£67,031.92 is a frightening number indeed....

XSpender

It is difficult to give a suggested budget for someone for clothes, skincare etc as so much of it is down to personal choice and hair and skin types. I work in a professional role for a prestige brand so also have a certain standard of appearance I am expected to adhere to. When I’m not at work or a social event I couldn’t care less and slob about in my next jeggings.

I use supermarket brand, simple or Nivea skincare. The Aldi stuff is award winning and really nice to use. Shampoo and conditioner is mid range, still available from the supermarket. I recently moved up from supermarket own and my hair is nicer. I have ‘normal’ skin and hair so did not special lotions and potions to manage dry or greasy skin or whatever.

Hair care. I spend £50 every 6-8 weeks on a cut and blow dry. I have poker straight hair and a poor cut shows up really badly. I do dye it myself and have recently discovered Superdrug do a 10minute dye which are usually on offer for 2 for £10 I think. I do buy a product from the hairdressers for about £16 but it lasts 6 months.

I rarely use anything but Bobby Brown make up. I wear it when I am client facing and in social situations. I don’t buy it very often but it is not cheap. It cost me £70 recently to replace 3 items. It does last for ages though, so much so that when I go to replace anything they have stopped doing that colour or changed the formula:rotfl:

Clothes. Hmm, I have expensive tastes. I don’t buy clothes often but will buy mainly high end high street with very occasionally more expensive pieces (Hugo Boss fits me like a dream) maybe 3 times a year at most. I find it false economy to buy too cheap as it doesn’t last. The items I wear year after year have cost more initially but are still going strong e.g Karen Miller knitwear, all saints dresses, sea folly swimwear, Levi skinny jeans. I do buy Sainsbury’s tights though . I would say about £100/month plus birthday and Christmas money.

Perfume is usually a gift.

I do have a lot of debt but very little, if any, is down to what I spend on clothes or myself.

Silver_Queen

TOPM, I usually spend about £50 per month on clothes and shoes but I'm building up a capsule wardrobe with investment pieces. I work in a field where people are usually incredibly well off and o started to feel out of place with the way I was dressed, which is why I've been doing this.

Skincare and make up are my weaknesses but I usually subsidise this out of my personal budget. I would estimate I spend about £50-80 per month on skincare, make up, perfume, toiletries etc. I have played around with practically every brand under the sun and have found the things that work for me now so I don't tend to usually stray. I know you didn't ask but I can't resist talking about it :rotfl:. Feel free to skip the next bit if you're not a skincare/make up addict like me.

I have two cleansers: body shop camomile cleansing butter and cerave moisturising face wash used with a flannel. Moisturiser: I was previously using a Korean moisturiser called belif true cream which I adored but it was too expensive for me to keep buying from Korea (£40+) so I switched to a uk brand (herbivore) which I hated and now I've found a cheaper Korean brand which works better for me (etude house Soon Jung), it costs £10 for 60ml and I like it better than the creme de la mer, Sunday Riley, Est!e Lauder, Clinique moisturisers that I've used in the past. It's incredibly moisturising but not thick and heavy on the skin like the others I've mentioned. For reference, I have sensitive dry skin which I abused for years believing it was oily. I also use The Ordinary's retinoid, squalane and Marula oil and find that they do the job relatively well, but if I am religious to cleanse with a flannel and moisturise twice daily, they're actually not that necessary. The moisturiser does a good job at keeping my skin supple which then avoids need for extra moisturisation. Perfume I get on special occasions as it's not cheap (tom ford) so I don't budget for that.

I have implemented a one in, one out policy on my make up because I was just going crazy with it. I can only buy more if I use up, give away or throw away something old. Since I'm such a cheap skate, I just tend not to buy any more make up because I won't throw away the stuff I already have unless I have to!

Went off on a bit of a tangent there...!

Sea_Shell

XSpender wrote: »

I do have a lot of debt but very little, if any, is down to what I spend on clothes or myself.

Sorry to digress, but this had me scratching my head.

Surely the two must be related?? If less was spent on clothes, then debt could be reduced, even if the debt itself is not clothes related.

Treadingonplaymobil

Thanks for all your thoughts. The thing that's made me think I need to put a firm budget around my clothes etc spending is that when I first contemplated it, it made me enormously uncomfortable, which for me is a sure sign it needs addressing.

I know that there are times when I get a huge chunk of money in, and I immediately have a major splurge. I then don't save sensibly, so I still often end up struggling to find the money for the clothes I need when I urgently need to replace something (I tend to spend the big chunks of income on single expensive items and very expensive skincare/make up rather than rationing it out over a few months). I think putting a firm budget around it, even a slightly generous one, would actually be positive in the long run as I wouldn't need to borrow money from other pots when my feast and famine income is in a famine period. It would also be another step in training me out of my still-not-eliminated shopping binges.

I also don't manage my wardrobe remotely carefully, so I frequently find that I don't have what I need because I spent all my money on one wonderful coat or a pair of enormously expensive boots or whatever. I think having a set income per month (which is what I always advise to anyone who asks me about wardrobe planning!) would force me to plan a little more, rather than thinking 'oh, I'll buy new exercise gear when I next have a chunk of money in, but for now I'm going to throw away £200 on an extra coat,' and never buying the exercise gear because something else new and shiny comes along and eventually I need to rob another pot because my leggings have gaping rips in them where I've put my foot through a hole, instead of spending £100 on the coat and £100 on exercise gear, for example.

