Clothes catalogs, fashion magazines, fashion blogs, and shopping the clothing stores at the mall will give you a wealth of free style tips!

Window shopping without buying – you’ll get ideas yet save alot of money

Shopping for clothes is a hobby for many women, including me. I enjoy going through clothes catalogs, reading fashion magazines and blogs and I am always on the watch for some new piece for my wardrobe.  The economy is such that all women are conserving on apparel and accessories.  Enjoy window shopping for clothes and accessories and get good fashion ideas from it when you want to shop but can’t afford to spend.

I’m really skilled at avoiding spending at the stores when shopping.  I enjoy window shopping and only periodically really spend money on clothes.  I really have to love it to buy it.  I’ll get a few new things every once in a while and I’m perfectly okay with that.  Sure everyone would like to have unlimited resources.  But if you spend some time looking at ideas and figuring out what really looks attractive on you, then you can still look amazing at a fraction of the price.  I definitely can say that working on this web site has made me light years more fashion conscious than I ever was before, largely because now I am really looking carefully. 

Every time I have taken photographs for my blog I look at the clothes thinking wow I could have worn something so much better than that!  I notice all my fashion mistakes because they are right there in the photographs.  Well dressed women that we envy because they are always dressed so great … not all of them are rich celebrities.  Many just spend a lot of time picking and choosing and some women are more natural at it than others.  If you are short on funds here are five reasons that window shopping (without spending anything) is a good thing to do.

You get out of the house

It is always good to get out of the house and do something that is fun and takes your mind off work and other responsibilities.  Window shopping is actually a good form of exercise.  Sometimes I have walked through the entire town near to where I live just checking out shops and looking around.  I browse at the clothing boutique shops, go to the bookstore, and look at home decorating stores, etc.  Or I spend time at the mall.  I’m always enjoying it and thinking of ideas.  And, it’s good exercise.  I walk quite a bit for exercise and since I usually go alone so I am limited in how into the wilderness I go.  I walk in my neighborhood, but often for a change of pace I will walk into town or go into town and procrastinate through the stores.  Shopping is actually good exercise.

You get ideas of what looks good

I like to always get ideas of what type of things look good to me.  This gives me inspiration.  I might go back to my closet and relook at the things in it and decide to wear something I have been ignoring.  It gives me motivation to go through my things and try to find the cuter items and actually wear them.  I also like to study the merchandise in the designer stores and then see if I can find similar but less expensive items at other stores.  I surf catalogs on the internet sometimes too, just to get ideas and look at pictures.

You don’t stress out over what you bought

If you are on a budget there is always second guessing that happens after you’ve made a purchase and the shopping “high” has had a chance to wear off.  You wonder, should I have bought that.  You ask yourself if you spent too much.  Then you start to wonder how good it really looks.  Self doubt creeps in.  You might even have to make an annoying return.  So you wonder, why am I making work for myself?  I have found that if you window shop quite a bit, then when you finally do make some purchases you are far more likely to be confident and sure of what you got.  It makes you hold out for things and then once you get them, they are more likely to be what you really wanted at a price you know was good.  So, if you do some window shopping just for fun, it really helps.  You won’t have to stress out about impulse purchases and you will have confidence in yourself when you finally do break out the wallet.

You don’t have to try it on

I love looking at the clothes on the racks, the outfits that are put together on all the dazzling displays and how they decorate the store windows in cute outfits.  That is the fantasy.  But the shopping reality we all know is quite different.  You can look longingly at some Lucky jeans however the reality is trying on twenty pairs to find something totally flattering on your body and then agonizing and deciding on it.  Sometimes we forget how grueling real shopping can be.  Shopping like, bathing suit shopping.  Or, shopping for jeans or for a dress you need for an event.  Trying on however many shirts after poring through the racks.  Just a reminder that every once in a while it’s nice just to browse and remember you don’t have to grunt down and really work to find the right fit.  You don’t have to undress and dress fifty times.  You’re just enjoying yourself and having fun.

You save money

One of the stresses of the holiday season is financial.  All the presents you might need to get for close family members and friends.  What it will cost.  All of the things that you would like to buy.  Then, there are the sales.  You want to go because you know there are the best deals, yet even if it is a good deal, your money will be spent.  Your money is precious and department store sales and twinkly malls and all the incentives are there to make you want to spend it.  Over the past few years I have become really quite good at avoiding spending money on myself for clothes, apparel and accessories.  But I still enjoy looking for sure.  I love window shopping and can spend hours doing it.  One of the nice things about window shopping is that you get a better idea of what you really want and are willing to spend money on.  I go into stores all of the time, yet I only actually buy the clothes occasionally. 

Every four to six months, is when I really start to feel like wow I need to look better, fancier, prettier, sparkly, etc.  It is at that point that I might make just a few purchases to spruce up my wardrobe.  But I am pretty careful about what I buy and how much I spend.  Since my weight is pretty stable from regular exercise I totally avoid having to buy clothes because of needed larger or smaller sizes.  This is both a blessing and a curse because on the one hand I have clothes that fit me for decades, but on the other hand I have alot of out of style items hanging around.

I can go for a really long time without spending money on clothes.  I just look.  Then, when I finally do buy some things, I usually feel pretty good about it.  I probably spend only a few hundred dollars a year on clothes.  It varies, but I would say I come in easily at under $500/year for sure.  I’m probably around $300-$400 range clothing budget per year on average.  That includes everything for me – shoes, clothing, and accessories, lingerie and purses.  I’ve seen figures posted on wiki stating that women on average can spend more like $1700 per year on just clothes alone!

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Love clothes shopping department stores and mall? Five good reasons to look before you buy! Designer store displays are gorgeous and full of ideas!