Day 6 - Embrace Used Clothes on eBay

After turning my personal finances around just by spending 60 minutes every day on small projects I decided to share everything I learned to get my self in a better position when it comes to money. I will be serializing all the 60 minute projects so other people can try them to get their finances in better shape. Most of these tasks will take no more than an hour and it's those tasks that we love to put off. So join me from Day 1 to Day 13 to see if you can get yourself in a more prosperous place financially.

Day 6 - Embrace Used Clothes

When you meet people for the first time the clothes you wear partly determines what people think about you. If you wear designer clothes people will think you are flash. If you repeatedly wear old clothes people will think you are cheap. You can save a lot of money by not buying clothes however your image will suffer and you'll end up in ever decreasing circles which is very bad if you're looking for opportunities. To find a balance you can embrace used clothes.

If you think about it the value of clothes significantly falls as soon as you buy it, it'similar to buying a new car from a showroom. The best point to buy clothes and retain value is when they are used. If a new Armani Classic Jacket costs around $300 then after several uses the resale value falls to $50 and then remains around that figure as long as the jacket does not endure heavy wear and tear. If you can buy the jacket at $50 then you can hold onto the value and then sell it on at the same price.

Before my financial reincarnation I always bought new, most of the clothes in my cupboard still had their labels on them. In Day 5 I was determined to overhaul my wardrobe. I worked out that I needed 4 shirts, 4 trousers, 8 vests, 8 underwear, 4 pairs of socks, 2 suits, 5 ties, and 2 winter coats, and 2 summer jackets. Anything else was surplus to requirements. I choose the clothes that I wanted to keep and then kept the surplus to sell on eBay.com. It's surprisingly easy to post items on eBay and I posted about 40 items in half an hour with my smartphone. All you have to do is join eBay, take a picture and then put it on auction with the briefest descriptions. The title and picture quality is most important.

Having a de-cluttered wardrobe brings clarity to your thinking. You can make quicker decisions about what to wear and not waste time trying several shirts on to see which one looks the best. I also investing some money to buy some needles and thread as well as some dye. I was determined to keep the clothes looking good by repairing them and dying jeans and trousers. It really irritates me to see how people throw away perfectly good clothes because they can't be bothered to put a button back on.

Whenever I have the compulsion to buy a new item I always buy used from eBay. I don't let my wardrobe get out of hand and always keep the balance by selling an item that I'm going to buy. I see no point in accumulating clothes, it's just a waste of space. eBay is a great place to pick up designer clothes and shoes. I was able to buy a pair of Nike shoes only worn a few times for $15, normally I would have to pay $100 if it was new.

Being able to embrace designer used clothes means that you can slash your clothes budget drastically. Normally I was spending around £100 per month on our families clothes, now we don't even come close to £30 and the quality of the clothes we purchase is much better and holds its value. We could easily sell these clothes if we wanted to raise some cash.

If you spend £100 per month on your clothes then over a lifetime of 40 years you'll spend £48,000. Suppose you cut back to £30 you'll only end up spending £14,400. That's a saving of £33,600. If you overspend on clothes then you're throwing away extra units of happiness for your future. Embrace used clothes over a period of time and your financial position will increase day by day.