How To Save Money When Clothes Shopping

Written by Iris Robin on 07 September 2009

Shopping for clothes. Some of us like it more than others. Some of us get sucked into paying outrageous amounts of money just because “it’s in this season”. Follow these helpful tips so you can start off with a good selection of clothes, and learn how to keep only the best of the best in your closet.

Determine What Colors Work Best

There is a book called “Color Me Beautiful” and we highly recommend you pick it up. It is written by Carole Jackson, and it takes a very unique approach as to how different colors of clothing look on people.

Carole groups her color types into “seasons”, (winter, spring, summer and fall.) Whatever season you fall under depends on your hair and eye color as well as skin tone and color. Her system is known as “color draping” and it was devised from taking many different colors of fabric and draping them over various people’s shoulders to see what colors went best with them.

Certain colors will look good on one person, but terrible on another. Once you’ve gone through and found out what “season” you are, it may lead you to eliminate that excess clothing in your closet, this way you can begin looking for clothing with a better idea of what colors best suit you, as well as a closet with more space.

Only Keep Clothes You Will Wear

Find your best color palette and stick to it. For example, I wear red, brown, black, maroon, green and white. I know these colors work best on me, so I usually only fill my closet with these colors. This allows for no wasted space in the closet, and i’m never constantly looking for clothes to wear.

How To Begin Building Your Wardrobe

Don’t be afraid to start with the basics. Limiting yourself to only a few colors and styles can give you a mix and match system that can achieve a surprising number of pleasing results. Start off with a lot of neutral colors (some examples include; navy, black, khaki) for the foundation of your wardrobe.

When buying different bottoms (skirts, slacks, jeans, etc) always make sure they’re all a similar color. Stick with the basic colors for these. There is nothing worse than buying those bright orange sweat pants you thought looked cool on their own, but don’t go with anything else in your closet!

When you have a solid foundation of neutural colors, it makes it much easier to accent with a wider variety of colors. Prints are also very hard to match, so if you can, try to use them very sparingly, if at all.

Add To Your Wardrobe In Small Increments

Create a list and post it into your closet. Any items that may be missing out of your wardrobe can be easily added when there is any easy to read list with all those must have items you need. Don’t be in a hurry, you will spend more money if you go out and buy all at once.

How To Shop Smarter For Clothes

Smaller Thrift Stores – Go thrift store hunting, find a couple that you think have a regular assortment of threads that you know work best for you (friendly staff, good bargains, quality clothing.) Write them down, and make it a regular habit to visit these places. Due to an overwhelming level of consumerism, more than ever thrift stores are loaded with high-quality articles of clothing that have only been worn a few times.
Larger Thrift Stores – Stores like the DAV, Salvation Army and Goodwill are also great places to look for bargains on clothes. These tend to be a bit more organized than the smaller thrift stores, which can make shopping less of a headache. Although the amount of quality items may be a little less here, it is still worth it to dig through and potentially come up on that gem. Just make sure you wash all of your clothes when you get home.
Consignment Stores – Search online or check out the yellow pages for a good consignment store in your area. There are tens of thousands of people consigning clothes and housewares at some of these stores. The used clothing departments especially have improved dramatically over the last few years.
Discount Retailers - If you’ve exhausted your resources with the above mentioned stores, check out places like Ross or Marshall’s. Double your finds with coupons and you have a decent clothes at a real bargain.
Garage Sales - The reason this is last on our list is due to the fact that it does take a lot of time and effort to even find one good piece of clothing. There are rare occasions where you will find just exactly what you’re looking for, but unless you have hours and hours of free time every time, this method is usually a last resort.

What About The Shoes?

This one largely depends on your style, but just like with jeans, skirts and slacks, keep these fairly neutral for the most part. Brown, navy, blacks usually work very well. We recommend you avoid buying excessive amounts of white shoes, as these will get dirty much easier, and costs to clean them will quickly become more expensive then the shoes themselves.

In order to keep your shoes looking their best, we recommend you keep them on a shoe tree. This way your shoe will keep it’s shape and avoid any creases.

How To Avoid Dry Cleaning Costs

The best way to avoid dry cleaning costs is to simply stay away from articles of clothing that require it. Even though you may find that dress at a thrift or consignment store, if it is not machine or hand-washable, avoid it. Not only does it cost extra money to bring your clothes to the dry cleaner, but it also takes up a lot of time to drop it off and pick up your clothes.

If you do need clothes for business that do require dry-cleaning, just make sure that you put money aside in your expenses for this.

Avoid The Trends, Stay Classic

We all know that what was in yesterday is already out today in the world of fashion. If you’re constantly having to keep up with the latest fashions, you are doing yourself a huge disservice by spending much more than you need to.

There are a lot of great quotes that illustrate being thrifty as bringing out the creative side in you, let this ring true for your clothing options! There is nothing wrong with staying with classic selections. Some things never go out of style, (Chuck Taylor converse, anyone?) Find great deals on things that fit your style the best, but also have a timeless feel as well.

If you do want to keep up with the latest trends, but still economize, it’s a good idea to stay trendy with accesories. Earrings, socks, belts, purses, scarves, hats, it’s much better to spend $10 on a really fun, in-style accesory than $200 on that new dress by Diane von Furtstenberg.

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