S/o food budget - clothing budget

[snickerplum]

How do you plan for clothes? Do you budget for things every month? Per person or as a whole? How much? Or do you just purchase things as needed, not having it as a budgeted item?

We used to budget monthly, but have moved away from that. It didn't make sense to have $100 (or whatever) sitting unused, us not needing it for clothes, but we could use it for something else. So, now when we get paid and allot money, I just bring up that I need $____ for shoes/pants/whatever (for the children as well as Dh and myself) and we put that much aside. There are pros and cons for each method.

[QueenCat]

We budget $200 month for clothing, and carry it over to the next month if it isn't used. It is not divided out per person. If needs/wants are higher, I take it from our "misc" category. Line item budgeting started when we had a lot less, which it sounds like it may have for you too, but I prefer to continue to do it as it just makes things easier for me in managing the household.

[Mergath]

We don't really have to budget for clothes. We live in a fairly affluent area with a huge Goodwill, so we can buy bagfuls of like-new designer clothes for what amounts to pocket change. I have no idea how people who buy everything new afford to keep themselves clothed. I certainly couldn't afford it. 

 

If I had to put a price tag on it, I'd say that I probably spend about ten bucks a month for dd on clothes, since she seems to have a growth spurt every other week. :P I haven't bought any clothes for myself in probably six months. And we buy all of our shoes and undergarments new, of course, but that's more of a seasonal purchase than a monthly one.

[creekland]

We actually don't budget for food or clothing.  They just come out of our left over money after all else is paid.  If there isn't much, we don't buy much.  If there's extra, then we might splurge more.  Considering our monthly income varies a TON, we can't budget everything in detail like some can.  I budget for our minimum expenses - then we keep some in reserve just in case expensive extras come up.

 

But then again, we only buy clothing when it's needed, so not very often.  None of us enjoy shopping for clothes.  None of us need a huge wardrobe.  Chances are I'm telling one of my family members that they really do need something, so go get it (ditto for myself actually - I need a new coat but loathe having to go find one).  I can't recall ever telling anyone we can't afford what they need.

 

If I had a family that needed oodles of clothing it would have to be a budget item and I'd probably save for it monthly.

[FaithManor]

We've never really had a clothing budget. We just purchased what was needed when it was needed. It was easier when the kids were younger because I could kind of predict the next size and season, and then watch thrift stores, garage sales, and clearance racks. Now they are just big boys with a penchant for wearing out their clothes, and apparently so are all of the other ones their age so buying used doesn't work. I spend way more now than I did when they were little.

 

That six foot tall one that weighs only 118 lbs with the long legs can only wear two kinds of jeans. American Eagle skinny jeans that rarely are found for less than $40.00 a pair, and same for khakis and dress pants which typically have to be ordered. The other kind are levi 510 skinny, and they are just plain very hard to find, and though they are the best fit, make my brain bleed at the $60.00 price tag. He is also HARD on his clothes. :smash:  :smash:  :smash:

[snickerplum]

See, we have a LOT of Goodwill and other thrift stores in our area, but I find our Goodwill pricing high. When I go to a thrift store I want to pay like $3 or something. Here the shirts are like $5.75 plus tax. Now, compared to retail, I understand it's inexpensive. But, when I go thrifting I want a crazy bargain. :-) I think I'd enjoy shopping at yours.

[elegantlion]

I budgeted some last year as I was building up my wardrobe. Ds has a minimal wardrobe by choice and we tend to budget by piece not price. For instance, this summer he needed new shorts, this fall he will need new pants and underwear. He can still wear the same shirts. 

 

I tend to buy most of my clothes from thrift stores or clearance. I did splurge and bought a pair of jeans at Old Navy on sale yesterday. I have a hard to fit lower half and own 1 pair of jeans that fit well, well two now. 

 

For instance, this fall I need to buy

 

ds: 2-3 pairs of pants. I buy those new and spend $12- $20 each on them. 

 

me: I want a pair of tall leather black boots. I've budgeted about $75 for them and will only buy if I find the right pair. This will be my splurge for the winter. 

