Style Goals 2018 - More Tracking CPW, Etc.

I did post a review of my 2017 successes and added some on Angie's Style Goals post. I thought I'd do like others and keep a separate post to be more accountable.

1. Shop my closet often. Finish donating the items I have in holding and will not wear again.
2. Make sure I’m wearing the clothes I love often enough – a general
goal is to get at least 24-30 wears on an item before I grow tired of
the style (so I can justify the expense.) This can be over a period of
1-3 yrs or more if it lasts in terms of quality and style.
3. Be very particular about purchases with regards to fit, silhouette, lifestyle practicalities, and cost.
4. Find at least one summer dress I like and actually wear it.

5. Be more budget conscious regarding tracking items and cost per wear and lower my budget to $100 per month to see if that works for me.
6. Add more summer bottoms that are more refined than just denim shorts.
7. Look for and buy one or two side split hem tops as I'm enjoying this silhouette for a non-tucked look - slightly boxy or a-line, not too long.

Since tracking and budget are important to me this year I thought I'd go into more detail.

I don't track my clothing formally but keep
mental notes of how often I wear items. As long as I wear something 20
times or so it usually fits into my personal budget ideals. If I spend
$40 on a top for example, and wear it 20 times, the CPW is $2 and that's
great. If I wear it more than that - yay! If I spend more on it, the
CPW of course goes up so I expect that I should keep it longer and make
sure I wear it more than 20 times.

I think average cost of one top for
me is around $40 and jeans/pants is more like $75. I DO wear the same
jeans/pants more frequently and for a much longer period (years) than
most of my tops.

I wonder if anyone else looks at CPW for the *total* of their clothing
items. Top, pants, shoes specifically. At $2 each it would be $6 a day
or $180 a month. But for me, I get a LOT more wears from my shoes so
they are more like $1 CPW, sometimes lower depending on the price of the
shoe.

Anyway, there are many ways to track and budget I guess. I like to think
about the monthly and yearly total in terms of CPW. I'd like to lower
my budget this year and forward and restrict myself to maybe $100 a
month.

6 years ago

Anonymous

Interesting. I've never formally tracked CPW , let alone for an outfit or entire group of clothing. So, when you refer to a $100 a month for a budget, you mean a CPW goal, not $100 in spending, correct?

texstyle

(website)

Veteran

lisa p - well, both actually. I've definitely been spending more per month and per year in years past. My goal before was sort of $2 CPW per item and that just happened to coincide with my spending previously of about $180 per month on average. Not counting underwear and socks and such. I'd like to cut back on that - way back if I can - so $100 a month budget and wearing the clothes I already own more often will end up making the two collide once again. I think.

Angie

Fashion Stylist

NICE, Texstyle. Good to realize that budgeting and tracking CPWs is your jam because that's how you derive more enjoyment from your style journey. That's all part of why personal style is PERSONAL. Have fun, and keep us posted.

Please pop these goals onto the blog post:

https://youlookfab.com/2018/01.....-for-2018/

tanstaafl

Active Member

Are you planning to more formally track your clothing costs, wears, and cost per wear or continue with your more informal method? I recently started using the closet space app, and if you put the data in, it can show you some of this information.

I don’t have a monthly budget for clothing. We set an annual amount at the beginning of each year for the family as a whole. We don’t buy much for the kids as we get a lot of hand me downs, but there are always new shoes, underwear, and swimsuits. I probably use the largest chunk of the budget, since I need clothes for work, but my spending on casual clothes is tiny. I plan to track my clothing purchases and cost per wear more closely this year as I am a numbers person and think it will be interesting to look at.

Angie - yes, I didn't realize it was important to me but I kept having the feeling that I was being wasteful - too many clothes bought and not worn enough.

tanstaffl - I don't know if I'm disciplined enough to enter my clothing into an app. I am more likely to keep a pile of receipts for the month and just do a quick add up. Setting a really small budget of course means I will only try to buy one or two items a month anyway. That's easier for me to manage without adding more "work".

I just started using the app, based on the recommendation of another canner here. Depending on the size of your wardrobe it could take a lot of time to set up. My wardrobe is rather small, so it didn’t take me too long. I haven’t entered all of my warmer weather clothes yet though. I’ll add them as I wear them or when warmer weather gets here. Really, it is all about what works for you.

LaPed

Hooray for tracking! Im pushing myself to do it for at least year. I'm only a couple weeks in, but I find that if I treat it as "journalling" -- just jotting down a list of everything I wear in a day -- and save the data-entry portion for once or twice a week, it's not so bad. We'll see how long I can keep it up.

I know exactly what you mean about the bad feeling you get from clothes sitting unworn -- it just seems so wasteful. And it's why I struggle with my "dressy" capsule -- I'm getting there, though.

Sal

Nice goals Tex Style. I have seen lots of great summer dresses around here this summer - added two - and I have really enjoyed wearing them both. I hope that translates to your summer too.

lyn67

Interesting! I've never looked at CPW for the *total* of my outfit but sometimes I am remembering the prices of each item, and make a total of it and use it to compare daily outfits (just for my inner nerd).

Suz

I agree a summer dress would give you a great sense of variety. It seems you'll need one that is cool (obviously) and casual enough to feel wearable with enough coverage to feel okay for work. This is not the easiest item to find but I predict the right dress could be a real summer workhorse for you.

La ped - yes, it is a work in progress - my "dressy" capsule gets very little wear yet I feel a need to keep it up to date.

Sal - you wear dresses so well and I admire your style. One thing I need to let go is my old ideal of the "perfect" dress for me. I had one way back that I loved and I need to get past that one in my mind and find what's right for me now.

lyn67 - yes the total outfit can really add up, esp. if you count jewelry and other accessories that you don't wear often.

Suz - I do have one summer dress from last year (fits really well and is long enough to be modest) but I didn't wear it for whatever reason. Maybe I just feel oddly "too dressed up" being out here in such a casual, rural area.

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cindysmith

This seems so organized, and it makes me feel disorganized as can be. I guess that's my weird way of saying "well done!" Because this is a very good list of goals!

cindysmith - I am not all that organized but I am in much better shape now than I was a few years back regarding my closet.

jussie

What excellent goals. I have just recently started analyzing cpw a bit more. For me this has led to purchasing more casual clothes and less fantasy life clothes!
I also find it quite hard to find dresses, separates seem easier because you can control the fit of the top and bottom individually. Also I feel like I would have to wear a dress a lot of times to get good cpw out of it because they are not able to be mixed into other outfits...
Tommy Bahama has some beautiful dresses with a reasonable amount of coverage.
Best of luck in your style journey.

Lynn

I am still in early stages of building a functional wardrobe but having a streamlined wardrobe is important to me. I think tracking wears and CPW would be helpful to me. I like your CPW goals as a ballpark. Thanks for posting this.

kerry

Here were my thoughts last year ...

https://youlookfab.com/welookf.....t-a-budget

https://youlookfab.com/welookf.....experiment

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