My kids are older (8,11,14) and I have always paid the money to get them good sneakers. They laugh when I ask if they need "school shoes"--all the girls now wear flip-flops or sneakers if they have gym. DS wears his sneakers every day. I go to Payless for church shoes or if my oldest has to go to a dance or something.
I am glad my kids never got into designer habits. Now that the girls are going into 6th and 8th they are happy with Kohl stuff, and the occasional "name" T shirt (Aeropostale, AE). Our first stop for jeans is always the local resale shop--I got DD#1 all of her "brand" jeans there--I won't pay over $25 for jeans, so if she wants AE or Abercrombie she gets them at the resale shop. Our neighbor passed down some "silver" jeans and she is in heaven over that. Luckily we have a lot of ritzy people in our town and our resale shop has some quality goods from spoiled kids who don't wear things more than twice.
DD#2 has a friend who only wears clothes from Limited 2! She'll be too old for that store soon and then what, all Abercrombie? Must be nice to have that kind of disposable income to drop on your kids.
As for myself, I like Gloria Vanderbilt pants at Kohls--they wear like jeans but colored so they look like dress pants. I am a teacher too but after outfitting the kids there isn't much in the budget for me. I'm sure I'm a joke to my students for how little I care about fashion. They always notice if I get some new shoes or something. In the winter I get a pair of black flats from payless and wear them until they fall apart, then go back to Payless and get another pair. I have a lighter color for lighter clothes. I have some sweaters that are older than my DS that I still wear.
Robin M.
