Ladies-clothes- when/what to buy (budget conscious)

dresses and belts! Seriously, I feel like with dresses, you can wear them through being different sizes as you won't shrink out of them as quickly. Another thing you can do is look in thrift shops for stuff you know you won't be wearing for a long time.

When it comes to going down in sizes, I wait until the clothes I have are falling off of me before I finally switch to the lower size. My mom has done the same thing, and she would always be pleasantly surprised if she tried on the next size down and realized even it was too big. But this way, you can make your clothes stretch that much farther.

Hi, I have about 17kg (40 pound) to lose and I have started to lose, but I also have a clothes budget, so I'm spending it on bras and sports gear but nothing else really.

What clothing have you bought as you lost weight?

When did you buy it?

Thanks

Thrift shops have a ton of barely used athletic clothes as well.

bump

I go to thrift shops often no matter what. I love clothes and I can get new ones all the time, wear them for a season and bring them back for the charity to resell. Sometimes I find keepers like a Burberry coat in perfect condition I got for $35. I also shop at what I call "real" stores. When I am shrinking, stay away from buying pant and fitting skirts because they don't fit for long. Stretchy tops and skirts offer the most wear.

i agree with dresses and belts, they last the longest. Check out your local value village/goodwill/salvation army.

Check to see if you have a Clothes Mentor in your area - a chain of re-sale stores here in states.
http://www.clothesmentor.com

They buy (on the spot) used clothes and sell really nice things for less!!! I did not buy anything until I could NOT wear my clothes. I sold the old ones (they don't take all but some) and bought some new.

I just slung out a load of stuff that was too big, couldn't be Cinched in with a belt, could have fitted another person in with me, looked tatty, that kind of thing. Bought some gym clothes and a couple of stretchy tops in the right size. They were only cheap so it won't matter when they are too big as well. Oh, and some smooth underwear. The number of women I see exercising with a nylon lave thing sticking out the back is amazing. It's got to chafe at some point. But not for me.

One question I have... since clothes now fit, when something actually fits I want to buy it so... how do I know what really looks good and I should buy or that I am just happy to fit into "trendy" , nice and fitting clothes???

I like to have at least 2 pair of pants that I feel great wearing. If I cant find any at the consignment shop, I'll buy them on sale at Old navy. I have a LOT of beautiful linen clothes that will need alterations this summer!

Another thrift shopper here - I go to the mall to try things on to get a feel for my size, and then hit the thrift shops to actually buy.

Some towns and cities also have "last chance" thrifts or days, where you can buy as much will fit in a bag or by the pound, which is where I really rack up - I scored a vintage couture coat last year for abotu $3 this way!

I got around some of it by having a friend of mine who had the lap band surgery give me a bunch of clothes she'd outshrunk. However, when things finally got to where my S24 pants were starting to look pretty stupid, even with a belt, I broke down and bout three new pairs of S20 pants. I was careful to buy pants with belt loops, so I should be able to wear them through S16/18 before I have to consider replacing them. (They're closing down all the Zellers' in Canada, so I lucked out and got three pairs of $65 Haggar dress pants for less than $20 a pair.)

There are two hefty bags of stuff I need to get Canadian Diabetes to nip around and pick up for Value Village.

I will not buy unmentionables used. For those, I waited until my favourite online store had a 30% off sale and invested $120 in six new bras and twelve pairs of underpants. They're a size smaller than I wear now, so they'll fit, but I can shrink into them. (You can't put a belt on a pair of underpants, and I was developing diaper butt and chafing because they were so loose.)

Skirts and dresses are a non-starter in the area where I live in the winter. For several weeks, the high was -25C to -30C *before* the wind chill factor. And as much as I'd like to do thrift shops, the only close one has nasty selection and nothing big enough that even my reduced size will fit.

I really did wait until things got to where I started looking stupid before I spent the money. Clothing isn't really part of my budget and I'm not used to having to buy it. I've got stuff in the closet that's been there since the late 90s.

=Betty=

I really waited as long as I could to buy new clothes ESPECIALLY bottoms. I walked around with my jeans sagging for months because I was in between sizes and just kept losing, along with the fact that like you I didnt wanna waste my money. Once I got down to my final target I bought new jeans, but tops I kinda bought as I went along, but the most dramatic differences were more in my jeans and shorts than anything else.

Another option to buying new clothes is to have your old ones taken in. This is cheaper than purchasing new and will work for a size or two. I wear slacks to work and have had them taken in once, I'm thinking about taking them in again, because, like you, I don't have a lot of money to spend on buying new clothes. I find the thrift stores and resale stores around here only have fairly small sizes, when you start at a 24 it takes awhile to get into the small sizes. I have invested in new bras--I had a fitting so they actually fit now--and new underwear. I just hate that creepy feeling like your underwear is falling down. I have dresses that I wear in the summer time that will work as I lose weight. The skirts I have I can take in as needed. I find tops are generally more forgiving but I have given the really big ones away.