Tuesday, December 29, 2015

What I Spent on Clothes in 2015

Blogmas Day 29
I'm a day late, but not a dollar short to link up with Budgeting Bloggers. This is the second year in a row that I've done a yearly clothing budget and let's just say that things went much better this time around. 
First, I am significantly under budget for the year…like by a lot 
Second, I love every single item that I picked up 
I want to focus on talking about WHERE the money I spent this year actually went. For me, the whole point of doing a yearly budget was to not only stay on track with spending, but to push myself to be more thoughtful with my purchases. Because let's be real, I could easily walk into a store like J Crew and happily walk out with one of everything. So today, I'm sharing how I spent my money this year by showing off my favorite OOTD's for 2015! 

Let's talk about clothes first shall we?
Here is what I bought in 2015!
5 blouses 
 {Total Hipsters}                                                {Guilty}  
2 button-downs
3 sweaters 
3 dresses
I prefer dresses to any other type of clothing so this one is no surprise, expect maybe the number is a little low 
{On Wednesdays, we wear Pink}                           {Balloons & Bows}
6 pants
Buying 6 pairs of pants however, well that is a surprise! I don't even like wearing jeans…yes I know that makes me a total weirdo. But with years having gone by of not purchasing any pants, there were slim pickings in my closet. This was a hole I had to fill, but I'm shocked by the types of pants I bought this year. While I did pick up a pair of blue jeans and a pair of leggings, I also purchased, not one but two pairs of leather pants. 
         {BowTie}                     {Fall at Fenway Park}              {Not so Perfect Plaid}
Leather pants {and skin tight ones at that} are completely out of my comfort zone! I'm the girl flouncing around in pink lace dresses. Somehow, I have fallen in love with these and I feel empowered to try more things that I normally wouldn't. Speaking of which, two other unexpected favorites were these white jeans and leather trimmed ankle pants. 
{White Jeans & Bean Boots}                       {Sloan Ankle Pants Review}
1 jumpsuit 
2 shorts

Next up is Accessories!
As far as I'm concerned, a few well placed accessories really make an outfit so these are worth spending on. I noticed that I bought a lot less jewelry compared to previous years, but the pieces I picked up are extremely versatile. And apparently, I turned into a total hat lady. I always owned a few hats for the winter, but I am now totally obsessed with sun hats, floppy hats, fedoras…you name it. 
{Apple Picking}                                     {Swamped!}
4 scarves 
1 necklace 
4 bracelets
3 hats
1 purse

Now onto the Big Budget Items. For me the items that always take up the most room in your budget are outerwear and shoes. I actually picked up a ton of shoes this year including: 
3 pairs of sandals 
2 pairs of leather boots 
1 adorable pair of striped bow heels 
and 
2 pairs of flats including my favorite Sam Edelman Flats featured in 
3 jackets 

Now that I've shown you what I bought in 2015, let's talk about the bottom-line. I budgeted a total of $1500 to spend on clothing for the year which averages out to $125 per month. And I spent…drumroll please…a total of $1,213 which means that I ended up with a surplus of $287! Nearly $300 under budget for the year. I know, I can't believe it either. This means I spent only $100 a month.  
{Leather Boots, Navy, & Pearls}                        {LBD + Plaid

Part of me was tempted to run with the extra cash and buy myself something fancy. But then I stopped. The reason I budget my clothing purchases is to prevent myself from doing just this…making purchases just because I can. Buying things I don't need. This year of budgeting has really pushed me to analyze my purchases. And as you can see, I really didn't buy a lot of items. But the things I bought are versatile and I love them.
{Skinny Pineapple}                 {Twirl}

 Additionally, I noticed that I stayed away from those stores with low quality inexpensive pieces. This is essential because I always sell items that no longer work for my closet. Though I should note that I haven't sold anything I bought this year, I love them all too much. My point is that between the clothing items I sold and $$ earned here from affiliate links, I actually made more money from clothes than I spent on clothes this year! 
How did this happen you ask? 
{Metamorphosis}                         {S.N.O.B.}
Aside from nearly always buying items on sale and challenging myself with no-buy months, I don't spend any of the income I earn from clothes. In the past, I've noticed that many style bloggers tend to add $ into their existing budget. If $300 was budgeted and $200 was made selling clothes, then $500 gets spent. While that method makes complete sense to me, I didn't want to spend a penny more than what I initially budgeted. I was definitely tempted, but ultimately I chose not to add any clothing income into my budget throughout the year and the results were worth it. I'm not a big time style blogger and you won't find a single c/o in my clothing posts. I'm just a normal girl who occasionally blogs about her style. Thus, the fact that my out of pocket clothing expenses this year comes out to zero {with a few extra dollars going into my pocket…to the travel fund of course} is a big accomplishment for me. Be sure to check out all the other budgeting bloggers this month and see all my monthly clothing budgets for the year here
Happy Budgeting! 

Follow along for more from Making Restorations 

5 comments:

  1. You scored a lot of shoes and jackets, add to that all the other things and it's impressive that you were well below your budget! Your outfits are always so polished and fun!

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  2. So impressed with how little you spent! I should really not be adding to my budget either. I just started a more formal budget and added what I made from Poshmark, which made sense for now because I badly needed a couple investments pieces (leather boots and bras, and I include bras in my clothing budget) but I generally want to stay from that.

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  3. I'm so inspired by you!! I love all of your buys, especially because you obviously love them. Congratulations on such a successful year!

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  4. We are so alike! You know while I wear my hear in a braid every single day, I wear a dress almost every single day of the year. I'd say 90% of the year I wear dresses because I hate the feel of jeans especially after I gave birth to Sophie.

    As for accessories I love scarves and wallets, but thankfully I didn't buy any watches (those get pricey!) but I did buy scarves.

    I love every single one of your dresses! Especially the vibrant ones! Vaa va voom.

    liz @ sundays with sophie

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  5. Wow I am very impressed with your accountability I really should start doing this!

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