I can't quite believe that Christmas is over for another year. I hope you all had a wonderful holiday! I guess it's time for me to ease back into my blogging routine. With just a couple of days left in the year, I wanted to make sure to squeeze in my final clothing budget report for 2010. In my mid-year update, I shared that we had spent a total of $99.54 on clothing for the first half of the year. Since then, I picked up a number of items at yard sales in July and August:
$1.00 for a black button down shirt for me
$2.00 for New Balance runners for hubby
$3.50 for 2 T-shirts, 1 long sleeve T and a denim stretch jacket for me
$0.50 for a long sleeve thermal undershirt for hubby
$1.00 for a short sleeve dress shirt for hubby
$3.00 for a long sleeve T, short sleeved summer blouse and black skirt for me
$5.00 for a Nike jacket
The total for these yard sale purchases was $16.00 for 12 items.
In late summer and early fall we hit several sale days at local thrift stores. A detailed report of our purchases at the Salvation Army and Value Village 50% off days is here. My boys needed a lot of new clothes so we ended up buying a lot - 32 items for $105.50. We also hit up Walmart to stock up on socks and underwear to the tune of $55.59.
After we completed those shopping trips, we had most of what we needed to meet our clothing needs until next spring. We checked out another 50% off day at Value Village in November, which I reported on here. We purchased 8 items for a total of $31.12 that day. I also picked up a couple of things at fall yard and rummage sales:
$2.00 for 2 pairs of running shoes for the boys
$1.00 for a pair of dockers-style pants for hubby
$1.00 for a long sleeved dress shirt for hubby
Our final purchase was a pair of winter gloves for my younger son at a local surplus store for $4.50.
That brings our total for the second half of the year to $216.71 - over twice what we spent the first half of the year! That is fairly typical for us I think, as we seem to need more items for the fall and winter months. Just over a quarter of this total was for socks and underwear alone. It always amazes me how much undergarments can eat into our clothing budget!
Our grand total for the year was $316.25 or $79.06 per person. I had guesstimated that we spend about $300 a year on clothes (this is the first year I've kept such detailed records on our clothing purchases) so it looks like my impression was pretty accurate.
How about you? How much does your family spend a year on clothing? Were you over or under your budget for the year?
I haven't ever thought of keeping track of the clothes we buy and the money we spend on them! Not sure why either!! We have gone to Goodwill a few times and also some garage sales to get the kids some stuff. We usually won't buy anything that isn't at a REALLY good sale price! Since we are adding our 5th child to the bunch in March I think we will begin keeping up with what and how much we are buying for clothes so that we don't end up spending and buying more than we need to! Thanks for the idea!
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