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Using CPW to set a budget

kerry

Veteran

I've tried a few different ways to set a clothing budget over the years but I'd like to try something new.

I think I'd like the budget number to cover everything I put on my body. I arbitrarily chose CPW ideal to be $1. This may not be realistic. Since I'm grouping everything together this is an average. Some things will have higher CPW and some might have lower.

In summer I'd wear top, bottom, shoes.
In winter I'd wear top, bottom, topper, shoes, coat.
Everyday I'd wear bra and panties.
8 months of the year I'd wear socks.
Every night I'd wear pyjamas and every morning a robe.
Every evening I'd wear loungers - cami, top and bottom.
2-3 times per week I'd wear workout top and bottom and shoes.

Per year wears ...

365 shoes
365 pyjamas
365 robe
365 bras
365 panties
240 socks
365 lounger bottoms
365 lounger tops
365 camis
365 tops
365 bottoms
240 toppers
240 coats
130 workout tops
130 workout bottoms

If I budgeted $1/wear and averaged wearing each for only a year I'd need to budget $4630 per year. If I assumed some items would last longer ie. coats, I could budget even less. A three-year average sounds reasonable so then I'd need to budget $1540 per year or about $130 a month. This is much lower than I currently spend.

Have I missed anything in my analysis? Has anyone done this before?

How do you set your clothing budget? What gets included and why?

Shopping

33 replies

Latest reply was from rachylou

Barbara Diane

Veteran

Ok, off the top of my head, there just seems to be something off about this. Interesting but...

I think it matters where you live, what the weather is like, what your life is like, the quality of what you need/want to purchase. Is your size stable?
Do you mean to not have any dresses? Accessories?

$365/3 is $122 for tops per year. This would mean extremely inexpensive clothing and extremely constant wearing. Maybe if you get great deals at a thrift shop and wear each item a lot? Unless you already have a complete wardrobe, so complete that even if items wear out you have enough clothes.

Liz

Veteran

I budget for all my expenses, not just clothes. So I'm not sure how I'd set a budget for clothing if that were the only thing I were budgeting for or tracking. Generally, I base my clothing budget on how much I spent last year (and whether I need to adjust that up or down). And also on how much money needs to go into other categories, and whether clothing is more important to me than something else, such as vacations or savings.

ETA: to actually answer your questions, this seems like a complex way to set a budget, if you already have a feel for what your spending has been in the past.

Also, I lump everything I wear together in one $ (from coats to gear to underthings), but some people have separate categories for items, because that works for them.

Anonymous

I just have a monthly amount that is set aside for my personal discretionary spending, and I buy or don't buy something based on what my priorities are at the time. For example, if I don't need a coat, then I don't buy one. Right now, I have several pairs of pants that need to be hemmed up, so my top priority is to get them altered. Aside from that, I need to pay off my cell phone and start saving $ for buying new pants or getting my existing pants altered, as I have lost a little weight and am trying to lose more. At some point, my pants will be baggy and not fit right. My weight always goes on and off at my waist and hips.

kerry

Veteran

Barbara Diane, you're right $122 per year for tops is way too low! That gave me pause. But because it's an average, I think it could work. I wouldn't spend $240 on socks in 3 years, or $365 on pyjamas, robes, lounger tops and pants in three years. I'd spend more on bras, coats and shoes. I guess I have to calculate if my average is reasonable across these categories. Dresses are only special occasion for me which I didn't include in this calculation because I think it's tough to get CPW down on those items. I hadn't thought about accessories. Good point! I'll have to include hats, mitts, scarves, sunglasses and handbags to the mix. Thanks!

Liz, it does seem complex doesn't it? But I love numbers, puzzles and analysis so weirdly this is fun for me I basically have budgeted like you have in the past. Just looking to challenge my notions of what's reasonable.

BC, I've budgeted like that in the past too. DH and I had our own accounts where we deposit a set amount per month to spend as we liked. Good luck with losing the pounds!

Ginger

Veteran

That's an interesting approach. I think it's the first time I've heard of it.

It does make some significant assumptions. Unlimited income, for one. Also, the averages (entire wardrobe last one year, excepting coats) seem a bit arbitrary. I would be very hesitant to assign these numbers without actual information to back them up. If you've been keeping CPW numbers on everything for a year or two and those are reasonable averages, it makes more sense. However, the only info you've mentioned is that you spend significantly more than this estimate already. That might be due to wasting money, but it also might be that your average CPW is legitimately higher than you're guessing, or that your clothes don't last as long as the year you set.

