Follow these tips to stretch your fashion budget

There is nothing I hate more than spending money. If you give me your money I will spend it. But my money that I worked hard for? Nah. That’s a struggle.

So buying clothing and other items that are important to my style  is always a process that doesn’t have to be hard or long, but often times ends up being hard. When it comes to online shopping, I never leave the SALE section, and I always change the settings so they show me the items from lowest price to highest price.

You should do the same if you value my advice. Here are five tips to help you ball on a budget.

1) Let Goodwill be your new best friend

Goodwill might just be the greatest store ever in the history of great stores. Before you wrinkle your nose or think you are too good for Goodwill, let me let you in on a very important secret. At least one item that I wear every day is from Goodwill.

Do I have shame in that? No. Why? Because no one else is going to have that item, and there’s such a wide variety. Goodwill is cheap and has so many cool finds. People just go and take the things that they don’t want, and I willingly go and take what I want.

I went one day and spent $35 there. I got a green fur coat, four pairs of jeans, a cardigan, two denim jackets, a T-shirt, and two sweatpants. Tell me where you will get all of that for $35? Nowhere.

Goodwill’s best kept secret is the fact that they have so many jeans. If you’re into jorts like I am, then Goodwill is the best place for that. You can go buy jeans for $2 or $3 and then just go home and cut them into jorts. It’s a system that has served me well.

2) Scissors are Nice

As I mentioned before, I am a huge fan of jorts. Jorts are just jean shorts. Because I’m kind of tall, it’s always hard to find shorts, and I always end up having jeans that fit right around the waist but look like I am preparing for a flood. So to my mother’s dismay (bless her heart), I took some scissors and cut one of my jeans and began my foray into jorts territory.

Scissors are something that are very essential. If you have long legs that you just feel it’s in your divine right to show, then I suggest you find some scissors and cut your jeans that may be a little too short. Your mother will not be pleased, but she will get over it.

3) Seasonal Shopping Is Very Important

When I was younger and I wanted a new bike, my mom would always look during the winter. I never understood why until later when it dawned on me that since people don’t bike that much during the winter and there isn’t a high demand, they will be cheaper. But during the summer since everybody wants to be out biking, bikes will be more expensive.

The same ideology applies to clothes. Anything that you wear during the summer is going to be cheaper during the winter and anything that you wear during the winter is going to be cheaper during the summer.

It’s a simple pricing rule that we don’t realize and end up spending more money than we really don’t need to.

4) Promo Codes Are A Gift

A while back, I was buying some shoes on the Adidas website, and they asked for my birthday, and I accidentally entered it wrong. I didn’t realize it until March 7 came and they sent me a 15 percent code to use on their website.

Lots of sites ask you for your birthday so they can send you codes like this to reward you for being an awesome customer. Besides birthday codes, companies will often send you promo codes to your email every once in a while.

If you have already marked them as spam, don’t waste your time going through your email and unmarking them. Just go to websites like RetailMeNot or even Groupon and type in the clothing site that you want to find promo codes for and let the website bless you and your bank account.

5) Comfort Is Key

With anything in life, being comfortable is important. There comes a time in high school or maybe later on in your life where you decide to do things that you want to do and wear things that you want to wear.

For me that happened at the end of first semester, and I decided to really and truly wear what I wanted to wear. Only things that I was comfortable in.

For some people, they are comfortable in wearing sweats all the time, and that’s cool. I’m not that way. It’s important to buy things that you are comfortable in and not just follow trends or what other people are wearing. In the end you’ll end up saving money buying what you want AND that you’re comfortable in.