So you have pants that fit - that's a big part of the budget right there! And you have a place to start.
What color are your pants? Do you have one pair of fabulous jeans?
I'll tell you what my VFBF (a shiny-ism for very fashionable best friend) did when she was starting out building her professional wardrobe. I thought this was very smart of her - it may sound boring, but it worked very very well:
She chose to start with a black and white/cream theme first. She built up a basic wardrobe around just those colors. Black dress slacks. Cream dress slacks. B&W tweed dress slacks. Black tops, cream tops, white tops, b&w patterned tops. Black jackets, cream jackets, white jackets, b&w tweed jackets. One black coat that can be dressed up or down, and one fabulous cream coat. And one great fitting pair of jeans.
She focused on those items first. It's true there were weeks when she wore black pants more than once - sometimes all 5 days. Nobody notices with pants. Just change up the top and jacket, and you're set.
She slowly accumulated each item over time, as budget allowed, picking only fabulously fitting items. Everything worked with everything else - that was the beauty of this simple color palette. For smart casual weekends, she just popped on her jeans and she was set to go.
She kept to basic black pumps and a grey & black patterned Coach bag (present from her mother) for a long while. Jewelry: she raided discount places. Fake diamond studs can look real.
Then next she started adding in some fun: I remember when she bought gorgeous red pumps! Then leopard printed pumps! Then metallic heels! We hit DSW every other week together. She went positively shoe crazy for awhile, but every outfit looked fresh and new - just with a simple change in shoes!
Her next step was to add in a "signature" color. She's got peachy complexion and is very fair. She thought long and hard about this signature color. It's this very pale shade of green that looks stunning on her. Cardigans, sweaters, scarves...
Flash forward years later, she's now a major executive and no longer on a tight budget. But she still has much of the same core wardrobe because she was so careful and picky about what she purchased. She's branched out a lot - she has this one absolutely fab red wool pencil skirt I covet. And gotten big into investment bags like Fendi - while still having fun with H&M and Marshall's. But the core wardrobe still gets a lot of use.
