Old Navy 30 percent off? Why not clothes at 90 percent off?
Monica writes in:
I don鈥檛 understand how you can recommend that people shop in thrift stores for clothes. The stuff there is usually worn out and just looks bad and outdated. I would never wear that stuff to work.
It sounds to me like you鈥檝e made up your mind about thrift stores and secondhand stores before even stepping inside the door. I鈥檒l make the case anyway.
First of all, I won鈥檛 buy the vast majority of clothing on sale at such a store. I鈥檓 with Monica on this one 鈥� most of the stuff there can be pretty worn out. I鈥檝e seen lots of threadbare sweaters, worn out dress pants, and other items that, if they were in my home, would be meeting the rag bag.
Those aren鈥檛 the items I鈥檓 shopping for. The reason I go is to look through a long rack of clothes and find two or three items that are barely worn. How do quality items of clothing get to the secondhand store? A person gains or loses a lot of weight. A person passes away. A person decides they just don鈥檛 like how the item looks on them. A person is a clotheshorse who only wears an item a couple of times before getting rid of it. Each of these cases can result in some very nice clothes on the rack at the secondhand shop.
If you don鈥檛 like the item, don鈥檛 buy it. However, there are a lot of gems buried on the racks if you鈥檒l spend some time digging through them.
Second, my biggest focus for clothing buys 鈥� once they meet a minimum standard of quality 鈥� really is cost per use. Yes, unquestionably, I could go to a store like Men鈥檚 Wearhouse, find a high quality article of clothing, and wear it, say, sixty times over the course of several years. That article of clothing might cost me $60, so the cost per use would be $1 per use.
On the other hand, I might find a nice item at the secondhand store. It might have been worn a few times already, so I might only get fifteen wears out of it instead of the sixty I might get from the new shirt. However, that secondhand item only cost me $3. That鈥檚 $0.20 per use.
I will take the second item of clothing any day of the week.
What about the time cost? Time cost is one of the first things people mention when they hear a money-saving tactic that they鈥檙e unsure about. Human beings are creatures of habit and if we can find a good reason to retain that habit (or even a not-so-good reason), we鈥檒l use it. Time cost is often that reason.
However, in this situation, time cost matters little. I go clothes shopping twice a year, period.
In the spring, I鈥檒l dig out all of my summer clothes (in fact, I鈥檓 intending to do this this weekend), determine what needs to go and what can stay, and then figure out if I need to add some clothes to the mix or if I have enough. I do the same thing in the fall with my winter clothes.
Once that鈥檚 done, I actually make a shopping list for clothes. I need some number of dress shirts, some number of jeans, some number of shorts, some number of khakis, some number of underwear 鈥� you get the idea. Then, I go shopping.
If I use secondhand store clothes in this process, I still just rotate them out at season鈥檚 end if they鈥檙e too worn, the same thing I鈥檒l do with clothes that are purchased new. I鈥檒l still go clothes shopping twice a year, regardless of whether I鈥檝e bought new or used clothes in the past.
What this comes down to is simple: spending control. I keep a pretty tight rein on my clothes shopping habits. I simply don鈥檛 go clothes shopping more than twice a year. Because of that, I don鈥檛 devote much time in a given calendar year to picking out new clothes 鈥� and I don鈥檛 spend nearly as much money, either.
At its heart, an awful lot of frugality and financial success comes down to control over your spending. If you have firm control over how your money leaves your wallet, it鈥檚 often shocking how many ways there are to cut your spending without cutting your quality of life one iota.
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