Save More, Dress Thrifty

April 7th, 2010 • 1 comment Uncategorized

Everybody loves a good bargain especially when it comes to high priced fashion. But what can you do if you don’t have hundreds of dollars to spend on the hottest fashions? That’s where your friendly neighborhood thrift store comes in.

Thrift stores have long been the savior of impoverished fashion budgets everywhere. Those who go know there is a never ending supply of gems to be found… but you have to be diligent. Take a look around. Is everyone around you dressed like they’re ready for fashion week? Hardly. It’s known as the law of averages. On average, most people aren’t wearing designer threads, therefore, most of the clothes turned into thrift stores aren’t going to be designer threads. You can’t defeat math.

So here are some tips for shopping thrift stores:

1. Go early and go often. What’s true for catching worms (apparently) is also true for snagging good thrift store clothing. Get there early or else you’ll be left with a pile of picked over clothes leaving nothing but XXXL sweaters and beer stained hot wing stained bowling shirts. You’ll also want to go often as thrift stores are constantly getting in new drop offs.

2. Try the higher-end thrift stores. Slogging through endless piles of mostly heinous pre-owned clothing can be trying. Enter the designer thrift stores. The staff at these stores do a lot of the footwork for you. They pre-screen what people drop off and weed out the fodder, many of these stores’ staff also dig through other thrift stores in the city bringing back the cream of the crop. There is a trade-off of course. The clothes at the fashionable typically cost more than that found at the local Salvation Army Thrift Store, yet still a tremendous bargain. In Los Angeles you can find great second hand clothes at stores like Buffalo Exchange and Jet Rag.

3. Be creative. Part of the fun of shopping at thrift stores is that you can find one of a kind articles and funky stuff you don’t see everyday. Make your own fashion statement and mix up clothes of contrasting styles and eras to create vividly contrasting styles. Think Olsen twins.

4. Make friends with the employees. This may be more effort than it’s worth but if you have an insider at the thrift store who can let you know when a particularly hot item comes in, and maybe even set it aside away from the masses, then you may be able to save some time and effort.

5. Raid your parents’ closet. Your parents’ closet is the the nearest and cheapest (read free) thrift store around. Especially if they’re hoarders.

How to Be Fashionable on a Budget

February 18th, 2010 • 5 comments Uncategorized

1.  Make two trips.  Let’s be honest – how many of your outfits are real winners and how many are blah? Probably a lot more of the blah.  Much of our purchasing, clothing no exception, is driven by impulse. You try on a sweater, it looks pretty good, sold! Fast-forward a year and you’ve worn that sweater maybe three times? A good way to stop impulse buying in its tracks is to make two trips. On the first trip, leave your wallet at home! Take your time to try on everything you like but resist the urge to buy (which is why you should leave the plastic behind) and then go home.  Come back the following day, or following week is better, then try on the clothes again. You’ll likely find that you will only be interested in trying on about a third of what you tried on the last time.  You’ll probably also find that you only really like about half of that.  What you waste on time and gas will undoubtedly be made for by not buying clothes that will never see the light of day.

2.  Stock up on the basics. Some things never go out of style:  A nice crisp clean white button-up, the little black dress, a basic belted trench, a pair of good-fitting jeans, the basic white tee, etc. They are such mainstays of fashion that they’re always widely available and usually won’t break the pocket book to collect. You can mix and match to create many different looks that will keep you from feeling dull.

3.  Compare online.  Chances are whatever you’re looking for is online. Sites like ebay or shopzilla are always good places to look for deals. You can simply try on the item you like to find the perfect size then find it on one of the shopping sites. Some obvious drawbacks are: having to pay for shipping, waiting for the item to arrive, and the hassle of having to mail something back that isn’t to your liking instead of the convenience of in-store returns.

4. Use your cell phone. If you have a smartphone with a camera you can download any one of many applications, such as Shop Savvy, which turn your phone’s camera into a virtual barcode scanner. You simply find the item you like, scan the barcode, then voila! You can instantly compare, in-store, prices against that store’s competitors.

5. Shop the outlets. Outlets are a great place to find a deal – as you can imagine. The thing to know about outlet stores, though, is that many actually produce a separate lower line of clothing specifically meant for the outlets. So while you may think you’re buying a great brand at a great price you are actually buying something cheaper.  Just be sure to take a look at the garment closely before you purchase to make sure there are no defects or that the quality is to your liking. To be sure, you can return these items, but there is a reason why most outlet malls are located an average of a billion miles from where you live…