My approach to budgeting is similar to Liz's. A big chunk of income is taken up by non-negotiables like housing and food and giving. Clothing, like entertainment, is a "soft" category that that gets allocated a portion of what is left. It's definitely good to budget! It's important to manage a smaller-than-desired income, so the rent money doesn't inadvertently get spent on fun boots. But budgeting is good for sufficient incomes, too, to exercise discipline and manage the wardrobe. So a CPW method might be an interesting thing to try. Like any budget, it does need to be managed to see how realistic it is.

Jenn

(website)

Veteran

I've thought about this, Kerry, but I think of it the other way around.

Let's say I want my budget to be $150/month. That means that, at the end of the year, when I look back on my cost-per-wear, the total should average around $5 each day. If it's higher, then I need to do some thinking/rebudgeting.

This method is only really useful if you're tracking regularly and for a long time. Cost-per-wear on day one of a new pair of shoes is going to look a lot higher than if you check it on day 200. It also falls apart if you're someone who buys things that never get worn, as those items don't get calculated into the daily CPW.

texstyle

(website)

Veteran

I thought I read somewhere way back that the average woman spends something like $2,400 per year on clothing. So it doesn't surprise me that you came up with the numbers you did. I like math puzzles too. Recently I was speculating how many hours each day was spent to pay for various life categories. As a percentage though, you know, like 3 hours a day may be to pay for rent or mortgage, 1-2 hours a day for automobile, etc.

kerry

Veteran

That's interesting, Jenn. I know I won't track wears so I thought I'd try it at the front-end.

Texstyle, thanks for letting me know I'm not the only one I generally know what % of our net household income goes to various spending categories. It'd be interesting to translate it to work hours to make sure it's worth it!

I just did a quick calculation to determine if my average of 3 years of wears was realistic. I ballparked how long I thought various items would last (ie. 8-10 years for a winter coat, winter tops 3-5 years, summer tops 1-2 years). Where I divided up my 365 wears to reflect seasonal longevity, I used a 240/125 split which reflects my climate pretty well (October-May, June-September). I used the lower end of the range for these purposes and averaged about 3.2 years.

shedev

Veteran

I've been tracking CPW for a few years. It varies, but here some of the trends
tops and knitwear get about $2 CPW
jeans get about $1 CPW
toppers and jackets far exceed $1 CPW
shoes in the $75.00 range will get about $1 CPW,
CPW goes up at both ends of the pricing scale, it works really well in the mid range, all my numbers except toppers, coats, and shoes are wash every wear. You never really know what your CPW will be until the end of the items life.
$130 a month seems to be a fair budget depending on how much you pay for your wardrobe items though.

Jenn

(website)

Veteran

If you don't track, it's really hard to know what your average CPW will be. There's also a danger in assuming perfect decision-making, and not allowing some slush for items that just don't work out. My recently-retired items have varied from less than $1 CPW to over $5. Shedev's numbers sound about right for successful purchases, but again, not everything is a winner.

Anonymous

Agree. Not everything achieves a low CPW.

DonnaF

Veteran

Assuming your weight and size has been steady for the last X years, do you have a sense of the age of the items in your various categories and how much you paid for them? IOW, go backwards to what you have to assist in making your estimations.

This sounds as though you envision a one (item) in, one out practice, most likely because it has worn out? I only wear out a few categories of clothing, and by then it is down to pennies per wear. A few items inevitably prove not to hold up, and another few prove to be mistakes, so those categories end up having a rather high CPW. I figure it all averages out. . .to more $$$ than I prefer to admit LOL.

Focusing too much on CPW can sometimes result in purchasing cheap clothing that presents less challenge in getting down the CPW. . . Conversely, spendy clothing isn't guaranteed to hold up.

Anonymous

This may sound counterintuitive, but I pay more for things that I know will get a low CPW (shoes and pants, for example) and less for things that I know will get a high CPW (dresses and swimsuits, for example). I just don't wear dresses often enough to justify a high price, while my fussy feet demand quality/comfortable shoes and I wear pants almost all the time. I deliberately pay more for pants, but buy less pairs, to get an overall low CPW. I have a lot of tops, and paid enough to get respectable quality but low enough not to end up with a high CPW. Sweaters are the wild cards for me. They just don't usually hold up as well as I think they should, and I'm sick of the way they pill in spite of all that's holy.

