you buy clothes, you can keep the plastic hangers they come with for free, “ noting this advice for other parents: “Don’t buy what you can get for free.” Similarly, Anthony James of Dadhacker includes little hangers in the “towards unnecessary” section of his helpful post on newborn shopping essentials and non-essentials.
To be sure, not all little clothes you buy or obtain, like hand-me-downs, come with hangers. So, you’ll probably need to buy at least some little hangers unless you fold all your little one’s clothes. The good news is that you can probably find packs of ten little hangers for $1 or less. Check retailers like Walmart and your local dollar stores, as moms over at The Bump suggest.
Still, free retailer hangers can help you cut down on the number of little hangers you’ll need to buy. Before you know it, your little one will need regular-sized hangers, so why not save a bit of money on little hangers now by repurposing free retailer ones. For more on waste-of-money baby products, check out this hint and this hint.
What are your strategies for saving on little hangers? What baby products did you find to be wastes of money?
Follow Hint Mama on Facebook and Twitter, and read more about her and her disclosures.
If you need baby hangers, shop the dollar store for them. 8/$1 last time I checked.