Saving money through gentle subterfuge
I have a friend (let's call her Germaine) who is close to the same size as me and a total clotheshorse. Clothes in the 4-6 range with occasional forays into 8 normally fit me, and Germaine generally wears a 2-4.
Germaine likes to clear out her closet regularly to make room for new stuff. She gravitates towards low to mid-range prices, but never pays full price for anything. When Germaine is clearing out her closet, she likes to pass her very gently used items off to me.
That's all well and good, but Germaine and I have very different tastes and very different builds. I'm muscular, with a large build and something of an hourglass thing going on. Germaine has a much smaller frame and no really defined waist or backside. Germaine always looks nice, but her clothes aren't usually something I'd pick out for myself. To compound matters, if something of Germaine's fits me, it usually looks just horrible because it emphasizes all of the wrong things and none of the right ones. Nevertheless, Germaine inevitably beams and tells me how nice it looks. Even if I demur, she quickly packs up the unflattering castoffs and sends them home with me.
I'm not sure if she really believes that her things look nice on me, or if she's lying just because she hates taking her castoffs down to the thrift store. I think it's the latter. Whatever is going on in her head, however, most of the time she's sending me home with useless clutter.
If you've been reading for a while, you may have guessed that I despise clutter. At the same time, there's no really polite way to tell Germaine that with a few rare exceptions, her clothes works for her but I find them appalling for me.
Germaine and I have been friends for fifteen years and we do other things to help us both save money, like sharing magazine subscriptions; it's just the damn clothes that are a problem. Over the years, however, I've quietly been making lemons from lemonade: Once Germaine is done clearing out her clothes (usually over the course of a couple of weeks), I thank her for her castoffs, haul them down to the thrift store myself and collect a little tax write-off. No one's the wiser, and everybody wins!
Do you have any cost-sharing habits with friends and family?
9 retorts. What say you?
Technically, if you give away a gift can you claim a tax deduction for charity? From an economics point of view, yes, because of the opportunity cost that you could have sold it instead. But is that what the tax law says?
How about if you sell the clothes and make a donation in Germaine's name . . .
Ummmm, I don't know why the question posed in the first post matters...but I have my own question...Does she ever ask you why you don't wear her used clothes? If so, what do you say? And, personally, I say once you have possession of something it is yours to do with as you wish and I would do as you have done. :)
Moom's comment doesn't pose a problem for me - if Germaine doesn't want to claim the tax deduction she is entitled to, then Frugal Zeitgeist is welcome to use it in my opinion (because she could either wear the clothes or throw them in the bin, so better that they go to a charity).
My mum and I occasionally go to a warehouse outlet (I imagine it's similar to a Costco or something like that) that we get a membership to through her work. All the items are in bulk, so we go every 6 months or so and buy a case of whatever it is, in order to get the discount, then split it.
Last week it was a 12 pack of deodorant on sale - so we've got 6 bottles each - enough for about 2 years! (Last year toilet paper was on mega-special there (about 25c a roll for the really good stuff, as opposed to about 50c - 60c plus normally). We got over 200 rolls each! I'm still using it. Did get a bit weird there for a while to have toilet paper in every available storage space, but didn't bother me).
When my girl was a baby, lots of coworkers and friends gave me their outgrown baby stuff. There was little that I had to buy. In return, as my own child has grown out of her clothes, I have passed them along or given them to my mother's charity's thrift shop. I have given my daughter's preschool her outgrown tricycle. Just today I passed along a baby book to a friend who is expecting.
I like to think of these things as doing a grand rotation through our community. Waste not, want not.
Call this: re-gifting for cause...
My best friend is always giving me stuff she doesn't want, much of it still in the original wrappers. I tend to keep the food items (after checking if they are out of date or not!), but the knick-knacks, not so much. I share with my kids, and then Goodwill winds up with the rest. Fortunately, for her, out of sight really is out out of mind, so she seldom asks where it went. If she does, I lie!
My mother, sister and I share books all the time, with a box going from one house to the next every month or so...We're lucky we all enjoy some of the same genres and have also widened each others' horizons, too.
Moom - I don't know the legal answer, but the common-sense answer is yes. How would the tax man know it was a gift?
Songbird - That's a lovely idea, and something I've never thought of doing. Thanks for the suggestion. Having said that, I think the hassle of trying to sell clothing that isn't worth much anyway, plus the fact that I think my friend would be put out by my selling things she gave to me (despite the charitable angle) isn't worth the time and effort I'd invest. I'd rather keep on quietly doing direct donations.
Anon the first - I don't recall that she's asked, though she might have; I've been doing this for at least ten years. I do keep a couple of things that work well for me, and I trot those out when I go to her place every now and again. That seems to be enough. I suppose a more cynical way to look at it is that maybe she just wants to unload her stuff and doesn't care what happens to it after that. Out of sight, out of mind and all that.
Penny - I love Costco! I call it the happiest place on earth. My mom and I do that with Brita water filters and socks.
MtnMama - Good for you for recycling children's clothing. Kids grow out of clothes so darn fast that it seems pointless to spend a lot, especially when they're very young. I've sworn up and down that if I ever had one of my own, it would wear a T-shirt and socks until first grade. (I've been advised not to breed.)
Shadox - You reminded me of something my dad used to say: Instead of using the word reciprocate for returning a favor, he'd often say retaliate. Sometimes, that's pretty much what it is.
Grace - No harm in a white lie like that! Sounds like we have the same mindset about that kind of thing.
Anon the second - The family library is a nice idea. I think the best part is not having to pay any fines for late returns!
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