Sometimes, I enjoy shopping for clothes online. Especially for the kids (they’re tons easier to fit at this age)! I’ve come to remember the patterns of sales for my favorite online shopping venues. Some of my favorite stores send me sale updates to my email inbox, and I get online coupon vouchers via snail mail. Since free shipping usually goes with a minimum purchase, I need to know what I want to buy, and buy it all at once.

I like the advantages of shopping online for several reasons: There’s usually a better selection of sizes, you can shop the big sales without having to deal with the crowds, and with clever couponing, sometimes you can even come out cheaper.

Shopping online, though, does have its disadvantages. You can’t FEEL the fabrics, for one. And it can be downright difficult to plan outfits to match. I sometimes wonder if stores price and place every piece separately so you’ll buy more….

What I’ve begun doing is cutting and separately pasting the images of tops, pants, etc. into a program like Powerpoint (I use Google Docs’ Presentations). I can scale them to the same size, then move them around to see how they look with various other pieces. I can also see more visibly how much I’m buying, so I won’t just blindly throw things into my shopping cart and then wonder why my total’s so high at the end! (And worse, not be able to remember what I even threw in there!)

A very visual person, this helps me keep track of outfits I order for the kids. And I’ve joked with my husband about printing these presentations out and tacking them in the kids’ closets..for him to reference when he’s dressing them without my help. :)

Visual online shopping aids work for me!

Go see other WFMW ideas at We Are THAT Family!