Shopping on a Budget: Are You Really Saving Money by Spending?

If you came here looking to find some great coupon offer on the latest fashion styles you have come to the wrong place. Those ideas and savings are all over the internet. What is not so clear is information that will be with you as a way of life so you can consistently shop and save with style.

So even without great coupons and the latest fashion trend you will be armed with four concepts that if used and understood properly will, in the long run, help you to shop fashionably and save within your budget.

Who knows, you could be the talk of the town with all your great fashion clothes that did not break the bank!

What is a budget really?

Your understanding of what a budget is and is not is important. The etymology of the word budget is from Latin “bulga” meaning leather bag or knapsack. It then moved to the Old French term of “bouge” meaning leather bag. It was later used to describe the contents of the leather bag, and now in English, it is budget, used for the government to private finances. Sort of like thinking what is in the financial bag and how can I manage it for my trip through life!

So for individuals, a budget would be planned spending, designed to enhance one’s life with the money available inside the financial bag. It should be money used to pay for the quality of life with existing money in the bag, not future money.

You cannot spend what you do not have. So for the first concept, let’s look at your clothing money, specifically money that you wish to buy fashionable clothes with as a planned spending bag. You will only use it when you have it. So relax, just enjoy the buildup of the money in anticipation of planning to spend it on your fashion desires. You will save substantial money as this also gives you the time to search for those great coupons deals.

So concept number one makes your budget shopping a planned spending system, not drudgery or being enslaved to it. Shopping is designed to enhance your life, not enslave your life.

Shopping on a budget: Do you really save by spending?

We are bombarded daily, almost hourly by marketing ads and emails and text messages that if you buy this or that “NOW”, as it is a limited time offer, that you will save so much money! However, is that really true?

If you had not planned on spending it, to begin with, but the marketing ploy pushed your mental emotions into buying something you did not intend to buy, did you really save money? The obvious answer is “No”.

You need to ask yourself if you really did save if you now have buyer’s remorse or try to justify the purchase.

We understand that going shopping and buying fashion clothes is exciting and fun, but not if you bought it on a whim. It is only by planned budgeting and not spending to save that you will get ahead of this game of staying fashionable and happy at the same time.

So concept number two is that you do not save by spending when you did not initially intend to spend. This leads us to the next point!

What does buyer psychology have to do with Fashion Shopping?

Human beings are amazing but sometimes confusing creatures. When it comes to our purchases there is one inescapable mental psychology that we all are afflicted with that we need to control. It is as follows:

People purchase stuff based on emotions and justify later with logic

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If you can come to terms with this in your own life, you will save lots of money while on the hunt for fashion and style in your clothing choices. If you think about it, almost all ads, copy write, email marketing and so forth understand this concept fully.

You will be flooded with a lack in your life if you do not have this, or buy that. You will not be given the features as much as you will be given benefits. We do not blame the marketers for this. That is their job and they do it well.

However, you need to slow down long enough to ask yourself logic questions about buying this fashion item or that fashion item. You need to ask yourself why you will be happy with this outfit six months from now.

If you do not, you may end up in your life with closets full of clothing and well over 50 to 100 pairs of shoes you never wear consistently. You just bought them on the emotional moment at the time, wasted your precious budget money on them, and now seldom wear them. This is an insane herd mentality!

So concept number three is to understand that we all buy with emotions, and justify later with logic. The idea here is to be the master of your own emotions and logic out to some degree your fashion purchases within your planned budget shopping.

Maybe it is time to lower your interest in Credit!

Utilizing credit is one of the biggest issues that can hurt most Americans. It is the ease of access that puts us into thousands upon thousands of unpaid back monies that put most Americans on the brink of bankruptcy. Think about the following statement for a few minutes:
If it is in your budget, why would you need credit?
Think about this logically for a second. Suppose you were to see a hundred dollar, very fashionable dress on sale for 10% discount. You emotionally had to have it, but you did not have the money in your fashion account yet, so emotions got the better of you and you purchased it on credit at 18%. So, to keep it simple, you used $90 on credit and brought your emotional purchase home.

You wore the outfit 3 times over the next month. In the meantime, you could not cover the entire $90 when the bill came in but only about $30 of this bill. You now have $60 that is at 18% costs, which going into next month would now cost you about 1.5%. So now your bill is $61.90.

You just lost nineteen percent ($1.9 / $10 x 100 = 19%) of your original savings of $10 off of that dress. Every month that you did not pay the credit back increases your loss against the original savings.

Now simply compound this scenario with about 10 other pieces of fashionable clothing you emotionally bought on sale with credit and did you really get the savings you were looking for?

So concept number four is to only use credit with money you already have when it comes to buying your clothes.

If it is easier to use a credit card and then simply pay it off every month with the money that you already have, then that is okay.

So the fourth concept is to not let the use of credit destroy your fashion budget shopping. Use cash or credit as a cash equivalent with money you already have.

I hope that these four concepts will be part of your life as you do your coupon and discount research on high-quality fashion clothing that will bring happiness and joy to your life, and not a burden.