Clothing Budgets
Dressing well is almost always expensive, and to top if off, a lot of women’s clothing is made more cheaply than men’s because we’re just expected to buy more often. Mix that in the pot with still-inequitable wages and other service costs where women get charged more and we’re all a-swimmin’ upstream.
(the above image is ration stamps from WWII)
While the Budget Fashionista does a great job of recommending high-fashion solvency methods, I want to start at something even more basic, and since polls aren’t working as of writing this post, I’m asking those who are comfortable to disclose in comments:
how much do you spend on clothing every year?
I’ll start: before I started working for myself, on the years I could manage it, I spent from $500-700. This year, my budget for the entire year is around $300, and around $120 will be those boots I’ve been drooling after.
When I was single and working to support myself and my cat, my clothing budget was usually about $100 a year, and most of that was spent on bras and underwear. The only time I spent any extra money is if I happened to be able to work overtime, and that money might be able to be spent on either clearance rack clothing, or fabric (on sale) to make what I wanted.
Now that I’m married and don’t have to work (DH is retired from the Navy and we have his pension plus his income from work and my SDDI), I’ve been able to budget more for clothing (I still look for clearance rack and sale bargains). So far, in the last 12 months, I’ve probably spent $400, but again, part of that is bras, underwear, and my compression socks (none of which are inexpensive). I have 3 or 4 more items I want to buy, probably another $100 or $150, and then I’ll be done for a couple of years, unless I see something I just have to have. But I don’t have to dress up, ever, so I can get by with jeans, slacks, and casual tops (I don’t own any dresses or skirts and have no plans to ever own any). I have one dressy pants outfit that I made for my son’s wedding, total cost for fabric was about $50, much less than what I would have spent on a dress, and didn’t need a pattern because I had a top I had taken apart to use for a pattern and altered it for the style I wanted, and had a pants pattern already that I had used before. Frugality rules in my house.
Whoa, I spend a lot more than that on clothes… I’m such a materialist!
I’ve always budgeted around $100/month for clothes – including both work clothes and everything else, bras and etc. Recently, I’ve been spending even more than that. I decided – at the same time that I started the Fat Girl on a Date blog – that I was going to prioritize looking good. I’ve started buying clothes specifically to “look cute” and wear on dates, whereas before I mostly bought clothes to wear for work and just wore whatever was left over for everything else. Now, I’m buying things to wear on dates and making the rest of it work instead.
Wow – that’s a good question! I probably should track my clothes spending a bit better, since I’m sure it’s way out of control. However, I will say that I’m a bargain shopper and I tend to buy at the end of a season so that I can get the best deals. I NEVER pay full price. I do not shop at high end stores, either. I love a great deal, so I’m known for buying clothes at thrift stores and rummage sales. With that said, I’m not what you would call a “fashionista”, but I don’t think I’m doing too bad either. Since I have to dress up for work, I usually add new pieces to my wardrobe each season. Plus I just love clothing, shoes, and accessories so sometimes I can’t control myself. I will say that I do buy fewer clothes today than in years past, simply because of the economy and trying to save money. My yearly clothing budget was about $1000 in years past, but today I would estimate it at about half that.