 

For me, it's been easier since I started considering a wardrobe as items, instead of just thinking of how much I have to spend. I also do a highly modified version of Project 333, so I no longer just buy random pieces of clothing, I buy items to fill in existing gaps. I've been looking at jeans for about the last 6 weeks before I decided which ones to buy yesterday. I have a pretty good idea of what an item will cost new, probably on sale. I will try to find things at thrift stores first. 

 

When ds was younger, we had more money to budget and did spend more. He tended to grow in spurts that were quite spread out, so clothes might last 1-2 years even then. 

[Mergath]

See, we have a LOT of Goodwill and other thrift stores in our area, but I find our Goodwill pricing high. When I go to a thrift store I want to pay like $3 or something. Here the shirts are like $5.75 plus tax. Now, compared to retail, I understand it's inexpensive. But, when I go thrifting I want a crazy bargain. :-) I think I'd enjoy shopping at yours.

 

Ours varies quite a bit in the pricing for adult clothes, anywhere from $2.99 to $8.99. The kids clothes are all either $2.99 or $3.99, which is nice. The purses you can buy at our Goodwill are insane, and part of the reason I have a huge purse collection. My last score in that area was a huge leather Coach bag that retails for about $350. It was in perfect condition and I paid a whopping $9 for it. Every time dh gets annoyed with me about something he threatens to steal it and sell it while I'm sleeping.  :lol:  

[Mimm]

We're another family without a clothes budget. We buy what's needed, sometimes a little extra, we shop sales as much as possible and take advantage of things like Kohl's cash. Which reminds me, I've got a $10 Old Navy coupon sitting in my wallet that needs using. I'll probably buy something and put it away for Christmas since no one is in particular need at the moment.

[luuknam]

I hate clothes shopping, so I don't buy many clothes. I don't have a budget, but since I pretty much only buy clothes when my clothes are so worn out I look worse than the beggar on the street corner (slight hyperbole (most of the time at least)), it's not a problem.

 

When I was a teen, my parents gave me a 100 guilder clothing allowance per month (45 euros). From that, I needed to buy all my clothes, including shoes and coats. If I had money left over, I could spend it on other stuff (I also had an allowance for w/e stuff since I was 6yo or so, and by the time I graduated high school that one was 50 guilders, so a total of 150 guilders/month (68 euros/month) for clothing and miscellaneous - I could spend the misc on clothing, or the clothing on misc, as long as I didn't walk around naked or in complete rags).

[Junie]

Dh tracked our yearly spending on clothes (and everything else) over a few years, and that became our yearly budget.  We divide by 12 to figure out a monthly average, but as long as we don't go over for the year, we're ok.

 

We don't budget per person because: 5 girls.  We really don't need to spend much money on the younger ones.

 

[Wabi Sabi]

I don't budget for clothing. I just purchase what we can afford on an as-needed basis. That said, I'm pretty minimalist when it comes to my own clothing and my son's, my daughter gets so many hand me downs that I never need to buy much at all for her, and my husband, on the other hand...well, he's the one who spends money on himself clothing-wise. 

[Pawz4me]

I think DH does throw some money into savings every month to cover clothing throughout the year.  I have no idea how much.  It's not a hard-and-fast budget by any means, just some to help cover whatever we buy throughout the year.

[marbel]

I'm glad to see others with no clothing budget.  I've never figured out how to do that.  

 

We buy as little as we can manage with.  The teen girl needs more than anyone else right now.   The boy needs the least, 'cause he doesn't care.  I am continually trying to lose weight so buy very little.  My husband is still working off a surplus of shirts so has needed only socks, underwear and a few pairs of jeans for a couple of years.

 

Ever since my daughter started earning a little money, she has started paying for more of her own things.  I still pay for the necessities.  She will sometimes find something that she needs but at a higher price than I think such an item is worth.  Then we'll negotiate the difference.   She will also shop thrift stores and always finds something.  I am never so lucky.

 

OK that went way outside the scope of the question. 

