Money saving tips for dads - clothes

Here's a little "bring back the 80s" tip for dads to save money on clothes ... which might get you in trouble with a fashion conscious mum ... but it WILL save you money! Remember iron-on patches? Well - at some point in history (I believe) they were quite popular ... either because you were a fan of the Greatful Dead (bless) or because your trousers were broken. The tradition of extending the life span of trousers using patches seems to have got lost somewhere in the 90s. Now that the global financial crisis is upon us, I say - bring back the patches (perhaps for kids only to start with until it's cool again to wear patches).

Before | After

That's what we've done anyway - our little champ spends a lot of time on the floor (and so he should). As a result his trousers wear thin around the knees very quickly and then a few days later break/rip easily.

BTW - whatever happened to good quality jeans/denim (as in the material)? The pairs of jeans we buy these days barely seem to last? Doesn't matter what brand we choose - they are all broken or look quite worn within 6 months.

Anyway ... as an alternative to buying a new pair every time the trousers break we thought we should give patches a try (because my wife wouldn't let our son be seen with a broken pair of jeans outside the house of course). Turns out patches are easy to find, there's lots of them and they are cheap as chips.

Our little man loves them and he was also fascinated by the whole process - we let him watch from a safe distance when we ironed them on. It's great because you can turn the whole thing into a game - i.e. let them pick their favourite patch, iron them on and then ask them to point at the patch (i.e. where's the fish, where's the car, etc).

In some cases you might have to sew them on to make sure they don't come off - still, better than having to fork out for a new pair!

-Stef