How to Keep You and Your Kids Looking Good on a Budget

The economy sucks, as we all know. Now I did not think it would get as bad as it has, but it has. People still need to eat, drive and dress even though the economy is in shambles and shows no sign of an immediate recovery. Here are some tips for keeping fashionable for moms and their kids on a tight budget.

As far as keeping me looking good, this is not a super high priority. I like to look nice, but I do not really care about being a fashion plate. I just like to look nice. I dress laid back with jeans, the occasional shirt and a nice shirt or blouse. One thing I do is I always buy everything on sale. That sounds simple, but you would be surprised how many people do not realize that they go about this wrong. The first thing I do when I need something is look for the clearance rack. I see the new Ralph Lauren shirts for like $45-$60, but on the discount rack I have found nice ones for as low as $20. Sometimes I have found a pretty nice one even as low as $10. Another tip that goes along the same lines is to try to buy last years styles right before or after the new styles come out. I really do not see much difference in them and they look just as nice. This can save you about the same amounts of money as the discount rack. I notice some stores do not like the idea of a discount rack and use this method instead. I also always buy my cold weather clothes when it is getting warm and my warmer clothes when it is getting cold. I save lots of money this way.

This next tip will have a wide range of acceptability among different people. I personally have found this to be very good. I often will look on eBay for clothes. It is not uncommon to find something someone may have worn once, or did not fit but had all the tags removed for one heck of a good price. This is a two part tip. The other part of the tip is that I recycle clothes. When I don't wear something anymore I will put it on eBay. Even if I only make $5 on a pair of jeans that I paid $30 for its ok. That is $5 more than I had that day and one less thing taking up space. It appears lots of people are doing this same thing. Hey it's good for you look, your purse, and the environment. How could you go wrong? I also buy my accessories and undergarments at Wal-Mart and Kmart whenever possible. I also buy some clothes there that look nice. Kmart does not make much nice, but Wal-Mart's George line gets me a few compliments. Since they closed this is a moot point, but value city was always a good place to find a good bargain. I am going to start checking out Burlington coat factory. I have not been impressed with Marshall's, TJ Maxx, or Ross. They seem to not be very neat, but that is just in my opinion. Another thing to do, maybe even the first thing, is to sign up for all the websites that you like to go shopping at like JC Penny, Macy's, and so forth. They will tell you about upcoming sales, free shipping offers, or a certain percent off with your credit card from the store. Sometimes it is cheaper to do this that going to the store itself.

Now for the kiddies things are a bit different. It does not matter if I wear Wal-Mart tennis shoes, but kids tend to be cruel and there are no uniform rules in my area. I use all the basic same tips, but another thing I do is that I try to save up ahead of time for school shopping. Lots of moms wait until the last minute and that causes problems. They will get some of the hot things they want, but luckily none of our children are fashion plate types. The eBay trick is really popular with the kids. They actually sell their old clothes they do not want and then save up for clothes they do want. Since you can donate clothes we do save 15% of eBay sales for our church's fund for homeless shelters.

These tips may seem pretty basic and they are, but they will save you lots of money by using them. You can also use negotiation. At some stores if there are only a few of an item like a pair of jeans and a couple threads look lose or they have a slight stain I negotiate with the manager. Some will do it. I am not a jerk with the managers and I do not make a spectacle of it. Some of them are so glad to finally be rid of them that it is absolutely pathetic. I talked a $100 suit down to $40. All that the suit needed was a small sewing job and a trip to the dry cleaner.