I must confess, with less than two weeks to go in the month, I failed my June goal to limit my clothing purchases this month to a dress for BF’s sister’s wedding. Not only did I exceed the $75 budget that I set for myself (dress=$97 + $18 alterations= $115. $40 over budget!) but I also picked up a pair of sparkly flip flips ($10 at Rite Aid- Bargain!) to wear a the reception when my feet are tired from my kick-butt peep toe pumps! It didn’t even dawn on me that I was failing at this goal as I purchased the flip flops- I didn’t even think of them as clothes.. but it is what it is…
Speaking of the dress for M’s wedding (pictured on the right). It ended up being extremely similar to a black dress I had in my closet (the one on the left). This is just testament that this style of dress really flatters my curvy figure. I think I mentioned that I got a size 6 but needed a 4, I had the dress taken in and it fits great now.
For altering the dress I had two options.
- Option A: The first place I went to wanted to charge me $50+ for the alteration. The dress is lined, and there is a side zipper, so to take a little out of each side and replace the zipper it would be a lot of work.
- Option B: The second place I went to was willing to take it all out of one side (the one without the zipper) , which will cause the sides to be slightly uneven, but would cost less than $20.
I went with Option B and I don’t regret it. I think you would be hard pressed to determine which side was taken in. You be the judge.
Back to the original topic of this post… My June Clothing failure. It was 5 days later, when I had just hit the confirm button on Shirt.Woot.com that it hit me, whoops I am buying clothes! I have to say, the $10 tee-shirt purchase was worth it. Who could pass down a visual representation of “turn down the suck, turn up the good”?

TURN DOWN THE SUCK, TURN UP THE GOOD! from http://www.shirt.woot.com
Obviously not me :-). I totally beat BF to the punch- he wanted this shirt too, and we have a strict “no matching shirts” policy! Lol… so all in all I went $60 over my clothing budget for the month… not horrible… but I’ll be sure to do better next time!
Amy,
Loved the dress. It was worth every penny. I’ll show it to grandma the next time she is over. My garden is doing okay despite a week or more of rain. I spent a good deal of time pulling slugs off the lettuce leaves and the basil tonight using my salad tongs. They worked quite well but I left them outside and doubt that I will use them again for salad. The bad news/good news is that they love marigolds so they were pretty distracted by them and left the veggies relatively alone. The bad news is that the marigolds are decimated. I put out two tuna fish cans full of beer. I guess they like it and crawl in and drown. Aunt Jane
🙂 Oh… sorry about your salad tongs! I doubt I would use them for salad again too. I use slug bait, they have some that are safe for kids and pets (iron phosphate)- my boxes are also elevated on bricks and I think that has kept the slugs at bay. I like the idea of the slugs going out in style- all liquored up! I may start to see more slugs, we are starting to get the rain you guys have had… yuck.. it’s so dreary!
On the up side, the dress is really cute….and I agree, flip flops don’t really count as clothes…maybe as entertainment…is there any money left in that budget?
Oh yeah! The entertainment budget has been cut drastically, there’s lots of room there… although cutting back on “fun” spending, it’s made us a little cranky… we had a date last night- used a gift certificate to a fancy movie place (move + dinner and drinks = $100!) to see the Hangover- funny movie. Don’t think we’d go back there with our own money any time soon… 🙂 The limiting the clothing budget was really just an exercise in making a goal and trying to meet it. 🙂