Fashionable Girl on a Budget Shopping advice

If you want to save money and look great you have to be honest with yourself. You have to shop carefully and be picky.

My Fashionable Girl on a Budget advice: buy one item every season that is a splurge and make the rest affordable. This does not mean charge it on you credit card, in fact it would be limit to using the credit card for your shopping all together.

I am a stubborn shopper. I don’t just buy something because I am bored, I really debate the items I buy.

I buy things not only that I love and absolutely really love wearing, but also I buy things I will wear more than just for a few months. I shop for items I plan on having for years.

I shop for items that are versatile, if I have a black tube dress that I wear in the summer, and then I think about pairing it with tights and wearing a cardigan with it. So I shop for nice tights that will last me the fall, and a cardigan that will keep me warm and can look nice with heels and also boots. My boyfriend recently bought me a pair of Levi’s that were about $100, but not all my jeans are $100 bucks or more, actually most of my jeans are
under $100.

Same with my shoes. I beat up shoes, badly! I am a rough walker and usually beat up the bottoms and the lift quickly. I am always at the cobbler. But it is cheaper to go to the cobbler than buy a new pair of shoes, so before a new season starts I go through my shoes in waiting and decide which need fixing and what are just too beat up for repair, and then I send them to Goodwill. I love shoes. I have one pair of Betsey Johnson’s right now, one pair of Ferragamo’s, a great pair of Michael Kors boots, one pair of Stuart Weitzman’s dark navy stilettos, and among them are Steve Madden, Chinese Laundry, Report shoes, Nina Shoes, Aldo shoe, BCBG shoes, Guess Shoes, Franco Sarto, Anne Michelle shoes, and Payless, Liz Claiborne, Zara, Anne Klein, Nine West, and a lot more. But each shoe I love and wear throughout the year.

My way to have designer without going broke is to also buy scarves, clutches and little items to spread among my wardrobe. Many of us woman do not think of savings enough, we focus on what we “don’t” have too much instead of what we do.

I go through my closet a lot and let items pass through the year and still manage to look sophisticated, sexy and fashionable. Blazer jackets of all weights can pass throughout the year as well. I have a really cute Theory blazer for summer nights and fall and I have thicker blazers throughout the winter months and also a silk Vivienne Tam caplet that I really love that I wear over little dresses on nights out, or to dinners.

I have a few pairs of more expensive earrings for really special nights out or weddings, the rest are basically only $5-$40 dollars.

Think about it this way: If you buy one splurge item every season then in 5 years you will have A LOT of nice items.