Setting a monthly clothing budget?
Has anyone had success setting a monthly clothing purchase budget and sticking to it?
My spending has become a bit of a "problem" over the last 4-5 months, so my therapist is suggesting I set a hard monthly budget and use that to guide all purchase decisions.
I just did the terrifying job of adding up what I've spent in total over the last year. Not fun! I probably need to spend 3-4x less than what I've been averaging...
I was starting from zero a year ago, so thankfully my actual "need" is much lower now that I've built up a solid wardrobe. But my taste and standards and knowledge have increased over the last 12 months, so I've been targeting nicer stuff recently. And I would love to replace a lot of the "fine" items with "good" and "great" examples, but I guess I need to slow that process way down. I'm finding that hard now that I really know the difference between "fine" and "great"!
Let me know if anyone has any similar experience and/or recommendations.
11 Replies
Sounds like you have a place to start (60-75% less than you have been spending).
There are a lot of variables but instead of just fixating on a clothes budget you could look at your finances holistically and work backwards from there, ie look at how much you earn vs your fixed costs and savings goals then see what’s left over and how much of that you realistically want to spend on clothes.
You can also do a purge of your current wardrobe or 1 item in 1-2 items out in addition to limiting your spending, which will make you think harder about each purchase.
Excellent suggestions! The 60-75% reduction is kind of a ballpark of what I can afford holistically, though I admittedly haven't done the full bottom up budgeting recently.
As for purging, 1-2 items out for every 1 in is an excellent suggestion. Should allow for more focus and slow down decision making as you note.
I actually already have a sizeable backlog of stuff I'm hoping to sell, but seem to always procrastinate on making the listings. Those items are things that are now too large after losing more weight, a bunch of not great eBay purchases from when I was just starting out, and things where I've purchased an upgrade so am purging the lesser version.
If the juice isn’t worth the squeeze put them in a big bag and donate them :)
I do it every 1-2 years at this rate
you can still buy "fine" items as you say and just slow down a lot! That's what I did after switching to a lower paying job. And as kyn said purging regularly is really helpful, especially if there are clothes u notice u aren't wearing
My personal approach, and this is because my bank makes it easy:
Set aside a fixed sum (the way Kyn outlines above) every month into a "savings pot" + proceeds from anything I sell goes into that pot. Anything I buy is from that pot and only that pot. If I don't buy anything it builds up. The only things I don't use the pot for are socks and underwear.
For me it focuses the mind on making sure I have money aside for the odd big purchase if there's something I really want, and by virtue of that also not just spending frivolously on stuff I don't need or REALLY want.
Great suggestion! I'll look into that approach for sure.
Agreed! Depending on where you work, you can also redirect part of your paycheck to different accounts.
In my case, I can direct my paycheck to up to 10 different checking or savings accounts, and I can divvy that up in terms of both flat amounts and percentages.
So I have a flat % that goes to employer-sponsored retirement, a flat $ amount that goes to 2 different savings accounts, and the rest goes to my checking.
The easier you make the process for yourself the more likely you are to stick to it.
One suggestion is not actually buying something until a month after it takes your interest, gives you time to get perspective
Problem setting a budget for me is that I feel like I have to hit that budget
If I’m low I wanna keep buying which is unhealthy
I blew all my budget on a watch so this month I am selling things
Apart from the thing I'm buying
This is great advice for purchasing any “want.” I started going on a tear this summer buying clothes, so I started taking pictures of stuff I tried on and liked. Even a week later I’d look at the pic and almost always I was like, “nahh.” Glad I didn’t buy most of that stuff.