Dressing to impress doesn’t have to mean spending outside your means, and in many ways, there are some distinct benefits to addressing your fashion needs while also taking into account your bank balance to Upgrade Your Look.
Retail therapy is very much a genuine concept, and clearly, we all love the buzz we experience when we pick up and buy an item that we really want. However, if you are shopping solely for the purpose of getting that kick, then something isn’t quite right.
To help you shop for fashionable items while trying to avoid getting angry calls from your bank, or worse, here are some tips that might help to Upgrade Your Look.
Planning Your Shopping and Managing Expectations
The act of shopping is clearly something we pretty much all enjoy; the expression retail therapy didn’t just happen by accident. However, shopping for the sake of doing so can end up being a costly mistake, and many of us often go out with the expressed purpose of getting one thing and end up coming back with another.
This can, of course, be worthwhile, and you might get lucky, but if you are trying to shop on a budget, then you should plan accordingly and manage your expectations. Shopping online is incredibly easy, but that comes at a cost (quite literally). Before you know it, you’ve clicked a few buttons and spent hundreds of dollars without even thinking about it.
One good trick is what we like to call ‘practice buy.’ Here you might visit your favorite online store and freely select a number of items and put them in your cart, but before you hit buy, close the browser and come back to it in a day or two.
You’ll find with a second glance you can be more reasoned about the process, and you can then remove some items, and in a way, you’ll find yourself getting to the very pieces you genuinely want and need.
Simple and Effective
When it comes to accessories, it’s always good to be simple but effective. Getting the perfect accessory is very much like the icing on a cake. Ideally, it will be an item that goes with many outfits and suits ensembles equally well for informal or formal occasions.
If the item can also be a statement piece, then even better. For instance, a great custom necklace, which perhaps displays the name of a loved one and perhaps your children, is both a stylish accessory and turns people’s heads and gets their attention.
You may have a closet full of clothes, and yes, some may be old favorites, and among these, we often have pieces we rarely wear because we never quite got round to doing so, or they just didn’t seem to go with anything.
This is where accessories can be used to help provide an outfit with the added pizazz needed to make it work. This might come with jewelry or the right shoes or maybe even a nice belt or a headscarf.
Try different looks in the comfort of your own home, and then when you think you’ve hit the jackpot, get outside and let the world see you are your finest.
Second-Hand Stores- Upgrade Your Look
A great way to keep fashion costs down and create a more fun experience as a whole is to make more use of second-hand and thrift stores. There are many beneficial reasons to make the most of these establishments, and they don’t just relate to cost-saving.
Most fashion trends are cyclical, and that means that your local second-hand store is almost certainly housing great items that will soon become all the rage. While it’s true that shopping in these types of stores requires rooting through a lot of clothing that won’t interest you, it will help you get an idea of what sorts of things are out there.
The negative effects of fast fashion are plain to see. The wasteful nature of the practice of buying cheap clothes that you may never wear, and aren’t of high quality, creates a great deal of environmental damage and also usually comes about off the back of cheap labor practices.
Second-hand stores are a more environmentally friendly approach, and shopping in these stores can be great fun. Go with a friend and hunt out outfits, try things on, and you’ll be surprised when you return home with.
Often these items are far more reliable and sturdy, as they were made at a different time when the quality of the materials was a genuinely important part of the process, and as such, they’ll be of use to you long into the future.
Online Sales – Upgrade Your Look
If you are shopping online, then you should make the most of sales that are offered by the online stores as well as more general sale days like Black Friday. Plan out what you might want to buy and hold out until the magical day arrives, and then you’ll get the items you want for a price that is more suitable.
A key part of shopping and staying within a budget is showing restraint and not going for the instant buzz of gratification that comes with completing a sale. If you wait longer for that dose of adrenaline, then you’ll be surprised how much sweeter the sensation will be.
Also, you’ll be buying something that you genuinely need instead of buying something that has little long-term value to you and has almost certainly cost you more money than you had set aside for the purpose of improving your wardrobe.