I hate math and have not calculated actual CPWs, but I know which clothes get worn a lot and which don't.

Laura (rhubarbgirl)

(website)

Veteran

You might enjoy reading this blogger's shopping planning posts:
http://theyogasticshoppingplanner.blogspot.com/
She began planning with the supposition that she'd replace everything on a five year rotating schedule, and spread out her purchases somewhat evenly, in both the cost and category of item senses.
http://theyogasticshoppingplan.....endar.html
She started all this two years ago, and in her more recent posts has shared that a lot of things are not making it to the five-year planned life, and that she has had to replace things at a faster pitch than she expected.

That's the experience that I've had as well; I haven't tracked CPW, but I have tracked what I pay for things and how long they last. Most everyday knit tops will make it only 2-3 years. Wovens might make it 3-4. Jeans it really depends on how often I wear them, and to do what (sitting on the computer, or gardening?) but 5 years is really stretching it. Shoes are all over the place, depending on how often they're worn, whether they're worn with socks or in the rain a lot, what material they're made out of. Blazers and outerwear generally will last until I'm tired of them. Sweaters, the thinner they are the faster they pill or start to unravel. Usually I can get 4-5 years out of my winter-weight stuff because it's not that cold here, and 2-3 years out of my frequently worn cardigans.

Anyway, I suspect that $1/item CPW across the board is way too low, unless you only shop at thrift stores and have good ones to pick through (and the time to look). You could probably get down to $1 for undergarments, practical shoes that aren't that expensive but are well made, and jeans if you wear them a lot. Knit tops are going to wear out too fast, and coats are going to be too expensive.

kerry

Veteran

Shedev, your CPW info is very helpful - a good point of reference for me. Thanks!

I agree Sterling. I cheated a bit and didn't include special occasion wear, for example I'm also using an average - I'm thinking some items (panties, socks, pyjamas, robes) will have a lower than $1 CPW and some will have higher.

BC, I agree on spending $ for good quality shoes. I'm a kindergarten teacher, on my feet all day. Good shoes are a must! A great winter coat is also worth big $. My most spendy purchase was a winter coat in 2014. I wore that coat every day for 120 days that year. I haven't reached a CPW of $1 but I expect to have that coat for another 8 years. It's not important to me if it gets that low - I need the coat and it makes me happy wearing it.

Thanks for the links, Laura. I love researching so I'll be checking them out. I too find winter weight stuff generally lasts longer than summer weight. I think knits and sandals are the biggest crap shoot. They never seem to last as long as you think they should! No matter the price.

I need to set up an experiment to see if my musings and analysis have any merit. Even though I don't track wears, I know exactly what's in my closet, how long I've had it and how much I paid for it. I also purge regularly and have a moderate-sized wardrobe.

Suz

(website)

Veteran

This is a novel approach for sure! I am curious to see what you learn as you follow up on it.

I don't really aim for a particular CPW but I suppose I have some ballpark estimate in my mind when I consider whether a particular purchase is a good one to make. The thing is, I also want to factor in JPW (joy per wear). Sometimes (as with your winter coat) there's a high likelihood that the badly needed much worn pricey item will also be deeply loved. But other items (like my gilet) are destined for high CPW as well as high JPW. Does it balance out? I hope so...but I've never really done the math.

Gigi

Veteran

I think the difficulty with this approach is that when we wear items, we don't pay as we go along, $1 at a time (or whatever CPW goal you set). We pay for all the wears up front. So I think it is difficult to set a budget this way.

Shoes would especially be difficult, since they cost quite a bit of money up front. If you have a $100 pair of shoes, you would have to wear those shoes 100 times over three years; that limits the amount of days available for wearing other shoes. I think to make this work, you would have to have a very small, well-curated wardrobe so as not to have so many items that you are physically prevented from wearing them enough to meet the CPW goal.

I track CPW too (I think these things are fun also ), and the way I use it for prospective purchases is to take my goal CPW ($1) and ask myself, Do I love this item enough that I want to wear it X times? So if the pair of jeans I'm looking at is $100, I ask myself whether I like the jeans enough to wear them 100 times. This kind of puts things in perspective for me.

