Being warm and fashionable on the slopes without breaking the budget

Let's face it, we all want to be warm, comfortable and stylish on the slopes. Usually this combination comes at a price. If you're like me and need to outfit a family including kids that are always outgrowing clothes from season to season, this can quickly burn a hole in your pocket and leave you with less money in the budget for lift tickets than you'd really like.

I've found that bargain stores like TJ Maxx and Marshalls offer some great discounts on brand-name gear from Spyder, Columbia, Marmot, North Face and Smith Optics (just to name a few). You've got to time it right (normally late fall is when their winter inventory starts to arrive), and you've got to be prepared to look around. The people in my area generally live fairly comfortably, yet these stores still get picked over pretty quickly, leaving nothing but XS and XXL sizes. Typically if I go to some of the same stores a few towns away, there's often plenty of items to choose from. Using this strategy, I'm able to save between 50 and 60 percent off RRP, and those extra dollars in the family piggy bank sure help to offset the costs of our days spent skiing.

While bargains might be hard to come by this late into the season (late enough to see swimwear appearing on the racks as I write this), be sure to mark your calendars for next fall so you can grab some savings before next winter.

I've even heard of people pouring through the racks at these stores, finding the best deals, and then re-selling the items on eBay for a nice profit. Bravo for their ingenuity - I wish I had thought of this sooner ! Anything to save (or generate) a little more cash for lift tickets is always a bonus in these hard economic times.