Fashion :: 4 Tips To Looking Good On A Budget

I’ve always loved shopping, and get easily bored with the clothes I have, so if I want to keep updating my wardrobe, I need to do it on the cheap. I’ve made the decision to be a stay at home mom for now, so surviving with only my husband’s income in Orange County makes for a tight personal shopping budget.

I am not naturally good at finding deals and staying within a budget. Early on in our marriage, when we were still both in college, I came home with a bag of clothes that had cost me over $600, roughly equal to our month’s rent at the time. Needles to say, I lost the trust of my dear husband in regards to shopping trips, and had to work hard on figuring out how to manage my clothing budget, and eventually gain his trust back. I set some rules and guidelines for myself  that have helped me be able to look nice, yet not spend a ridiculous amount of money.

Shop the Clearance Rack

If you are just starting on the journey of saving some dollars, you should start with a rule to always head to the clearance rack first, especially if you are not ready to let your favorite shop go. Eventually you can get used to shopping only on the clearance rack. It does require some practice, since the clothes are not always organized very neatly, and it might require some patience and time to find anything worthy of buying. If you’re not finding anything on the clearance, at least a good rule to have is to buy nothing full price, “at least 20% off, 50% even better” is my motto.

If you really need to cut back, you might have to consider the places you shop altogether. There was a time that I had a rule to not set foot even near some of my favorite stores, as their clearance racks were still too expensive for the budget I had decided on.

Find Reasonably Priced Stores

Obviously I like to stop by discount stores like Marshall’s and T.J. Maxx. I look for stores that seem to have a good quality to price ratio (a higher price doesn’t always mean better quality) and tend to have very good sales. H&M, DownEast Basics, Loft all have some great sales and are among my favorites.

Crossroads Trading Co and Buffalo Exchange are great second hand stores that always have quality items in great condition for a reasonable price. You can also sell yours to them, and that is a great way to change up your wardrobe on a budget. As a stay at home mom, sometimes the best way to find deals or the only time to shop is online while the baby sleeps and kids are at school. Pink Blush is an online store that also carries maternity clothes and is dedicated to providing fashion that is reasonably priced. They have great prints and also seem to have some sort of sale going on every time I visit the site. I absolutely love my maxi cardigan I got from Pink Blush.

Blue dress: DownEast Basics $15, blue necklace and earrings: Pink Blush $10, black and white striped maxi dress: CrossRoads Trading Co. $23, gray maxi cardigan: Pink Blush $32.

Green top: DownEast Basics $10, fish skirt: DownEast Basics $7.

Set Price Limits and Decide What You’re Willing to Pay Beforehand

I pretty much never pay more than $35 on anything, and like to stay under $20 on most things only forking up the cash for those go-to-classic items that I can match with pretty much anything in my closet. Usually I don’t buy a shirt for more than $10, dresses for more than $20, jeans for more than $30. My favorite jeans ever were Diesel jeans that I paid over a hundred dollars for in my single days. I wore them until they fell apart and so the search began for replacement jeans. I could not find anything even close in the price range I had adapted since then, until I looked at Loft one day as they advertized a 50% off all sale items. So I found my second favorite pair of jeans of all time for $11, and I wore those until I could not fit in them anymore 2 babies later. Obviously if you are wanting things on the cheap, you might have to buy things off season a little bit, but I’ve never found that to be a problem.

Make Your Own

This doesn’t apply to everyone, but if you can sew and like to, and have time, it could be saving you some dollars to repurpose some of your old things and make them into something new. If you need some ideas to get started, check out the Refashionista-blog, she does an amazing job creating something fashionable from outdated items. I have some fabrics that I got on super sale from Joann’s waiting to be made into maxi skirts costing me about $5 a piece, so I think I’ll close here and I hope some of these thoughts helped you think of ways to save a few extra dollars and put them towards more long lasting goals, like kids college funds, or that family cruise you’ve always wanted to go on, but never seem to have the money. 🙂 Happy and frugal shopping everyone!

Note:  We were provided with some clothing items to try out from Pink Blush but this did not affect our opinion in any way.  We are loving their gray maxi cardigan!

What are some of your favorite discounted online stores?