Splurge on a couple of good fitting, good quality, non trendy, solid colored Jackets/pant or skirt sets but NEVER pay full price. Save on blouses and accessories at garage sales and thrift stores. For those trendy scarves: Check your own fabric bins for light weight material or find/buy an old dress or skirt to cut up and sew.

With a good solid color suit set you can mix and match your accessories to dress it up or down and make it look different every day of the week.

I alter things a lot, to make them more 'in fashion'. I have 3 cord skirts with a new lease of life! It also helps that I am slightly smaller.....

I shop on ebay for myself for work clothes and occasional going out clothes for ann taylor and white house black market (and limit the purchase with shipping to $10.00 and have gotten beautiful skirts, dress pants for work, and even a cashmere sweater).

For my daughter in adddition to hand me downs/consignment shops, I shop for fancy Perfectly Dressed (line by target) and gymboree clothes on ebay as well.

Robin

I buy everything on sale. When I shop, I don't pay over $5 for a shirt $10 for jeans. I do not buy clothes from Walmart, they fall apart. I have all namebrand clothing. The stores I go to is Herbergers, Macy's, JCP, Children's place, gap, old navy, Tommy, Ralph, Hollister, Banana, Abercrombie, anyways you get the picture. Then when I am done with them I sell them on ebay and get more then what I paid for them in the first place. At Walmart or Shopko you could pay $10 for a shirt but if you shop at one of the places listed above you could get namebrand for much less then $10. I also buy for the season when the season is. I don't buy ahead for myself anyways cause I gain weight then I lose weight. As for my kids I get them a size bigger then what they were last season. Hope this all makes sense. I kind of ramble when I talk about my shopping cause I love to shop, but am very frugle with my shopping. Okay so I will tell you one more thing I went shopping at the beginning of spring for spring and summer clothes for my entire family which is a family of 6 and spent $450 got everything we needed and still more got home added up what it would have cost at retail price and it was alittle over $3,000. I had a savings of $2550.

-Good thrift stores
-Ross Dress for Less
-On occasion I splurge at one of my favorite clothing boutiques

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God is faithful.

I personally HATE shopping - I've got a build that apparently will not have most clothes made for it. However, I have spent a total of $200 on my wardrobe - almost a year ago. Those that remember my panic about getting business casual - still in the same things.

I have two pair of khaki pants, one pair of pinstripe pants, one charcoal, and a khaki skirt and charcoal skirt, both pencil cut, past my knee. I have a few different tops form Kohls, a couple cardigans, and a couple sweaters. That's it. Everything matches everything else, and I still get great comments about what I'm wearing.

In short, I'm glad I went classic, with mix and match. It's lasted a year on a minimum number of clothes. I suppose I should drag my friends who love shopping out again, and get a few more pieces (without them, I'd never shop. I hate it. Really.)

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I love clothes and fashion and style. I have found that Tim Gunn's list (which entails like 15 versatile pieces - black dress pants, black straight skirt, etc) is a great staple every year. Then you can "update" with that season's trendy colors and styles through accessories and it saves a ton of money. For example, a scarf, necklace, hat, etc in that season's MUST HAVE color carries a lot of weight. Also, I buy the must- have items from ebay (we recently paid $125 for a $500 pair of Coach winter boots). I buy most things- even the seasonal accessories used, or, highly discounted. Luckily, in Wisconsin we are a few months behind the "trend" and I can usually get the stuff marked down before most people here know it is cool. LOL.

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