Clothing Savings Challenges-How am I Doing?

For hobby or necessity, or a combination of both, I continually create little challenges to myself on the financial front. I ad nauseum report on my efforts to get my household and grocery spend to an average of $400 or less per month, sometimes throwing in an even lower $350 challenge. This year, with having high spending priority goals and only little  opportunities to boost income, I'm looking for more challenges.

Kohls.com

DD2 will be on her own come fall for her personal expenses, entertainment, and new clothing, not counting gifts. We will however do a final spring/summer shop so she has the basics, then do what her sister, me, my sisters, and pretty much every other girl in my family did-take really good care of our clothes to make them last! Last month I paired Kohl's cash from a DH work clothes purchase plus his $5 anniversary coupon and got her jeans for $5, thrifted some items for under $13, and finally spent $13 on underwear. A couple more items and she should be basic wardrobe set, with me targeting to keep total spending to under $240. A very warm coat is essential though. For her birthday we got her  a new pea coat, cute for coolish days, but not suitable as a winter coat, though she layered it with an extra thick sweatshirt for an occasion when she didn't want to wear her high school letter jacket.

I have been looking at thrift stores but either the styles are all wrong or they are not warm enough, so did the next best thing and layered clearance with  discounts. We found a coat, originally $180, for $75 which should do her well for years. It has the highest warmth rating, with a thick hood and styled to go past the butt, though for her height, will go even longer- as she wanted. I found three Christmas gifts (a whole other challenge) as well on clearance, plus a two pack of dish towels that I can pull out for her graduation (while I keep using the old dingy ones for every day), getting my total to exactly 100 before tax, earning me $30 in Kohls cash.

I started 2019 with a self imposed challenge to not buy any new clothing except replacement of undergarments, socks, and tights as necessary. Now that 1/4 of the year is done, I can say I am on track so far. Before Nashville, I bought a 10 pack of no-show socks for DD2. I nabbed three pairs for myself, so a grand total of $2.70 spent, the remaining $5.30 towards DD2's budget. The $30 in Kohls cash will either supplement my undergarment budget, or my daughters $129 clothing balance. 

I get that stores like Kohl's have huge mark-ups and then have sales to make it look like people are getting a great deal. Still, I have looked for coats for a couple months now, so feel like if not a great deal, the coat I purchased is a good value. DH shops for himself and just sort of restocks when he needs things. With these two mini challenges, setting aside my daughters new ownership of her clothing budget come fall, I'll significantly reduce the clothing budget for the year by as much as 30%.

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