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Yes, I agree. Gross. I walked into my neighborhood Goodwill once. It smelled funny. So then I went the next town's Goodwill. It also smelled funny.
Sorry, just cannot bring myself to buy used clothes.
I do donate my no longer worn clothing.
I'm between a size 2 and size 4, and there are very few things in my size that I'd wear at second hand stores anyway. So I just buy a few classic pieces a few times a year.
Summer is easier - shorts and tanks.
As far as shoes, I buy quality running shoes 2-3 times a year. The cheap athletic shoes make my toes, knees, and hips hurt, due to lack of support. So I "splurge" on the $100 shoes every 400-500 miles. It's very worth it to me to keep my body from hurting.
As a woman I budget out a significant amount... rather significant:-| but as I got out of my 20’s I started going for quality over quantity- early 20’s me- get 20 pairs of $50 shoes for going out every season. 30’s me was “I don’t need 20 pairs of going out shoes - I’ll rather have 1/2/3/4 pairs of $100/200 anywhere to 1000 $ shoes for going out but I’ll love them so much that even years later I still reach for them. Side note- clothing prices has gotten out of control and I’m not even talking high end premium designers, even for mid-low range- like what you find at Macy’s. Sales are def the way to go.
As a woman I have to say there is nothing like a well dressed man- casual or formal. Well made, great fabrics, well tailored and well taken care of is very powerful for a man of any age.
My husband works in the trades so his wardrobe isn’t overly enormous but he understands my ways �� we have been changing his over to a level with a lot more quality and since he has very broad shoulders and a smaller waist relative to his size, everything formal like dress shirts and suits, have to be custom made. Off the rack with a really good tailor does him well for getting a bit more dressed up but not formal. As he gets older he does say that he likes having that contrast from being in construction clothes but cleaning up real well and feeling good in what he is wearing on the occasions it’s more than jeans and T-shirts.
Now that we are early 40’s we enjoy the better quality and have the funds to indulge a bit. I’m still careful and think about what we purchase (for both of us) and it’s not about being on trend- I never ever invest larger amounts of money for trend items.
More important than the amount spent is having the budget to get key items tailored to fit well- man or woman.
I prefer to get designers at a discount so tj maxx has become a staple especially for work. I have a lot of Michael kors, Calvin Klein, Anne Klein, lucky, Tommy Hilfiger, Karl lagerfeld, Ellen Tracy...followed by h&m and express
It's definitely an interesting insight to hear the way other people shop. I have never really known anyone like this, to be honest. My girlfriend came from a lower middle class upbringing and it's not an exaggeration to say when I met her, her and her mom would routinely spend hundreds on clothing every month. I think that was their main "thing" to do together is go shopping and buy clothes. Even though my GF shopped cheaply at places like Forever 21 or H&M, you can get to $100 pretty fast if you throw in 5-6 things. My sister used to blow thousands of dollars in single shopping trips. My mom's record, or at least I assume it was somewhere near a record, was $20,000 in a single trip to Nordstrom's.
I figure that I'm very frugal with my clothing especially, I actually don't know a single person who is more frugal than I am, but on this thread there are some people who take it to a new level. I never buy $200 jeans, I think that's ridiculous as a guy, but I've never found a single nice pair of jeans that I fit into that wasn't Levis and those things were still $80-90 I think. I briefly tried Express, every single pair of their jeans ripped, they were the worst quality I've ever seen, so that's what I got for $60. It has been years, so I can't remember, but that's inexpensive for jeans to me, anything below $100. Unless you happen to fit into every brand of jeans, but I wouldn't even fit into the average pair so I buy what I have to buy. There are no other options besides Barbell Jeans and I haven't splurged on those yet, but would like to probably next year.
I consider myself incredibly frugal not because I thrift shop, because I don't, I won't buy used anything frankly, except a car, but it's because I really don't ever "dress up" so expensive clothing is something I have little of and mainly as a gift. I do have about 19 dress shirts, and many of them were $200-400, but they were all gifts, I haven't paid for a single dress shirt myself. I'd rather not. I rarely wear them. I have one nice suit that was $2,000, and since I never wear that, either, I'm glad it was also a gift.
My annual spending is tiny though because my only real needs are the occasional replacement socks or underwear, fairly rare, but it happens, and tennis shoes that I always have bought at the outlet stores. For me, that's being frugal. Last time around I got my shoes for $80 per pair but the second one was half off, so I just got four pairs and it averaged $60. That's extremely good, all things considered. And will last me quite some time.
Once my income starts flowing more freely, I do think I'll start replacing my shoes every 4-6 months, though, because it makes such a big difference. My shoes LOOK fine, they appear just the way I want them to appear, but whenever I put on a new, fresh pair, it's like I just learned how to walk again. The bounce in your step is amazing, because the cushioning wears down over time, and you forget what the shoes should feel like. I only wear one pair of shoes, ever, at a time, so they don't probably last as long as they would for some people.
I suppose bottom line my frugality is in rarely buying many clothes, because I hate clothes shopping, but when I do clothes shop in my mind I'm very frugal, I guess it just depends on your expectations and standards. To me, $20 for a T-Shirt is no big deal if you're wearing T-shirts for many, many years, sometimes even 7-8 years (I have about 30 T-shirts so they get plenty of rotation), and $80 for jeans is no big deal if you're wearing those for many years, too. It would be different if I had to buy expensive clothing or if my clothing was replaced often, but I simply am not poor enough to worry about finding the cheapest possible deal on everything. If a T-shirt looks great and it fits me perfectly, shows off my muscularity and hugs me like it should, it's a keeper, and not easy to find. If I just wanted the tents that some people call T-shirts that loosely go around their torsos, well yeah, I bet I could find that for $5 somewhere. But seeing as I ONLY wear T-shirts, they have to be stylish to at least some reasonable extent.
but I simply am not poor enough to worry about finding the cheapest possible deal on everything.
Finding the best deal on everything does not mean you are poor.
As for jeans...I hear you. My favorites are Levi's and I probably own 15 pairs of the good old fashioned heavy duty Levi's not the new cheap thin ones. Again I don't spend more than $4.00 for my jeans. By your figures I have saved over $1000. just on my Levi's. That's not poor that's smart
I haven't measured an exact dollar amount, but Spring 2018 has been very favorable to me fashion-wise (due to the large amount of clothes in Fairy Tale pink), so I probably spent more than I have in past years. However, I don't buy a lot of premium or luxury brands; I mostly buy clothes in the mid-range segment.
Finding the best deal on everything does not mean you are poor.
As for jeans...I hear you. My favorites are Levi's and I probably own 15 pairs of the good old fashioned heavy duty Levi's not the new cheap thin ones. Again I don't spend more than $4.00 for my jeans. By your figures I have saved over $1000. just on my Levi's. That's not poor that's smart
Exactly. Not poor at all. I just don't WANT to pay full price unless it is something truly one of a kind.
H&M is a mixed bag with quality but I love their clothes and how they fit on me. Nuff said. It all comes down to how things look on me. I like clothes shopping. I like dressing up. I'm fairly low maintenance, but when I wear the right clothes at the right time, I rock it, and I feel great.
Honestly, if you're going into an office every day, I think you're probably spending more than you think. I mainly buy my clothes from Costco, Target and Old Navy, and I spend at least $1000 a year on clothes - including t-shirts, jeans, underwear shoes/sneakers and occasional updates to my conference wardrobe. For me, it's about convenience. I ALWAYS have clean t-shirts and jeans to grab if I need to get dressed quickly.
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