I come from a moderately low income family, and have never really felt comfortable spending a lot on anything, really. That's not to say I didn't enjoy shopping, I loved it! I just did my best to not buy in excess, and almost always looked for something inexpensive. I sometimes fell into the trap of buying from sites like aliexpress and forever21 because every once in a blue moon, I would find something super cute that I'd absolutely love and wear frequently. but for every one of those items, I'd have ~5-10 crappy pieces of clothing.
I tried to be good about returning, but fast fashion is so.. successful at getting you to come back because the novelty of the new top or skirt or whatever would often be there even for poor quality items for weeks or even months. But after that time, you'd just be left with a bunch of 'meh' clothes that you're not really excited to wear.
I recently bought some Levis, which was a big deal for me. They're not even crazy expensive, one was $100 and another $60. But when I put them on -- holy crap! They looked amazing! It was actually really frustrating because there were so many times in which I'd buy $200-250 worth of clothes that were each $10-30, and only really appreciate one or two of the items. I'd have a huge collection, and most of it would look decent, but was also pretty dull and boring as I'd often opt for the cheaper, more basic items. Sometimes I would even buy things that I knew I probably wouldn't like, but kept because 'it was only X dollars!'
This realization that I should be buying fewer but more high quality items is one I've come to many times, but it's been so, so hard to actually implement. Many fast fashion sites are like crack, to be frank. They use manipulative tactics like "X amount of time for Y sale!!" or to use a coupon, e.g forever21. Lots of bright colors, women often dressed in a seductive or sexy manner (not that I have a huge issue with this, it's just worth noting). Contrast this to a site like Levis which has quite drab colors to be honest, and some sales but on the whole doesn't feel like you're at a casino and playing a slot machine. It makes it easier to make more sound decisions rather than impulsive ones IMO
I love my expensive jeans! Not only because I look great in them, but they're actually so nice that they 'unlock' many other outfits and shirts that I was previously getting bored with. A more frugal move might've been to use a thrift shop, which can be good for jeans, but I personally find it difficult to find things in my size + often can't return something that's been thrifted, so it leads to many of the same problems as fast fashion at least for me.
TL;DR
I so so wish I could have truly accepted this a long time ago. The fact that cheaper things are fun and satisfying in the short term, but very quickly lose their appeal and often don't even look as good from the get-go -- much of this is masked by the high of getting many clothes quickly. The low cost is indeed more expensive in the long run, because even though the clothes aren't falling apart, they're just not that great, and now I have a closet full of crap I barely care about, because I was trying to save money (but actually have to spend more in total eventually replacing the things i no longer want). I know many here are already aware of this, I just wanted to share my experience in case it helped things to 'click' for someone else.
Submitted July 03, 2018 at 01:54PM by laviequotidienne https://ift.tt/2zdSbS2