Style Fan

Veteran

This is a very interesting approach. I know in my mind what I wear a lot but I have not tracked it. I do think about Joy per wear like Suz does.

Windchime

Veteran

I also enjoy playing around with budgets and numbers, but I think your CPW of $1 is awfully low for most things. And you should be able to get two or more years out of much of your wardrobe, which will help a lot to bring the CPW down. (I always enjoy thinking the second time I wear anything that the CPW was just cut by 50%!)

kerry

Veteran

Windchime, Stylefan, Gigi and Suz, thanks for chiming in. I agree that it's difficult to bring many items down to a CPW of $1! I like the idea of thinking about whether or not I like an item enough to to get to a reasonable CPW before I buy it.

From my categories I estimate that my CPWs are ...

<$1
Pyjamas
Robes
Panties
Socks
Lounger bottoms
Lounger tops
Camis
(These categories work out to about $0.50 CPW)
Total annual budget $400

=$1
Workout tops
Workout bottoms
Total annual budget $85

>$1
Tops
Bottoms
Toppers
Coats
Shoes
That leaves $1055 of the budget. If I treat all of these categories equally they'd get about $2 CPW. So that'd leave me $240 per year to spend on tops, bottoms and shoes and $160 on toppers and coats.

Another way I'm looking at it is ... In 24 hours, I'll put anywhere from 10-15 items on my body - in summer - bra, panty, top, bottom, shoes, lounger top, lounger bottom, cami, pyjamas, robe and in winter - same adding topper, coat, scarves/hat/mitts and some days workout top and bottom.

I think I'm comfortable wearing about $10 per day which would add up to $3650 per year or just over $300 per month. This is about what I currently spend.

I think I'd like to try and spend less. I have a perfectly functional closet with little need of anything besides knitwear. I'll use September 1 as my start date. I'll let you know how I do over the next 3 or 4 months!

unfrumped

Veteran

I don't track any of it on paper but what I prefer is think in terms of either NUMBER of wears in a season or preferably a year, and/or repeated, good Joy- per- wear use over several years, or both.
This is in the context of having an existing wardrobe, so that new things either expand it ( bad in general) or evolve it if I toss something out ( better).

It seems like the same thing but is not quite, because I don't demand a certain CPW. Instead I'm asking, why would I buy this? What purpose will it serve? The purpose is to be worn, not be collected in the closet ( with rare exception of some HEWI dress or dressy, comfortable shoes I might get for things that are likely to come up, and be willing to risk becoming dis-enamoured of it before then. )

My why- buy questions are about, will I wear this INSTEAD of something I already have, and if so, why; will it create some good new combinations, and again, do I NEED the new combinations or are they more of the same; am
I buying something that's " easy" to buy if you shop unnecessarily ( random tops; another sweater) when what I need is
a sharp trench coat ( harder to find and pull the trigger on) ? And beware sales-shopping, for the same reasons .

Suz

(website)

Veteran

I'm interested also in your categories of more or less than $ per wear.

For me I don't think it is so easily categorizable by item type. I know you are looking at averages and if I did that, it might come out similar, but as an example -- I have some expensive designer jeans that pretty much fell to $ per wear in their first year. (I owned them for 3 years and then they wore out -- wore them 180 times the first year and about a hundred each of next years.)

Of course I have other pricey designer jeans that did not get worn as often because these were my clear favourites and the most versatile. I also have some less expensive jeans, or jeans bought on sale, etc. that may have come down to around 1$ per wear quite quickly, even if relatively seldom worn. So again, it might average out, but it just shows you that it might be tough for me to calculate per item type.

The same is true for shoes. I have casual summer sandals that I might pay $120 for that I wear down into the less than $1 per wear category in one summer (wearing them every day for the 4 months or whatever we get for summer). Of course at the end of that summer, they are toast! But I do get my money's worth. DItto for my expensive Sweetie moto boots -- they fell to less than $1 per wear within a year. And with refurbishment they are going into season 3. Meanwhile, dressy heels will hover far above $1 per wear for years! But I might have more of the less worn (higher CPW) shoes since they aren't as easy to pair with all dressy outfits as the motos are with more casual outfits. So how does this average?

