Wardrobe: To Update or Not? How-to without breaking the bank
New clothes isn't exactly an emergency expense :) so I would strongly suggest that you budget for it on a monthly basis. This doesn't mean you have to go spend the money every month, just put a reasonable amount of money into the clothes budget/savings every month and when you need a new shirt or two, take the money out of the saved money and go shopping. If you buy a piece or two of good quality clothing at a time you'd also not run into the situation where all your clothes fall apart at the same time. Sounds more of a question for the fine people at StyleForum.net but i would suggest to start looking carefully at the quality of the fabrics: once you start studying the subject you will quickly recognize a solid shirt from a cheap one. That'll help you save money in the long term. Also keeping it simple (by choosing classic color tones and patterns) will make your wardrobe more resistant to the fashion du jour. "I buy new clothes when the old ones fall apart, literally. When jeans get holes in the knees, they're relegated to gardening or really messy jobs. Shirts go until they're worn so much that I can't reasonably wear them to work any more. Sounds like your ""dress code"" at work is about like mine (also a software engineer). I've found that the Dickies jeans and work pants are sturdy, long lasting, fit in reasonably at the workplace, and are very inexpensive. If you know that you're going to need to replace some pants or shirts, wait for a sale to roll around at a local store, and then stock up. I don't specifically budget for clothes since I spend so little. But I'd be at the bottom of anybody's list in terms of giving fashion advice..." The best way to save on clothes is up to you.  I have friends who save all year for two yearly shopping trips to update anything that may need updating at the time.  By allowing themselves only two trips, they control the money spent.  Bring it in cash and stop buying when you run out. On the other hand in my family we shop sales.  When we determine that we need something we wait until we find a sale.  When we see an exceptionally good sale on something we know we will need (basic work dress shoes, for example), we'll purchase it and save it until the existing item it is replacing has worn out.  Our strategy is to know what we need and buy it when the price is right.  We tend to wait on anything that isn't on sale until we can find the right item at a price we like, which sometimes means stretching the existing piece of clothing it is replacing until well after its prime. If you've got a list you're shopping from, you know what you need.  The question becomes: how will you control your spending best?  Carefully shopping sales and using coupons, or budgeting for a spree within limits? If you budget for cloths and save up the money, you may be able to take advantage of sales when they are on.   However only buy what you will use! You need to ask yourself what value you put on cloths compared to other things you can spend the money on.   Also would you rather have money in the bank encase you need it rather than lots of cloths in the wardrobe? The way I handle clothing purchases, is I save a little bit with each paycheck but don't commit to spending each month.  I wait until I find the exact item I need or know I will need in the near future.  I have a list of things to look for so I don't get off track and blow my budget.  And each time I consider hitting Starbucks or buying a random something at Target, I think which is a better investment - a great pair of pants that will work for me for a decade, or a latte? Thank you for linking to me.  Your question is one many people have.  I feel that clothing should be purchased slowly, with care.  If you do it this you will buy items that don't need to be replaced every two years, and will maintain style and quality longer. :) We have a ton of student loan debt (mostly mine) and right now, I'm on a strict 'replace' only budget.  I have some shirts I put elbow holes in that I'm only keeping around as a reminder to replace them.  I wait until there is a deal of some sort (50% off or BOGO Free) unless I really need it - a white dress shirt for job interviews for instance. Outside of that, make it a line item in your budget and decide when you will spend it. For example, budget $60/mo for it, but only spend it when it reaches $180 or $300 or either of those amounts AND a sale (memorial day is the next big shopping sale after Easter).  It is totally up to you. Waiting to replace two shirts (gray and green) and a pair of black dress pants.
