10 Ways to Stay Stylish on a Tight Budget

It can be a bit chal­leng­ing to keep up with the new fash­ion trends that seem to change faster than the time it takes to update the wardrobe. What’s in now might be out tomor­row! Oh, and let’s not for­get that fash­ion seems to move in cycles. What was out today might be again in after a decade. Stay­ing updat­ed itself looks like an impos­si­ble task due to fashion’s mul­ti-faceted dimen­sion. Fash­ion has become such an essen­tial fac­tor that it has careers that are built sole­ly on keep­ing con­sumers updat­ed on what’s the cur­rent trend. You can hire tal­ent­ed pro­fes­sion­als who can pick out the best out­fits for any sea­son with­out burn­ing holes in your wal­let. That’s right. You don’t have to wor­ry about hav­ing to spend your sav­ings and only focus on what pieces to put togeth­er, where to buy them, and most impor­tant­ly, when. All you need to do is go through the below key points, and there you go. You will learn the sim­ple hacks of being fash­ion­able with­out hav­ing to wor­ry about your next pay­check!

1- Know What You Have

Let’s face it. We all have a clos­et filled with what we nev­er wear. We keep hoard­ing gar­ments promis­ing our­selves we will wear them the next day. They aren’t exact­ly your favourite, but you don’t under­stand why you hold on to them. That is the first issue that needs to be addressed and fixed. You should have an idea of what you want your wardrobe to look like. What style rep­re­sents you the most. If you would like to branch out of your cur­rent style and try some­thing a bit out of your com­fort zone. Try to watch out for a pat­tern that you have been mak­ing. Is there some colour that you grav­i­tate towards the most, so your clos­et instead of look­ing like a pool of colours looks mono­chro­mat­ic?

Here Are a Few Things You Can Start With

• Too many same-coloured tops? • How many pairs of shoes you have? How many do you use? • Do you avoid wear­ing a few stuff because they need main­te­nance like iron­ing? • How much time would you like to invest when dress­ing up for occa­sions? The above ques­tions might help you under­stand what is it that is a must need in your clos­et and what items are redun­dant. You can jot them down on a piece of paper, and now that you have a vision, you can pro­ceed to the next step!

2- Go-to Garments

When you open your wardrobe, what’s the first thought that runs through your mind? It’s always a slow-motion of “what do I wear for today? Should I go for com­fort? Should I try to try some­thing I nev­er wore? What’s my mood right now? Can I stay in this for the whole day?” That’s why I believe the most impor­tant part of the wardrobe is the sec­tion where you will keep it. Your go-to gar­ments. Mean­ing, these are stuff that is for all-time wear. All sea­sons, all moods. They need less main­te­nance. Neu­tral wear is some­thing that is not too loud nor too dull. For exam­ple, a top that can be worn with jeans/leggings or a skirt. A purse that goes with all out­fits. A jack­et that is nei­ther too for­mal nor too sporty. Heels that you can wear the whole day and not lose your breath over it. Out­fits that are nei­ther provoca­tive nor too clos­et­ed look­ing. Some­thing you are sure you would not think twice before wear­ing it. The best exam­ple of this is that one jeans of yours that you would wear for any­thing and go as far as to fish them out of your laun­dry bag just so you feel com­fort­able. Keep­ing a pair of ear­rings that can be worn for any occa­sion, either fes­tive or for­mal. When you don’t want to be too wor­ried about being dressed up, these plans will be most use­ful. Try to avoid cloth­ing that can’t be mis­matched with oth­er clothes.

3- A little More Sharing In Friendship

If we can share secrets, love, and sor­row with our friends, why not clothes! Though donat­ing unwant­ed and unused clothes to char­i­ty is a good deed, you can also try swap­ping some with your friends. Maybe your friend might suc­ceed in pulling you out of your com­fort zone when you haven’t been able to do it your­self. There must be a skirt some­where in that clos­et that hasn’t seen the light of the day since you bought it. You can make it feel loved by hav­ing it exchanged for anoth­er piece you fall in love with from your friends’ clos­et. You might be sur­prised to find your­self more suit­ed for her style and can have new ideas for your wardrobe upgrade.