This may be acute for me because of my varied roles. I need lots of different kinds of clothing for different purposes. I work from home and live in a casual city, so on the face of it, it sound easy. But in fact, I need different clothes for my student life, my teaching life, my readings/ presentations, city travel, theatre capsule (we have season's tickets), gallery going capsule, etc. The dressier items get worn far far less, but they are equally important in my closet. Some of my most stressful wardrobe malfunctions arose pre-YLF because I simply had not taken in/ would not permit myself a proper dressy capsule and prior to every fancier event I'd be in tears trying desperately to cobble things together that would not work. How can you put a CPW price on the ability to reach into your closet and pull out exactly what you need at the moment you need it?

That's why I really like to think also in terms of JPW and why I like the link to Brigette Rae's column on the value of an item in the closet.

Anonymous

The CPW stuff seems a bit contrived, especially if your trading CPW "credits" from one category to another (like from Camis to footwear). I feel it is somewhat divorced from reality.

For me and my moderately mathematical brain, it is easier to ask "how many winter coats do I want to buy at what price point per year" and "how many Camis do I want to buy per year at what price point " to develop a budget.

Anonymous

You know Kerry, just setting out these categories is really great. I never though of doing this. Well, actually, I did categorize, but in kind of a nebulous way. your categories are precise and cover everything!

Anonymous

I'm with smittie on this. I like the idea of setting a budget based on what prices I'm willing to pay for the items I need. I know what my price points are, so her system makes a lot of sense to me. Maybe it's because my brain is only moderately mathematical, too.

rachylou

Veteran

So so interesting. Being a moralist, I'm asking myself now if $1 is fair, lol. What I mean is, is it 'true.' Money represents blood, sweat, and tears in keeping yourself reasonably comfortably alive. People used to pay a lot more relatively for clothes than we do now. The real effort of oh say sheering a sheep, combing the wool, spinning the yarn, then knitting the sweater...that's a couple of years of work.

Another way to put it is, what is the real cost of an item? It matters. Because for example, one of the reasons we have pollution problems is because we exclude those costs in our accounting.

Yet another way to look at the same concept...if you make $40/hr, $365 means you could produce the whole category in 9 hours. Is that really true? What is the 'punishment' for making it true? Who is the whipping boy?

...and this is why some loonies don't like the loss of the gold standard...

Economics is interesting... The whole concept of money is interesting... And yes, I prefer to be divorced from reality when it comes to clothes. I'd rather have clothes than a house.

rachylou

Veteran

Ok... either a moralist or governmental policy wonk. My mum was an economist.

Barbara Diane

Veteran

I'm going to go look at my wardrobe and see when and where I bought each item. I have a combination of quite old and the last few years. Because a few years ago I had a significant weight loss, so my clothes are either from before the weight gain or after the loss.

I do have some recent purchases with high joy factors that were purchased later in the season so the CPW this year will be low, but the JPW high. The crops are both patterned, which is fun after only wearing all dark solid background bottoms for as long as I can remember. One will move a little longer into fall, but one has a light background and won't work for much longer. The later reminds me of a dress I made in high school and wore into college. It's JFE but makes me so happy. The other is more flattering but also fun.

RachyLou, the true cost of our clothes is one reason I'd prefer to wear less but better clothes from the US or other countries that pay and treat their workers better. But mostly those clothes seem to run $200 plus an item, and I can't afford to be naked. Also, that is a longer term goal as my weight varies too much to buy for long term investment. And there is not much available in my size at thrift stores.

Nordstrom actually is one of the better retailers in this aspect. Or at least it was. I haven't checked lately. EF is very strong in this and I can find some items at the outlet, but I like EF's non oversized clothing, so there often isn't enough there that I could make a wardrobe out of it.

If anyone wants to suggest plus size retailers or brands that are good stewards of people and the planet and run under $100 an item for pants, tops, sweaters, etc. please let me know.

rachylou

Veteran

That's an interesting thought, Barbara Diane, about less and more - paying closer to true cost. It may be another underlying contributor to my RATE style (besides unruly hair, lol). I wear things to absolute death as a way of compensating. It's a very rare thing of mine that's consignable when I'm done. I drive my cars to death too. How often we can really afford to suffer the cost (and how much at once) is something to contemplate too...

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