Sense to Save

Outfit your family on the cheap at thrift stores

Here is a guest post from Barry Ritz, who blogs at Associate Money.

I can’t remember the last time I forked out $20 or more for a shirt, ever since my family started staking out thrift stores. The exception would be my professional work attire which can cost more than $100 but such purchases happen once in a blue moon. 

It is common to find fashionable clothes for less than $5. 

If you intend to make a trip to a thrift store over the weekend, here are some tips to hasten your treasure hunt as you sort through tons of  junk.

1. Review Your Budget

You can still spend a bomb at thrift stores if you are not careful. Tell yourself that you are not going to spend more than a set amount and see how much you can buy at the store. It becomes a challenge and you get more astute over time. 

2. Try Things On For Size

Sizes are not the same for manufacturers or in years gone by. Know your measurements well and wear layers in case there is no dressing room and you need to Gstrip down in a corner. 

3. Examine The Items 

Don’t buy clothes and pants with embarrassing holes or missing zippers unless you are good at stitching. 

4. Don’t Base Your Purchases On Branded Tags

Unsold branded clothes from department stores can end up in thrift shops. Go for these quality brands but don’t ignore unfamiliar brands as they may go well with your existing wardrobe. 

5. Watch For Sales

Thrift stores also run special sales, so keep an eye out for really special and cheap stuff. 

6. Go For Something Different

Diversify your wardrobe by buying clothes with colors with styles you normally avoid. You may fall in love with the new choices, especially when people start praising your change in taste. 

As for accessories like caps and belts, you will be surprised that very few people give two hoots whether you get them for $20 in boutique stores or $3 in the thrift stores. 

Make a trip down to the thrift stores this week. There will be some legwork and sweat involved but you will smile at the quantity of items you purchase for the same budget. 

What thrift store tips can you share?

Happy Memorial Day & roundup

I’m ready for the unofficial kick off to summer, how bout you? Shane’s folks are heading over this weekend and hopefully we’ll be able to get out and about and have some fun.

If you’re traveling, be safe and do the speed limit :). 

Here’s some links I’ve been meaning to share with you:

The importance of good real estate listing photos —  To me, the after shots depict a house I’d be interested in seeing. The before photos make it look smaller and less appealing. If you’re selling a house ever, you’ll want to make sure you have great listing photos!

Beware of the left digit — Would you be more inclined to pay $1.99 vs. $4.00 for similar items, or $2 vs. $3.99 ? Are you sure?

Why I’d rather spend less than earn more – Time is money, people!

5 great reasons to have less debt — Yep. Your money can start to work for you, rather than the other way ’round.

The preschool sharing myth — Nothing to do with personal finance, but I thought it was fascinating. Why must little kids hand over their toys because some other little kid wants to “share”? Sounds like a lousy deal to me.

Break your big goal into chunks

It can be hard to stay motivated when paying off debt or building up savings when the amount is a rather large number.

It’s easy to look at how much money we want to save before buying a house and think, “That’s so much money. It’ll take years for us to get there. Why even bother?”

After all, it’s easy to do nothing. It’s much harder to be disciplined and save tens of thousands of dollars in a short time.

To tackle this behemoth of a down payment (and all that goes into it), I’m going to break it into chunks. It’ll be easier for me to see actual progress and stay motivated to keep on going.

I’ll track our overall progress in a widget in my sidebar, and I’ll keep the break-down progress listed under that.

We’re saving for:

• Moving costs 
• Emergency fund - Since our monthly expenses will go up, our emergency fund will need to as well. Once we see our actual numbers we might need to adjust it.
• Immediate customizations – When we move to a house, we’ll need to get some things right away. Might need to buy some appliances, a lawnmower, tools, lightbulbs, weatherproofing, etc.
• Prepaids – We’ll need to pay a year’s worth of property taxes and homeowner’s insurance up front.
• Closing costs - Yes, we can finance a portion of this, but we’d rather not so we can save money over the long haul.
• Down payment - Five percent of the purchase price is our miniumum, but hopefully we can do at least 10 percent. I don’t know if 20 percent would be doable in a few years, but we’ll see.
• Furniture –  We have minimal furnishings right now, since we have minimal space. We’ll want a couch at the very least when we move.

To me, even though the dollar amount is the same, it’s starting to feel more doable now that I’ve broken it apart.

If you have a lot of student loan debt, you could try breaking it into years you were in school. Have $40k in student loans? Then break it into the four years you were in school, or how many semesters, perhaps. Tackling $5k or $10k at a time doesn’t sound as scary as $40,000, does it?

Or if you’re saving for an emergency fund, work on achieving one month at a time rather than being daunted by the full amount you want to save. 

How do you work toward big financial goals?