[tm919]

We budget $200 month for clothing, and carry it over to the next month if it isn't used. It is not divided out per person. If needs/wants are higher, I take it from our "misc" category. Line item budgeting started when we had a lot less, which it sounds like it may have for you too, but I prefer to continue to do it as it just makes things easier for me in managing the household.

Similar here - but we budget only for the kids then whatever my husband and I want comes out of our own "personal" budgets. 

 

I have two girls so with the amount of hand me downs the younger girl gets, it doesn't make sense to split it out. I do try to buy her 1-2 outfits a season that are "new" though, mostly because I was that kid who grew up in hand me downs that didn't quite fit. :p

[Southern Ivy]

We budget $60 per mo per person. They go into separate categories. I don't worry about having $100 or so just "sitting" there, because that is what it is budgeted for, nothing else. I'll save it up and when I need new clothes or dd outgrows her shoes suddenly, I just take out of the assigned envelope and off we go. 
I have become much more conscious of what I buy and why. I used to buy clothes and things because I was using it to fill certain voids. It was mindless, almost an addiction. The budget has been almost therapeutic for me. 

[HomeAgain]

What is this budget for clothes? :laugh: The breakdown in our house is like this:

 

Teen - Thank goodness he stopped growing for a month!  The $50 pants from the 3 companies that make 30x36s was eating us alive.  Oh, wait, he's outgrowing his uniform pants. Again. :scared:

K'er - What does the thrift shop have for their bag sale?  $5 for all the pants he needs this year? :thumbup: Another $5 for a stackful of shirts he can get dirty? :thumbup1:

Mom & Dad - can we go another month before having to replace those fraying jeans?  Okay.  Let's do that.

[LucyStoner]

With the exception of 3 key pairs of shoes (sandals, fall/not back to school, hiking boots) plus underpants and socks for each kid, we buy all clothing used as we find it or get it free from hand me downs.

[Butter]

We don't budget for clothes.  We just buy them when we need them.  Honestly, it's less than $250 a year for all of us.  We love hand-me-downs and never turn down anyone when they ask if we want some.  My older two mostly wear taekwondo shirts and we get a free one every time we belt test.  My oldest boy prefers wearing scrub pants and I got a bunch on Amazon in various colors for $5-10 each.  The little guys' clothes that aren't hand-me-downs I get at the thrift store or on clearance at Target.

[TrixieB]

We don't budget, just buy as needed.  One kid has a job and buys their own clothes (doesn't like to go thrifting, so it's a good thing they have their own income).  The other kid and I like to thrift and get most clothes that way.  Dh doesn't like to go clothes shopping.  Fortunately, he's not hard on his clothes and he doesn't have to dress up for work. 

[medawyn]

I'm not buying clothes for me at the moment. I timed my first two pregnancies perfectly, so I now have year round maternity clothes. When I'm not pregnant, I'm nursing, and I have plenty of all-season nursing friendly clothes, too. Someday, when I'm reaching the end of the gestating/lactating days, I'll re-examine my need for a clothing budget.

 

We put aside $150 a month for DH, who is still trying to grow his professional wardrobe. We save it away until some of the big sales at high end men's departments come up. Nice pieces also end up as Christmas/bday gifts. Eventually we can pare back on this, I think.

 

The kids' budget is up in the air. We rely on hand-me-downs, used clothes, and judiciously bought new clothes. I try to look for high quality, since I box them up for the next ones. I'm sure my strategy will change when we hit the wear longer and harder phases.

 

The area I always buy new and high quality is shoes. DS gets two new pairs whenever he outgrows them, and DD will, too, when she's walking. I replace running shoes as needed and always have two pairs of good, supportive shoes for the season. I also have an awesome pair of black heels for dress up occasions, but as often as I wear those, they might last me 20 years!

[Desert Strawberry]

We rarely buy clothes, and spend very little. Usually just one iemor group of items at a time. Like three camisoles, or four t shirts or one pair of shoes. 

We don't budget for it. We just buy as needed.

