The Budget Fashionista’s Annual “Being Broke Ain’t Cute” Series features tips and advice to help you improve your personal financial health. For more personal finance information, please visit our Financial Health Series.
1. Develop a Signature Piece. This is the piece you’re going to be known for—sort of like your calling card. It could be fabulous shoes, earrings, blazer, dresses, etc. Focus your shopping dollars on these pieces. My signature piece is crazy necklaces, which I find at thrift stores and stores like Forever 21.
2. Use the Cost per Wear When Shopping. Frequent TBF readers know this is something I’ve been preaching for years. Value is the key when building a great closet and The Budget Fashionista’s cost per wear formula can help you get the most bang for your buck. The cost per wear is the price of an item/divided by the number of times you think you’ll wear it. So if an item costs $100, and you wear it ten times, the cost per wear is $10. The more you wear an item, the cheaper it becomes. This tip is especially important as it forces you to focus on the utility of an item, ie the usefulness of an item to you, rather than just the price. Paying $5 for something you never where is $5 wasted.
3. Limit Trips to the Dry Cleaners. This is a real money zapper, even for yours truly, until I learned, and this may come as a shock, that you’re only suppose to dry clean your suits two to three times per year and even less for items like coats. So how do you keep it fresh in the meantime? Spritz it with a bit of fabric freshener like Febreze.
4. Learn to Sew. Okay, I don’t mean learn how to create amazing pieces ala ‘Project Runway’, but learning how to hem your own pants, fix slight holes, and other minor alterations will not only save you money, but also save your garments.
5. Follow the 70/30 Rule. 70 percent of your closet should be classic pieces that never go out of style, a great white shirt from Old Navy or even a nice black suit that you can wear over and over again. The other 30 percent should be fun trendy items like a plaid skirt, funky bomber jacket, or a cool fedora.
Founded in 2003, TBF is a fashion blog dedicated to helping you live your best for less. We give you the 411 on the latest fashion trends & tips and sample sales. 