4- Sales & Clearance Jackpot

This is some­thing that prob­a­bly takes some prac­tice if you are new to the fash­ion world. You must have an eye for the items. Apart from the obvi­ous sales sea­son and clear­ance weeks, there are few days in between when even high-end com­pa­nies keep the sale on their web­sites or retail stores from time to time. It is always rec­om­mend­ed to shop for what you like dur­ing the sale sea­son. These days the inter­net is the best place to shop. Most­ly no one with a bud­get will buy an item at its full price. Be aware of stu­dent dis­counts, new user dis­counts, refer­ral dis­counts and of course, the coupons. Hon­ey is one of the best google exten­sions that auto­mat­i­cal­ly val­i­dates all coupons avail­able dur­ing check­out for all sites. This way, you know you are get­ting an item at its low­est pos­si­ble price. You can observe when an item’s price goes high or low. As com­plex as all these sounds, the effort is sure­ly worth it. Try to avoid click-bait sites, where they show you a high-end item for a very low price and have you deliv­ered a cheap knock-off of the actu­al prod­uct. These items are not durable and may be good for one-time use. Try to look for a few items in the thrift store. Amongst the 50–100 that you browse, you might find one piece which is high in qual­i­ty and low in price!

5- Accessories

You can vamp up any out­wear if you just acces­sorize them. A mono­chro­mat­ic top can be made extra pret­ty by cou­pling it with a mul­ti-coloured ear­ring. A plain black leg­ging and spaghet­ti top look extra lush when paired with blood-red heels. And there­fore, acces­sories are so impor­tant. Always have scarves, belts, or cardi­gans that, when paired with the dullest of out­wears, can make it go from look­ing like an ordi­nary piece of cloth­ing to extra­or­di­nary. If you are in to make up, hav­ing basics like one nude colour and one bold always helps. It also helps that with the same set of clothes, if you wear sneak­ers, it looks casu­al, and with the same pair you wear heels, it looks good enough for a night out.

6- Know What To Put Money On & What Not To

You should know where you need to invest and where you don’t need to. If you can get the same item for 50% less dur­ing clear­ance or sale, then you must have the patience and wait. There is some cloth­ing that you need to invest in. For exam­ple, office wear or spe­cial occa­sions. Sports­wear cloth­ing also needs to be durable, so it is good to invest more here. There are some that you can set­tle for a less­er price like casu­al wear or night­time wear.

7- A little Smarter. Buy Menswear!

You heard it right. Menswear is often cheap­er than women’s wear. Uni­sex is a nev­er-chang­ing trend. It makes a lot more sense to buy T‑shirts from Men’s col­lec­tions than women’s col­lec­tions when the same mate­r­i­al shirts can cost dou­ble. Be sure to check the sizes out as men’s wear tends to be more focused on the shoul­ders. Usu­al­ly going for a size small­er than what you go in women’s wear will be enough.

8- Pre-Plan For a One-Time Sale

Save up when you know you will have to spend. Your best friend’s wed­ding or some occa­sion where you want to keep the mem­o­ries. A lot of pic­tures might be tak­en, so you need to make sure you don’t regret not look­ing your best.

9- Say Hello To Tailor

Yes, hav­ing a tai­lor helps. It’s always cheap­er to have things done for your­self. If you can get the mate­r­i­al and have it stitched up by a tai­lor, you will real­ize you saved up a lot. You can be more cre­ative and have more con­trol over how you want things fit­ted on your body. Go around the city and check out where they sell mate­ri­als in lots and for how much. With expe­ri­ence, you can get more cre­ative and come up with your designs!

10- Look Like How You Want To Feel… Crisp and fresh!

How you look is how you are going to feel. It always is good to look clean. Clean and fresh-look­ing peo­ple send pos­i­tive vibes and are more approach­able. what you wear indeed says a lot about you at that moment. Always remem­ber to wear a well-fit­ting dress. Too tight will make you more con­scious and uncom­fort­able. Too loose will make you look like a dull being who is not enthu­si­as­tic about the day. We all have our ups and downs, but putting some effort into how you look that day will have a direct impact on your mood. It might make you feel a lit­tle hap­pi­er and push you in the right direc­tion. It’s a good habit to know what you are going to wear the next morn­ing. Iron your dress, set aside how you want to acces­sorize your­self, and this will save you a lot of dilem­mas of what to wear the next morn­ing. Let’s not for­get that the best way to acces­sorize your­self is to be con­fi­dent. Noth­ing can beat con­fi­dence. Good cloth­ing is only a boost to it. Hold your head high and stand tall. Make sure you look well-kept togeth­er!

Final Thought!

So, you see, noth­ing should ever stop you from chang­ing your life around. How we present our­selves to the out­side should reflect how we want oth­ers to per­ceive us. Hap­py and con­fi­dent. Con­tent with life and strength 🙂 Don’t let your pay­checks make you feel like your lim­its are set only to a cer­tain lev­el. There is always anoth­er way. In fact, hav­ing a bud­get teach­es you how to be smarter and wis­er. Learn­ing to strike the per­fect bal­ance between sav­ings and yet liv­ing a full-filled life is tru­ly an art that takes time to mas­ter. So go ahead and fill your wardrobe with all the right choic­es!