 

[AmandaVT]

We buy as needed, but I also add a bit more to the Christmas budget each month so I can pull from that if needed. I'm jealous of everyone that lives near good thrift shops! We have 1 salvation army which has clothes that wouldn't be good enough to wash your car in typically and a few consignment shops that are more expensive than buying new at Kohls or Lands End (30% off!). 

 

DS has thankfully been pretty predictable with growing and I try to buy at the end of season sales for the next season. 

 

For DH and I, we buy as needed. I try to get him 2-3 new work button down shirts each year, same with pants. I do laundry often and don't need a ton for myself. I have a few sweaters and long sleeved t's, one pair of jeans that fit and one pair of dressier pants. And of course, yoga pants. My reward for losing enough weight to get into the next size down is to buy a couple of new outfits, less than $100 total. 

[Joyofsixreboot]

We don't have a budget. I plan ahead on coats, boots, cleats. Big things. We buy almost exclusively second hand so I keep my eye out all year long. I have also found that if you make it known you will gladly take people's hand me downs you often don't have to buy anything.

[Laura Corin]

I don't budget for clothes.  We tend to buy what we need - none of us is a clothes horse and we don't have expensive tastes.

[Ali in OR]

No budget here either. I do miss the days when I could reliably hand down clothes from one dd to the next. Now they are all different shapes and sizes with different needs. Oldest two have stopped growing, so minimal buying there. But when they were going through their growth spurts most of the new clothes went to them. Youngest had clothes streamed to her from both sisters for years and years, so she always had the largest wardrobe. But now she's a super-skinny kid, taller than her sisters but still hasn't had a real growth spurt. She has shirts but not enough pants that fit her, so we'll be getting her a few more pieces soon.

 

I used to be able to buy at sales, etc. but when they outgrow kid clothes it gets a lot harder to find tasteful stuff that fits. If I find something that fits and is appropriate, I will buy it even at full price. For youngest, there just aren't many jeans out there that are long enough and skinny enough. Today I spent $20 on a belt for her at a craft fair--the maker was able to cut 6" off of it before adding a buckle to make it small enough to hold up all of those too-big-in-the-waist jeans.

[Arcadia]

My hubby enjoys shopping at premium outlets at least once a month. Our nearest is about 5miles away. He also enjoys shopping in general.

 

This morning we just grab a $2 plain polo shirt for DS10 from Old Navy main store while kids were at class. We also managed to grab three chino pants for $0.97 each a few weeks back at same ON store (which is near their class)

 

We don't have a budget for clothes. My parents and in-laws didn't have a clothes budget either. We always buy on sale at least a size up so now we are shopping summer clearance.

 

DS10 is also my size so any polo shirts or pants/jeans that my boys don't fancy will be mine.

[SKL]

I don't really budget and I don't have time for the kind of clothes shopping we would need.  I buy online based on what we need, as we need it.  For myself, I have bought 2 pairs of jeans in the past 5 years or so, and probably 2 pairs of walking shoes.  For the kids, most of what I order is school uniform type clothes.  Usually their old gym shoes become their next play shoes.  Occasionally they need a few pairs of shorts, and we all accumulate t-shirts from various day camps and travel destinations.

 

I will buy on sale (online) when I can find sale items, but if there's no sale I just buy stuff.  Because I don't "impulse buy" clothes, I don't think I spend excessively even if I don't find a great sale.

[SparklyUnicorn]

I don't budget.  I just buy stuff as needed.  The older boy's clothes can usually be passed down to the younger boy.  And he doesn't care about that. 

 

 

[Jenny in Florida]

We've never budgeted for clothes. We just sort of squeeze what we need out of the monthly "left-over" money when necessary and spend less elsewhere.

 

I buy clothing for myself maybe once a year. When I started working part-time outside the house 14 months ago, I spent about $200 on work-appropriate clothes, which I spread out over a couple of months. Since the sandals my daughter bought me for mother's day a couple of years ago have finally given out and I'm finding that the shoes I wear to my tutoring job are simply not comfortable for the time I spend on my feet when I'm substitute teaching, I'm getting ready to buy myself a couple of new pairs of shoes and trying to forecast which paycheck will best cover that expense.

