Do you despise athleisure? Or my uniqlo jeans?
Sweats and scrubs?
Nah just skirts and dresses. I was a huge tomboy and I hated when my mother tried to make me dress more feminine. I just never felt comfortable in those clothes.
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That’s fair. More skirts for me, more pants for you
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That’s right. Although I have been tempted once or twice when I saw something cute, like that fireworks skirt on Modcloth but then I thought, ‘Will I actually wear this?’ and the answer was a big fat no.
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Me too! I hate skirts and dresses. But, I wear tennis skirts all the time (but they have shorts underneath, so it doesn’t seem like a big deal).
Skirts make me feel naked
I generally spend $20-$100 per month on clothing. I spent more last year as I was prepping for wedding things. I tend to buy jeans/pants and t shirts new, while I buy most of my skirts and dresses at thrift stores.
For shoes, I have maybe 15 pairs?
I will wear about 3-4 for each season and rotate. Like, I have 2 booties that I wear most of the winter, 3 loafers for spring and fall, and maybe 2 pairs of everyday sandals for extended summer. I will replace most of these with something similar when they wear out ( I bought a replacement pair of loafers and boots in the last few months). I have a collection of sneakers from high school that still fit as well as several pairs of special occasion wedges and heels.
This month I spent a little over $100 at jcrew for a new bathing suit, bralette and liberty print headband (on sale).
Last month I spent $25 at the thrift store.
The month before I spent $37 on new loafers and $23 at Everlane for some on sale tees.
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Ugh, I probably spend too much. I destroy clothing, no matter how carefully I care for it…I wash on delicate, hang dry, etc but about every 2-3 years I have to replace a lot of my clothing. Part of it is I have a very small wardrobe, so I wear all of my pants, or all of my shorts every week (depending on the season). I’m also really tall/lanky, so I’m really picky about clothing fitting tightly enough, and arms being long enough…which leads me to buy more expensive/better fitting clothing (probably an excuse).
Mint says I spent about $750 last year, but I bet I spent more that is incorrectly categorized. I mostly buy pants from Prana (on sale), tops from Ibex before they went out of business(also on sale), and used Patagonia and Lululemon on eBay. My job is super casual, but pretty hard on clothing, so my pants I replace every 2-3 years. I have about 6 of the same Ibex baselayer that I wear in the winter, and they all have small holes after 2-3 years of constant every week use. I have a bunch of used Lululemon power-y tanks that I wear to work in the summer, and they are actually holding up beautifully. I will say that my favorite shorts from Prana ( I have 5 pairs in different colors…I am definitely a habitual dresser) have held up amazingly well over the past 3 years, and probably have another 3 years of life. Woohoo! I bike commute or walk to work, so maybe that is part of why my clothing has such a hard life.
Also, not included in that total above is my outerwear, or gear for biking. I have a bit of an issue only wanting to buy outerwear from expensive European outdoor apparel brands because they fit my lanky frame so well…but all are high quality and will probably last for a long time (unless I destroy them by merely existing, like many of my other items of clothing haha). My bike clothes just wear out fast…I train a lot and go through 2-3 pairs of shorts a season…so about $200-$300 just on shorts every year.
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Can you darn the holes?
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Good suggestion, I should learn! I have been thinking about this a lot lately, since my clothing does seem to wear hard…I’d love to know how to fix some of the more fixable damage. Maybe that will be my goal this Summer!
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Over the past 6 years, I’ve averaged $250/year on clothing (low $117, high $371). For the previous 8 years, my average was nearly $1200/year (low $708 high $2027).
Huh, I expected the tipping point would have been 2008, when an experience completely turned me off of shopping malls, but it wasn’t (though that was my second-lowest spend year of that period at under $800). The change came in 2013, when I learned about financial independence.
Except maybe it didn’t, because I learned about FI in October, when most of my spending was done for the year. Yet that year’s spending was the $371 mentioned above and the year before was the lowest spend of the previous period. So I was already on my way to spending less on clothes. It helps that I didn’t change jobs from 2008 on, so no new clothing requirements due to changes in job culture. Also my closets were bursting by that time, so I didn’t really need anything.
This has been an interesting exercise.
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No idea!
Signed,
Your Resident Non-Tracker of Anything
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I have been doing project 333 all year which has really helped me reduce what I spend and keep on top of laundry/ironing - I highly recommend it. There was also something going around Instagram called ‘slow fashion season’ where you don’t buy clothing from 21 June to 21 September which I am attempting! It’s not easy but in general I recommend:
- Unfollowing any brands on social media that shill stuff
- Unsubscribe from mailing lists
- Don’t go shopping as a past time
- Catalogue your wardrobe… record items in and out
- Document what you wear if you are into that
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Interesting question, I hadn’t actually looked at this separately from ‘general shopping’ or ‘sports’ before.
Per Mint, I’m at just over 3000 in clothing since 2011, or just under 2400 without jewelry. Fortunately I’m out of fingers so ring purchases have dropped off in the last couple years 
. Out of the 2400, there seems to be a yearly average of one pair of normal shoes or boots($50-$100), one non-thrifted sports purchase like biking shoes or a practice suits ($50-100), one quasi-random expensive purchase like a bridesmaid’s dress or a new coat or replacement bras ($100-$150), and then the rest is split between underwear/socks that get bought new and jeans/shirts/athleticwear from the thrift store.
I’m fortunate that ‘clean and in good repair’ is all that’s necessary for my work waredrobe, but even with gentle wash and line drying I definitely don’t have much luck in getting clothes to last forever.
Spring/fall culls always find something that needs to move to the weekend-only (or rag) pile.
Actually this reminds me that I have a stack of clothes in my ‘repair’ pile from the last cull and I should probably go deal with that.
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