The clothes off my back

One great way to save money on clothes is through preventative care, regular maintenance and repair.  Here are a few things you can do to keep your wardrobe full:

1. Regularly launder, dry clean and iron your clothes.  If you’re like me, you hate doing all three of these tasks and put them off as often as you can.  Problem is, when I avoid doing these things, my wardrobe dwindles, my nicest clothes end up sitting around in a laundry basket, and I feel like I have nothing to wear – making me think that I need to go shopping!  By regularly taking care of my clothes and giving them the proper maintenance they need, I not only take better care of them, but make better use of them too.

2. Buy wash-and-wear clothes.  Not only are they time-savers (see above) but actually save you money because you will save on dry cleaning. Mark’s Work Wearhouse is great for this purpose.  They recently had coupons out – save 20% on a purchase of $50 or more.  (My partner and I scored two, and then split up my purchase so that we actually saved 40% off!)  They have plenty of great sales and coupons out there, so watch for them!

3. Sew on buttons and make other minor repairs.  Is it just me, or are clothes these days cheaply made?  You can keep them in good repair by doing minor repairs yourself, like sewing on buttons.

4. Repair your shoes instead of replacing them.  I use this strategy to continue to make use of my favourite shoes.  For example, you can easily have the heels of your high heeled shoes replaced and you can brighten up rough or scuffed leather with polish.  I recently scored a wonderfully attractive, comfortable pair of shoes from my sister.  She passed them to me because the heels were worn down to the nail and the leather was showing drastic signs of wear.  It cost me about $10 to have them fixed up and now I have a great looking pair of high heeled black leather pointed toe shoes – they are versatile and go with anything (and she’s already softened the leather!)

5. Repair or hem hand-me-downs to make them work for you.  My dad recently gave me an old pair of nice dress pants.  My partner tried them on and the waist fit – we just needed to get them hemmed, and the dry cleaners got an old ink stain off the fly.  Now he has a great pair of pants at just the cost of dry cleaning.

6. Wash your clothes and hang dry them to make them last longer and save money on laundering.

7. I tend to avoid clothes with labels cautioning you to “hand wash” or “reshape and lie flat to dry”.  If the clothes require this much care, it’s doubtful that they will last long.

8. Find innovative ways to make use of hand-me-downs that don’t fit, or clothes you no longer wear.  My mom recently passed some of her old purses my way.  Here’s how I plan on making use of three of them:

- One purse is in too rough shape to use, but it has cute charms on it.  I’m going to detach the charms and make jewellry out of them!

- Another pursue is made with a cute Chinese fabric.  I’m going to salvage the fabric for future crafts – it might make a cute wallet, pillow, or wrapping paper for a storage box.

- One pursue is quite badly stained, but I’m determined to see if I can find a way to get the stain out (anyone have any great links to stain removal, btw?)

Overall, I try to make great use of what I have, let my mom and sister know that I’m always available to receive hand-me-downs, and I get creative.  I think that the costs you invest in maintaining and repairing your clothes outweigh the cost of throwing out and buying new.