 

I bought my son some clothes when he started college last year, most of which are still in the regular rotation. He did get some new dance shirts this year, because his schedule for the fall semester is mostly dance classes and rehearsals for various performances. He also got a couple of new pairs of jeans, because his preferred style happened to be on sale when we were buying him back-to-school groceries and supplies at Target last month. Oh, and he got new dance sneakers and ballet shoes, because the ones he was wearing were more holes than shoes.

 

Basically, we buy an item or two at a time, when there is money that is not already committed to something else and, when necessary, cut back elsewhere to cover those costs. But we spend relatively small amounts on clothing compared to other things, so we don't budget for it as a regular expense.

[abacus2]

We do budget for clothes. I group everyone together, although DH is most expensive with his very wide feet. I let it roll month to month so it is there when I need it. I've had to double my budget from what I estimated it should be initially. Over time our real needs became clear.

[Sukale]

We don't budget for clothes. I am not into clothes for my self. All I want is a couple of jeans, yoga pants and a skirt with a few mix and match tops and I am fine. My husband is the the same. I go to second hand shops for the girls. They have an end of season sale when everything is 50 cents or $1. I really stock up then. I even get shoes then too. When I am getting groceries at Wal-Mart they will just throw something in the cart if they need undies or something like that.

[Tsuga]

We get almost 100% of clothing via credit card rewards. We do grocery shopping with credit cards. Other extras, particularly shoes, come from a budget of about $150/kid/year including sports shoes and uniforms and swim team swimsuits. I buy as much of the simple shoes, like sandals, ballet flats, etc. from rewards, though. Snow boots, I go to the posh areas of Seattle Goodwill. The local Goodwill redistributes clothes so you can always find children's snow boots on Capitol Hill where there are like, no kids!

 

Myself, I buy via rewards. Our rewards are at two different, both relatively good quality, low-cost stores (Nordstrom Rack and Old Navy/Gap/BR/Athleta) with a lot of selection so it's rare that we need something we can't buy with credit card rewards. It makes school shopping WAY more fun!

[Jerico]

I try to get as many hand me downs as possible. We ask for clothes for christmas for our sons. The grand parents usually buy them an outfit/jammies. I shop ahead of time and buy jackets/boots/etc big so they can grow into. Anything else i will search at goodwill. We usually only need a few things for my oldest every year. And againy parents usually enjoy taking them to get new shoes.

 

Hubby and i shop at goodwill a few times a year. We do buy shoes once a year (or less), when needed. Its not really "budgeted" but comes out of a sinking fund we save monthly for whatever comes up.

[SporkUK]

We have a clothes budget for the whole family but, barring emergencies, I only try to buy clothes for one person at a time/in one month's allot of cash and with six of us someone usually could do with something. So for each month I look at who is most in need and what they need and make the most of it that I can. This helps with the budget as well as maintaining the house for me. We then do either roll the cash over or it moves into bills in the great first of the month direct debit draining of the accounts...

 

I find keeping an organized idea of what we have and need has helped us the most rather than the budgetting actually. I do big clothes clear out/passing down about twice a year now and drop stuff in the textile recycling bag to go as and when things get beyond repair. I keep a list of what people need, how soon it is needed, and when the last time I bought for someone. I can tell you who was the last we bought a lot for, who has been pushed back for others emergencies and needs the next big buy, who is happy with tons of hand-me-downs but could use some new basics, who just needs new pjs for their birthday, and who is waiting for the January sales for new boots and big fluffy sweaters to rebuild after several went the way of the textile recycling this year (probably because some I've had longer than I've been married...). My partner' stuff does tend to be more on an emergency basis as I know less of what he needs and he rarely says until it is a need. 

 

For big buys for the kids, we do eBay bundles. I'll go through the auctions, they pick which they like, we try our best, they love opening the package when it arrives, then they go into the washing machine and into our great clothes system. Charity shops were good when they were younger but for all but my youngest it's thin pickings for their ages around here (toy and book buying on the other hand, it's great, as are clothes for me). Then pick up the socks and such and special things from good shops with good sales/clearance areas or the market hall.