10 tips on how to shop for clothes wisely

Quite often, my husband can’t believe how I could buy clothes for so little money. I can buy whatever I want without his comments and not impact on our living budget. How good is that? So I would like to share with you how to do cloth shopping base on my life experience.

1.       Never pay the original price; Nothing can be that urgent and we all have enough clothes to wait until the price is down. Australians are paying about 20% more for the same items compare to any other countries. Unless you don’t know what do to with the extra money, don’t pay the full price.

2.       Need vs. Want; Before you decide to buy, ask yourself if you really need it or only if you only want to buy it. Buy clothes when you need to not when you want to buy it. Think about your wardrobe. How many clothes you have not touched whole year, or thrown away without even wearing it a lot? Don’t buy things just to put them aside. 

3.        Be patient and wait till they are on further discount; Check further discount items in a big department store. A few weeks ago, I walked around a department store and I found a great bargain on sports pants. It was originally $60 and went down to $35, and went down again to $24.50 on a further 30% sale. I was willing and satisfied to pay for them as I needed them and I paid well for the good quality item.

4.       Can’t afford? Then don’t buy; Quite often we mistakenly believe that wearing expensive clothes make us rich (or look rich). No, it will make us poor, with limited savings.  If you need to think about your budget to buy any clothes, it means you cannot afford them so, don’t buy them. Never overstretch yourself to buy things that don’t make any real impact on your life. Once you don’t have to think about the MONEY, then, and only then you can buy whatever you want.

  

5.       Compare the price between shops; when you do shopping, don’t focus on buying. Just enjoy walking around and seeing new things.  Don’t buy an item in the first shop you visit. If you like anything, remember it and walk around other shops to find the one or similar one and compare the price. On my experience, you can find better deals when you check and compare more shops. Walking will also keep you in shape so you can get two birds with one stone.

6.       Don’t buy it just because it is cheap (impulse buying); To tell you the truth, I do (very often) make this mistake.  If you buy it just because it is cheap, highly likely you will not wear them or wear only couple of times and sit in your wardrobe till thrown out. You think you buy cheap things but actually they are far more expensive if you don’t wear them.

7.       Use online shopping; The article below is from a newspaper, The Australia and it simply shows how much we are unfairly treated when it comes to international prices.

You can pick up a Ralph Lauren business shirt for $125 in the US, but the same item will cost you $180 at a Ralph Lauren store in Australia (Georgina Safe, Fashion editor From: The Australian )

This unfairness leads people to spend thousands of dollars’ worth of stuff when they could save so much in other countries. Use on-line shopping to get a better deal. There are millions of stuff on the internet so you can find what you need and want with a lot cheaper price. But remember, be cautious about the size as it can be different from Australian size and hidden delivery fees. Also, before purchasing anything from the sight, read about reviews on the suppliers. Choosing reliable suppliers will be helpful to get what you order in a promised time and safely.

8.       Buy good quality clothes from well known brands that are on sales, instead of worse ones for full price; It is clear that no one wants to pay same money for the worse items, but funnily enough, we often make this mistake. I found so many times, that the good quality ones are on big sales in department stores. If you know when and where to go to get a good quality clothes at a cheaper price, you will be happier with your choice and the goods will be used by you much more often.

9.       Think before following the ‘trends’; I know we want /need to be looking  “Fashionable”, “Hot” or “ Sexy” some occasions. But if you want to buy clothes for work or normal daily life, please avoid buying too trendy clothes.  Quite often so many pretty girls/boys are wearing too ‘hot’ (revealing) clothes on the streets and they would look heaps better if they hadn’t been wearing them. Being practical, you can’t really wear them for more than one season unless you have a very thick skin or you don’t care about other’s unpleasant opinions. So buy bit more practical clothes if you want to use them for at least a few seasons/years. If you really need/want to be ‘in fashion’, buy cheaper ones so you can throw away after the season without the heartbreak.

10.   Don’t go shopping with too many shopping crazy friends (especially girls); Most of time you will buy unwanted/ unnecessary stuff if you shop with too many friends. Girls especially will tell you “You look FANTASTIC!!!” even though you could probably look better. Their polite encouragement will push you to buy more stuff and often more expensive stuff (even though you can’t afford it.)  You will find that you will hand your almost empty/already under balanced credit card to the shop keeper. By all means, do shop with a couple of friends but those who can give you honest opinions and help try to keep your budget.

If you shop well, you can enjoy shopping and it will bring you cheerful days but if not, unnecessary spending will eat up your money and sometimes even your life. One of my friend she’s recently divorced due to her unstoppable shopping habits and debts. Do you want to go through this? No, so let’s shop wisely.