I seem to have completely drawn a blank on coming up with a new topic for today, and since I also ran out of time, I decided to just repost a diary from a couple years ago on how to save money when shopping for clothing. If you've seen it before, you can skip to the comments and add your suggestions on where to find bargains for your wardrobe.
I'm afraid that this will be heavily slanted towards women's clothing, since that's what I mainly shop for, but I hope that some of the commenters will have some good suggestions for men and children as well. The one thing that I want stress is the most frugal option is not always the cheapest option. When trying to decide whether something is a bargain or not, I try to project the CPW factor (cost per wearing) and determine how that compares with other items of a similar purpose. For example, the CPW for a fancy dress is going to be much higher than one for a shirt, no matter how great a bargain you find on that dress.
Women's Business Wear
If you need to dress well for your job (and by well, I mean anything better than jeans and t-shirts) you need to put some thought and preparation into planning your wardrobe or you can find yourself spending a fortune and having nothing appropriate to wear on occasion. One frugal approach is to stock your wardrobe with good quality pieces with classic tailoring that can be easily combined with each other.
Those of us who don't have an innate sense of style (I for one am totally lacking the style gene) may need some outside help. I tried doing a little research by reading the book The Pocket Stylist. I found it somewhat helpful in figuring out what types of clothes look good (or terrible) on my body type but I just wasn't interested enough to pay attention or remember most of the things when I'm shopping. Mostly I try asking friends to go shopping with me and give me advice. Occasionally I will ask a clerk's opinion, but I've rarely heard them say, "that really doesn't work for you" so I don't really trust them.
One big exception to the "clerks are no real help" rule comes to bras. Go to a real bra store or department store lingerie department and have one of those old ladies fit you properly for a bra. No matter what your shape, you'll be amazed what difference a properly fitting bra can make in how your clothes fit and look. You don't need to purchase your entire bra wardrobe from those high end stores, but the expert advice is worth the price of one quality bra. Once you know what size and brand works well for you, you can find that one or others similar in discount stores or over the web.
If you are buying items with classic tailoring, you can shop the end of season sales with confidence that your purchases will still be in fashion next year when they are in season. When you are shopping for some trendy pieces to your wardrobe, things that may go out of style quickly, but give you a snazzy look, look for low-range quality and associated low price. The durability factor doesn't matter if you are talking about something that is going to look old and dated in a short time.
Try to avoid buying "dry clean only" clothes. The cost of cleaning can add significantly to the CPW factor. Many is the time when I have found what I thought was a great bargain only to spend much more than the original purchase price in cleaning bills over the life of the garment. If the cost alone does not convince you, you should also note that dry cleaning is not very environmentally friendly and wearing clothes that have been soaked in those chemicals may not be great for your health, either. Be aware that some garments that say "dry clean only" lie. You can wash them in the gentle cycle with mild soap with very good results. Of course this doesn't always work, and I've totally ruined some items trying this experiment.
Children's Clothes
I don't do a lot of shopping for kid's clothes, but when I do, I'm always shocked at how expensive they are. Since children usually outgrow their clothes long before they outwear them, there are a lot of gently used children's clothes available in resale outlets.
Unfortunately, it's hard to buy children's clothes at the end of season sales, because you can never be sure what size your child will be when the season comes around next year. However, if you can hold off on purchasing that back-to-school wardrobe until October, you may be able to save quite a bit over the "sale" price of September.
Brick and Mortar Shops
Here are some venues I've shopped where you can often find good bargains.
On-line or Catalog Shopping
There are two big disadvantages to shopping for clothes on the web versus in person: you can't try things on and the return process can be time consuming or costly. Most on-line retailers won't pay return shipping costs if you return something and some won't even refund the original shipping costs either. There are some exceptions to this policy, so check before you buy. The benefit to on-line shopping is that catalog stores usually have lower overhead than brick-and-mortar shops and can pass on the savings to you. Here are some stores I've either used myself or had recommended to me:
- Freecycle: If you are looking for used anything on line, this should be your first stop.
- Craig's List or Ebay: Both of these are also good sources for used stuff on-line. I prefer Craig's list since I like to see the items in person before I commit to purchase, but ebay is the 300 pound gorilla in the on-line resale market, so it can't be ignored.
- Sierra Trading Post and Sports Basement: These are great sources for sporting and outdoors clothing and gear. They both seem to stock whatever they get in from overstocked suppliers, so there is no telling what will be available, but it's usually priced very reasonably. I've only shopped at the brick-and-mortar outlets for Sports Basement, not the online shop.
- Eddie Bauer Outlet (not to be confused with the regular Eddie Bauer site): They can have some great bargains on outdoor gear and clothing too.
- Coldwater Creek: Again, look at the outlet site not the standard retail site to find some amazing discounts on women's clothes and accessories.
- Zappos: I've heard nothing but great things about them for shoes and bags. They have an amazingly large list of brands, free overnight shipping, and free shipping on returns, which makes it a really easy way to try out shoes in the comfort of your own home and return what you don't like.
- Chadwicks, Forever 21, Overstock and Blue Fly: These were all mentioned by commenters in previous Frugal Fridays diaries as online shops with good prices. I haven't tried any of them myself