Yesterday I had one of those mornings where I hated everything in my closet and felt like everything looked terrible on me (I'm sure all the female readers out there can understand). I have a love/hate relationship with my work clothes. I don't exactly have a job that necessitates a "power suit", but I feel like I should do more than wear slacks & button down everyday. Somedays I take the phrase "dress for the job you want, not the job you have" to heart and somedays I barely make the dress code.
Then I started looking at my other clothes which are a mash-up of nicer, "adult" pieces and things I've owned from the juniors section for the past five years. Blah. Hating it. Unfortunately, there's still no room in the budget for extraneous shopping trips. I need to start shopping smarter when I do buy things and pick up pieces that can work for the office and for down time. I know there are folks out there who swear by thrift stores, but I've never had any luck with them. There is a consignment shop near our home, but the prices there are the same as if I bought a new shirt from TJ Maxx.
How do you budget for clothes? A friend of ours used to get a clothing allowance for his job- he would buy one new polo shirt a year then spend the rest on beer. The hubs has a standard uniform of khakis(work)/jeans and a Ralph Lauren polo shirt. Anyone else out there a Maxxiniesta?
I'm completely neurotic about trying to make sure every piece I buy is appropriate for both work and home, which is completely unrealistic. It's one thing to try to have a lot of overlap in one's wardrobe, but I will sometimes not buy something I really like, simply because I can't make it fit into every facet of my life.
ReplyDeleteAnd I don't really budget for clothes, despite being a budgeting fiend. I probably spend less than $500/year on clothing (possibly significantly less than that, even), though I'm not at home at the moment so I can't check the exact numbers on the good ol' spreadsheet. ;-)
Oh, and I don't always have a ton of luck with thrift stores, but my favorite coat of all time (it's a light blue, lightweight trench coat) was a $2 thrift store find!