I'm trying to write down my thought process as I go, as I want to be sensible about this, and I know I struggle HUGELY with cutting my own indulgences - I'm much better at cutting indulgences for other members of my family .

Taking an average over the past 12 months, I've spent £240 per month on all clothes, skincare, haircuts and products and make up. It's been much less in the last three months because of a change I made to how much I allocate myself for clothes, but that cut has been a real challenge (I have budgeted, and spent, around £100pm). That's absolutely everything - I never pick up skincare in my weekly shop or anything like that, so it's all clearly laid out here.

I'm actually mortified typing all of this, as the numbers are so huge, but I think it's important that I address this, and you've all been here for the other moments of hand-throwing-up horror, so you might as well share this one too.

Working it out, it breaks down as roughly:
£20pm on hair
£130pm on clothes
:eek: :eek: :eek: £90pm on skincare, make up and the odd facial (three over the last year, but they are £50+ a pop). :eek: :eek: :eek:

Writing that down it is very very clear that I'm not planning well, as really I should be able to spend a lot less on skincare and make up (HOW am I spending that much? I know exactly how, of course, but it's bonkers nonetheless), and I should have a much better wardrobe for £130pm. Honestly, I'm horrified at the skincare/make up aspect! I would have guesstimated it at £40pm.

So I'm thinking I could, in the first instance, cut my skincare and make up budget dramatically. In fact, maybe three separate pots to avoid me being tempted to blow all my money on pricey skincare would be a good start :eek: . Hair cost is fairly civilised, I'm not too worried about that, and I suspect it's actually even less than that - I've been known to go six months without a haircut without even noticing, as my hair is long and in pretty good condition - the extra probably gets absorbed by more skincare .

So maybe a budget of:
£20 on hair
£140 on clothes
£40 on skincare and make up <wibble>

Which is still a big sum, but at least comes in at £200 for the lot, which would be a step down from my 12 month average. I know that if I aim for a teeny weeny sum, I absolutely won't stick to it, so I'm not going to pretend it's going to be £50pm for everything, or even £100pm for everything.

I am undecided still, to be honest. I'm so uncomfortable putting a firm limit on this, as I love the opportunity to have a massive splurge every now and again, but equally I can see how selfish that is when we've made sweeping cuts in various family budget pots like holidays and entertainment over the past 18 months. I have been able to avoid facing up to this one for a long time because it currently comes out of my business account (not as a tax deductible spend, sadly), so it conveniently gets missed every time we have a fine-toothcomb look through our expenses.

I should also mention that, unsurprisingly I buy natural fibres, natural/organic make up and skincare products and shop from sustainable retailers, which inevitably adds a few £££ to the price. As always, that's not going to change, so I'm not going to pretend otherwise. It's why the DCs clothing budget remains fairly high too (works out as £45pm per child for clothes and haircuts).

Part of me is already going 'it's ok, you're paying debt down while allowing yourself this, so it's ok to continue' because I am so hating the idea of cutting it. I am trying to firmly ignore that part of me for a little longer while I look at this with my grown up head on.

System

Please ignore me if this has been asked before, in your line of business are you able to get discounts on clothes, make up , beauty care etc. If you need to look good for your business then you need to spend the money , so how many % of your profit do you allocate to your budget for all the clothes etc. You may have touched on this already as well.

enthusiasticsaver

I am very surprised at the amount you and xspender spend on clothes to be honest. £240 per month on personal spends when you have cut every other budget is surprising when you have credit card debt, are saving for an extension and your car is on its last legs. It is obviously surprising to you too but I wonder if you justify it to yourself by saying you have to look good for your business when I bet your clients really could not care less whether you are dressed in high end clothes rather than high street. Can you honestly say you would lose business by spending say £50 per month on clothes? That is a lot less than you are currently spending but it is doable so I wonder if a little bit of lifestyle creep is coming in again now.

Sea_Shell

Wow, those numbers!!! :eek::eek:

That's more than my annual spend!

The_Moo

I know that ethical products are important to you TOPM. Have you ever considered the ethics of cosmetics? Any brand that sells in China is tested on animals. Knowing that fact has put a stop to me spending on many cosmetics brands because I cannot support animal testing for beauty products.

ellen_vannin

I know what you mean when you say you have to look good for your job, but your spend still seems excessive , given your amount of debt and cutbacks elsewhere in the budget.

Use of sales for basics and cashback etc, can make the budget stretch.

Also branded skincare - you are often paying for the packaging, fancy counters in stores etc.

Let's face it - you would not have mentioned it , if you did not think it was excessive yourself.

Honeysucklelou2

Is there any way you can make a note of your outfit when you undertake client facing appointments? If you know what you wore when you saw client A on a particular day, you could make sure it was something different the next time you saw them and perhaps rotate outfits or match /accessorie to get maximum usage, if that makes sense.