My wife has a clothing budget of about SGD200 for clothes every quarter.
Previously, she would shop at retail outlets, and stores these days sell their clothes at something like SGD40-50 per piece. For around 4 pieces
Now, like many others, she buys online from Taobao.
Each piece is around SGD15 I think
Sure she gets clothes which don't fit. But she still gets more pieces which fit as compared to buying from retail outlets.
So SGD200 budget at SGD15 each is around 13 pieces, of which maybe 5 aren't suitable resulting in 8 pieces.
So wow, with the same budget, she now gets 8 pieces as compared to previously when she only got 4.
The issue is this. The cupboard is running out of space.
Previously, when she bought at retail outlets, she gets 4 pieces per quarter or 16 pieces per year.
Now, she gets 8 pieces or 32 pieces per year.
This doesn't logically make sense right. Since taobao things are cheaper she should be spending less in general. Not to mention that since she could live with 4 pieces per quarter then she shouldn't need 8 pieces per quarter now. I understand that it makes some economic sense to ship things in one shipment rather than break them up or something like that. I'll leave it as that.
So of course we had a discussion on this. I mentioned that our cupboard is running out of space and that she was ok with 4 per quarter so why need 8 per quarter this time?
So we came to a compromise. She will buy stuff one month later.
Instead of buying stuff every 3 months, she would buy it every 4 months. Straight out that is 25% savings.
Anyway, after a while, she stopped buying anymore stuff from taobao as the novelty of super cheap stuff wears off. We haven't really received anymore packages from China for quite some time already.
Well, the concept I would like to share with readers today is to try to push spending 1 month later.
If you feel that you need a new... whatever, just hold off for 1 month before buying it. This is not trying to let you feel you don't need it. But rather for the existing product to be used for 1 more month. Unless the item is already falling apart then that is a different matter. As there is always something new to buy for the house. A new TV or table or sofa or chairs or whatever. Every month there is additional spending on replacement items. So the idea is to push everything back 1 month. By doing so, in the long run, everything adds up. All your stuff gets an increased 5% additional lifespan which means more savings. Seriously, just waiting for that extra 1 month to replace the product won't impact your lifestyle by much due to the slightly dirty sofa or slightly blur TV, etc. You've already lived with it for .... months already.
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