Whether you’re searching for validation of your shopping habits or looking for advice to fundamentally change those spending patterns, the same question needs to be answered – how do we decide what is the ‘appropriate’ amount to spend on clothes?
The standard rule of thumb that the majority of financial advice online is pushing is that shopping should only account for 5% of your monthly income. Maximum. That’s shopping for clothes, accessories etc., not the necessities like groceries, cleaning products and all of those boring bits.
While it’s useful to have an actual calculation to work with, this number is just a standardised suggestion. The 5% rule doesn’t take into account any nuance, or agency on the part of the spender. This is not just me making excuses for spending far over that recommended amount on material goodies – although my semi-addictive relationship with The Iconic is an important bias to acknowledge.
There are a few key points you might take into consideration when deciding what amount of money is appropriate for you to be spending on clothes so that you can set your own, personalised budget.
Once it’s set, you’re much more likely to stick to it than if you’re in the game of estimating whether any individual purchase seems right in the moment. Not keeping track of shopping spends is the easiest way to let that number get scarily high.
The questions to ask yourself are mainly to do with your own priorities.
#1. Do you want quality or quantity?
Good quality clothes cost more but last longer. Bad quality clothes are cheaper but don’t last. The former requires access to bigger sums of money to spend at once – a luxury not everyone has, and the latter requires more regular spending.
Both add up cost-wise, though buying good quality and buying less is definitely a strategy that can save you cash in the long term.
#2. Is shopping ‘ethically’ a factor for you?
The fast fashion culture that we’re immersed in has us buying new clothes and throwing out old or ‘outdated’ clothes at an unsustainable pace. It burdens the environment at multiple levels of pollution and resource strain, and unless you choose your brands carefully, you are likely funding a clothing industry that exploits workers in underdeveloped countries. That is the reality of it.
The reality is also that not everyone is in a financial position to prioritise ‘ethical’ shopping, so we can’t lay a blanket judgment without considering the sliding scale of privilege.
But if shopping ‘ethically’ is something that you do want to take into consideration, that usually means spending more money on items – so make sure they’re good quality.
#3. How important are clothes to you?
Honestly this is just a super personal choice when it comes down to it. Maybe you work in fashion, and clothing is literally an important thing that you want to dedicate a larger portion of your budget to. Maybe you just love it and are willing to sacrifice other indulgences to buy ~things~.
You do you! So long as it’s sustainable for your budget (and the environment and workers too!) then there’s no rule that says you’re doing life wrong.
If you’re buying good quality clothes or ethically made clothes, and have your heart set on buying a lot of them, then of course your percentage spend on clothes might need a little more breathing room.
What it really comes down to is what you can take on along with the rest of your lifestyle costs vying for financial attention at the same time. So working out a budget and having that transparency in your spending just for yourself is the only way to really know what your personal limit is.
And that is definitely something on my own to do list.