Put away your purse & become debt-averse

hugglemonster

What a great post, never brought terrible sparkly items but have had my fair share of outfits that I got for a specific occasion then last minute wore something I already had!

I actually have a clothes crisis at the minute, going out for a few drinks with visiting family tonight and have nothing to wear except work clothes which are sports clothes.

H x

Onebrokelady

foxgloves wrote: »

Hello dear readers,
I promised you a bit of a Debtisode last time, didn't I? Or more to the point, to discuss my past dubious relationship with that additional festive budget-buster, the Christmas Outfit. Oh my days, how many failures have I had over the years in this confidence-sapping department?!
So, I didn't used to budget at all.....I've already explained my past method of dealing with the arrival of bank statements, those arriving in December being particularly horrid, because they were a herald for the even worse ones to follow in January & February, when my festive spending really came home to roost. And I always spent more than I earned. This happened every month. I didn't even have to look at my statement properly (just as well, as I never did) to know this, as every 6 months, my bank at the time would send me a helpful mailing showing a series of bar charts, one for each month, simply showing 'Funds in' & 'Funds out'.......no prizes for guessing which bar was always bigger than the other one!
So With no budget whatsoever in place, no tracking of funds, I'd set about my usual gift-buying, which I've always loved, & would never have a target spend per person or overall amount in mind......I'd just buy until it 'looked like' each recipient had enough. Then there'd be extra going out, extra food & treats, new bits & pieces for my house inspired by tempting articles in all those Christmas magazines I also used to buy, & crafty bits & pieces for making Yule-y things..........& just when you'd think I really should have been about ready to shut myself in my big old dark spidery circa 1900 pantry in order to stop myself spending money that wasn't mine, I'd realise, shock horror, that I HADN'T GOT ANYTHING TO WEAR ON CHRISTMAS DAY!!!! Not literally nothing, of course, as in I'm the only one eating my turkey sitting there in my bra & pants, maybe draped in a couple of tea towels for modesty's sake. No, I mean as in I hadn't got a new Christmas outfit. Back into the city centre to try & find something. This would always be the last thing I'd buy, so it would be getting very close to Christmas & I'm quite a difficult size to fit, as I'm reasonably plumptious in the womanly sense, but not very tall. I don't know why I got into the mindset of needing something new for basically one day, which would be spent with my family, anyway, not going out anywhere dressy. And of course I could never find anything I really liked, & would end up buying the 'best of a bad lot' option, not really liking it, & barely wearing it again, before it schlepped off to the charity shop. There is a photo of me, taken on Christmas Day, back during the Spendy Years. I'm sitting on the sofa with my Gran. She looks perfectly happy in what she's wearing.....her usual black trousers with a nice baggy floral jumper. I am wearing a hideous pale purple top with a shocking pink sequin rose, although it looks like a sort of sparkly triffid attempting to crawl over my shoulder. I hated that top. You can tell by my facial expression in that photo that I am grudging every single minute of wearing the bloody thing. And as for the black culottes I bought to go with it? I haven't even got them on! I remember thinking they made me look even shorter, so I wore a black skirt I'd already got instead. I do still have the earrings. I have maybe worn them a total of 6 times in all those years, as they hurt my ears & I don't really like the colour. What a waste of money all of that was - at least I don't recall buying new boots that year......I used to be the most dreadful sucker for new boots.......I still could be, actually, but it's well under control now. Anyway my dears, put that tale on rinse & repeat, sometimes buying a second outfit if I decided I didn't like the first one even enough to wear under duress, pretty much every year, until I had my damascene conversion & decided I utterly detested permanently being in debt.
Things are so different now.
On Christmas Day 2016, I felt really confident in my outfit. It looked good, was comfortable to wear & cost £5.98. A sheer slinky black top with a purple velvet maxi tube skirt (two lucky charity shop finds earlier that year). With some kitten heeled boots I have owned for years. Last year, I did have a new dress, but it was one I'd had my eye on for a while & I bought it using my treat money from when I opened my 2017 sealed pot. I wore it with my DMs. This year, I will either be wearing that again because I love it, or if my tummy is feeling a bit podgy (I've taken my eye off the ball with my dieting since all the stress with my Mum), I will wear the nice short black dress I swapped with my sister - we both had a dress we no longer wore, so swapped with each other for a free outfit. I have some outlandish tights I received as a gift, which I can put with that in vivid patterns in shades of green, so with black boots, that will also be a good spend-free outfit.
I really dislike the photo of me in that bloody horrible sequin top, but I've kept it as it's a good one of my Gran. In the unlikely event that I get the urge to go shopping for an unnecessary outfit to wear for pretty much one day, I shall be able to get that photo out to deter spending, unless it's on something I will wear a lot & that I totally love.
I know we've a few ex- big spenders on here - anyone else been lured by unsuccessful sparkly purchases to wear at Christmas? OBL, I reckon you've maybe bought a few, lol!
Enjoy your Friday night, all,
F xx

Ere what you tryin to say.........of course I've never done that :rotfl:

