How to budget your wardrobe- Part 1

A few months back, after scrambling my cupboard to find an outfit for an occasion, I found out that I have plenty of clothes for parties which I attend only twice a month but not for my regular days need.

So given below are the few steps I undertook to get the best out of my wardrobe by budgeting

Find out your time-table

When we hear about time-table, we think about our school time. But no, I am not talking about that.

The time table you need to make will help you notice the clothes you wear throughout your week.

My time table looks something like this

So in the above table by sleep, I mean, in my sleepwear and so on.

As you can see, I spend most of my time at the office and my home. So my wardrobe should have a majority of office wear and loungewear. Also, I spend at least half my day sleeping or in bed. So sleepwear should also be a priority for me.

You can also make your time table accordingly and then determine what kind of clothes should be present in your closet.

Determining your style

It is essential to determine your style. I am attracted towards elegant, sophisticated looks, so that is what I tend to purchase. Your style has to be consistent; otherwise, it gives mixed signals to people and then people don't take you too seriously.

Below are the few examples of an elegant wardrobe.

Budget Allocation

Determining how much clothes should I be spending on most has been one of the life-saver hacks for me.

Using my above time-table as an example, you can see that I spend most of my time in my bed in my sleepwear.

Now the biggest mistake I made while buying clothes was to buy super expensive party clothes which I spent the least time wearing and purchasing cheap and lousy quality sleepwear.

We spend most of our time trying to please others and making us feel bad, but why can't it be the opposite. We need to feel good even at home when no one is watching us.

Thus after that, a large portion of my budget went to buy my sleepwear which would always contain silky and lacy material.

Season Analysis

Seasonal Analysis is one of the most essential analysis you need to do as it can make your wardrobe efficient. I live in a sub-tropical country which means not very cold winters and round the year a reasonably pleasant climate.

My season analysis looks somewhat like this

I have not taken rainy season into account.

As you can see, spring-summer is the majority of the season in my chart. You have to make a similar chart where you find out the seasons according to the place you live.

Then you need to find out clothes which will help you approximately 70% of the times. If you buy a full-length trouser for your office wear, it will help you in the summers as well as winters. Also, summer wear can be easily worn in winters using layers.

This analysis will also show you if you need to spend your majority of the budget in buying heavy and expensive winter coats and jackets or light and breezy summer dresses.

Finding your clothes

The easiest way I have found out that work best when finding my clothes is the social media platform. Whenever I need to find out clothes, I go on a social media platform like Instagram and use the hashtag feature to find out which clothes I want to buy.

For example, if I want to buy elegant sleepwear, then I will use hashtags such as #elegantwear #elegantsleepwear #elegantnightwear #silksleepwear #silknightwear. This really narrows down my search list an gives me a ton of websites catered according to my taste.

I hope this post will help you to spend your money wisely while selecting clothes.