Awww who am I trying to kid,yes there have been a few Xmas outfit purchases in the past but usually my obsession is finding a sparkly top ,If I'm not wearing my work uniform I wear jeans,they are smart skinny jeans if I'm at my goal weight or smart straight legs if I've been naughty,so for Xmas I used to like to dress them up with a sparkly top,I don't know why because they aren't very comfortable to wear at all
I would justify the spend by convincing myself I would wear the top on nights out throughout the year,but this never happened
I've only had one successful Xmas top shop and it shouldn't have been really,I went into a well known shop in desperation and saw a lovely thin v neck jumper with little diamante stones dotted over the front,the only problem was they only had it in a 16 and Im a 12 so I bought it anyway and didn't even try it on,I reasoned I could take it back,
It actually looked really nice and was comfy and because it was a 16 it hid w a mutlittude of sins that result from living on mince pies and eating Yule log for breakfast,I still sometimes wear it now
I got over the sparkly top obsession a couple of years ago and invested in. Christmas T shirt,it's the best thing ever, everyone expects me to wear it because it's Christmas ,it was cheap,it's really comfy and looks great with my jeans 😂😂

crazy_cat_lady

Foxgloves, I love reading your stories - and your top has made me think of Audrey 2 from Little Shop of Horrors :rotfl:
No new clothes for me for Christmas - definitely not this year. If I wasn't going out Christmas Day I'd probably stay in my new jammies for Christmas. I'll make it into jeans and a hoody this year I think. Thankfully my lack of self esteem has stopped me from ever enjoying buying clothes - although I have always more than made up for it with shoes :rotfl:

1LuckyLady

I'm like CCL on this, low self esteem , it wasn't clothes or shoes for me, it had to be a new handbag for me until Dec 2013 when I got the perfect bag for me which I use everyday (has had the lining sewn up once) and will be gutted when it breaks.

DawnW

Handbags for me too, 1LL. I am still searching for the perfect one, and have far too many

Thick_n_Thin

Definitely no new clothes for me this year too!

foxgloves

OBL- You're right - sequinny tops aren't comfortable, & the sequins have usually started dropping off before you've even got as far as passing the bread sauce. I'm so over sequins.

CCL - Oh, yes, it WAS an Audrey 2, lol, hideous.....I wouldn't have been surprised if it had suddenly spotted a mince pie & growled 'Feed me....now!!'

1LL & Dawn - I love handbags & am also looking for the perfect one. I like different compartments, but not as many as you get in 'organiser' bags. I like large bags, but also want a secure zip fastening which many of the bigger bags don't seem to have. An expensive bag I almost succumbed to in a shop that's 'never knowingly undersold' recently had a magnetic fastener & of the 6 I tested, only 1 really felt like a sufficiently strong magnet to work, & still very easy for a pickpocket to get their hand inside if I was in a crowd. I also like a deep bag so I can take a bottle of water with me, but not a rucksack as it's too much faff to keep taking it on & off my back - though I do have a flowery summer one for walking, as I like my hands free then. I ideally like leather, but not at a ridiculous price. I would go to £100, maybe £120 tops for something so perfect I know I would get the 5 plus years out of it I want & would expect. I opened my sealed pot last night (not part of the MSE official challenge) I only save 50ps, but there was enough there to buy a really nice bag if I see something......the thing is, I probably won't, as so few bags fulfil all my criteria. Will wait for the January Sales, but if it doesn't look perfect, this time it will not be purchased.

And I don't need any boots.......yet. Though my beloved 18-year old purple DMs are nearly worn through & I'll be truly sad when they finally depart for the great shoe rack in the sky & will certainly replace those.

foxgloves

Oh my goodness.....I've just remembered another Christmas outfit failure. Years ago, way before I met mr f, I was right up at the far end of a high street I rarely visited & found a little independent boutique, which was a bit of a mish-mash but not that expensive. I found a black dress on the sale rail - I liked it.......on somebody else......or hanging up in the shop, but knew it wasn't a suitable style for me. It had been reduced, I can't remember by how much, I think I paid just under £30. But the point I'm making is that despite knowing it a) wouldn't fit me properly and b) wouldn't suit me even if it DID fit me properly, I STILL WENT AHEAD & BOUGHT IT!!! I didn't even try it on in the shop. That little delight was saved for when I got home, when I discovered how accurate my assessment had been, Because it didn't fit me properly & the style wasn't me. The sensible financial thing to do at this point would simply have been to take it back & either exchange it or ask for a refund, but instead, I cut off the weird bow thing round the waist & undid some darts, so I could get the thing done up. But I didn't like it enough to wear for Christmas, so wore something I'd already got. That dress hung on my clothes rail for ages completely unworn, until I decided that I might wear it it it didn't have funereal sleeves, so I unpiggled those & took them off. I then had a sleeveless dress I didn't like, which didn't suit me & now looked a complete mess. A few more months passed & I cut it up completely & gave the black velvet to my Mum for her crafting. This was a very long time ago, it's talking to you about wasting money on unloved Christmas outfits that has made me think of it. It had shoulder pads in it too which shows you just how long ago it was. You know, I wonder if the boutique owner had, had the blimmin' thing in stock for years & was so relieved when a money wasting narna came in one afternoon & she finally got shot of it! I do remember that it had what appeared to be diamante on the velvet part of the dress, but when I got it home & looked at it in better light, it was tiny blobs of some kind of glitter glue.
Anyway, it too was a perfectly horrid dress & another one to file under Christmas Outfit Waste of Money! Was it worse than the Christmas sequinny triffid top? Yes, I think it definitely was, as at least I wore the triffid - there is photographic evidence of that, sadly!
Time to put the kettle on,
F x

foxgloves

Well would you Christmas Eve it??!
I've just read in the Giardian weekend mag that assymetrical sequins are 'in' - maybe that 'Audrey 2' top was a couple of decades ahead of its time.

Honeysucklelou2

Can't beat a pair of DMs!