Your question is rather direct, but I think there is some underlying issues that are worth addressing.  One How to save and purchase ~$500 worth items This one is the easy one, since we confront it often enough.  Never, ever, ever buy anything on credit. The only exception might be your first house, but that's it. Simply redirect the money you would spend in non necessities ('Pleasure and entertainment') to your big purchase fund (the PS4, in this case). When you get the target amount, simply purchase it.  When you get your salary use it to pay for the monthly actual necessities (rent, groceries, etc) and go through the list. The money flow should be like this: Two How to evaluate if a purchase is appropriate It seems that you may be reluctant to spend a rather chunky amount of money on a single item. Let me try to assuage you. 'Expensive' is not defined by price alone, but by utility. To compare the price of items you should take into account their utility. Let's compare your prized PS4 to a soda can.  Is a soda can expensive? It quenches your thirst and fills you with sugar. Tap water will take your thirst away, without damaging your health, and for a fraction of the price. So, yes, soda is ridiculously expensive, whenever water is available. Is a game console expensive? Sure. But it all boils down to how much do you end up using it. If you are sure you will end up playing for years to come, then it's probably good value for your money.  An example of  wrongly spent money on entertainment: My friends and I went to the cinema to see a movie without checking the reviews beforehand.  It was so awful that it hurt, even with the discount price we got. Ultimately, we all ended up remembering that time and laughing about how wrong it went. So it was somehow, well spent, since I got a nice memory from that evening.  A purchase is appropriate if you get your money's worth of utility/pleasure. Three Console and computer gaming, and commendation of the latter There are few arguments for buying a console instead of upgrading your current computer (if needed) except for playing console exclusives. It seems unlikely that a handful of exclusive games can justify purchasing a non upgradeable platform unless you can actually get many hours from said games.  Previous arguments to prefer consoles instead of computers are that they work out of the box, capability to easily connect to the tv, controller support... have been superseded by now. Besides, pc games can usually be acquired for a lower price through frequent sales. More about personal finance and investment "&gt;a totally unsustainable level  I get what you're saying, but this isn't the whole story. For most of the history of civilization, clothes were really, really expensive, so most people had only a few well-made outfits that they repaired and took good care of. It would be unsustainable for our modern lifestyle, but given the scope of human history up until around 80 years ago, totally normal. In fact, you could say that the way the modern clothing industry works is probable ""totally unsustainable,"" since land is being ruined through cotton production, and in all likelihood we *won't* be able to grow as much cotton as we do now, 50 years from now." Girls love to [Buy Designer Hangbags Online](http://www.dianaekelly.com) and purses in formal also as informal events. They’re now a required fashion accessory, and girls prefer to buy bags that are complimentary with their wardrobe and personality. Bags can now be purchased at auctions, since celebrities often place their collections up for auction. You need a budget. You need to know how much you make and how much you spend.  How much you earn and what you choose to spend you money on is your choice.  You have your own tolerance for risk and your own taste and style, so lifestyle and what you own isn't something that we can answer. The key to your budget is to really understand where you money goes.  Maybe you are the sort of person who needs to know down to the penny, maybe you are a person who rounds off.  Either way you should have some idea. How should I make a budget? and How can I come up with a good personal (daily) budget? Once you know what you budget is, here are some pretty standard steps to get started.  Each point is a full question in of itself, but these are to give you a place to start thinking and learning. You might have other priorities like a charity or other organizations that go into your priority like. Regardless of your career path and salary, you will need a budget to understand where you money is, where it goes, and how you can reach your goals and which goals are reasonable to have. First, on-line you mostly and vastly buy things that don't need to be tried first to see if they fit. Even in clothing, casual shirts, jeans, socks, underwear and shoes don't need to be tried first.  As for shipping costs, not if you are Amazon prime, and if you pay for shipping, it's cheaper than driving your car to the store and possibly paying for parking. Not to mention that time = money.  It's the old retailers fault too: very basic selection of only items that sell for high margin and always issues with inventory. **I lost count of how many times I went to a store and they did not have the shirt or pants I wanted in the size I wanted.** I recently made the switch to keeping track of my finance (Because I found an app that does almost everything for me). Before, my situation was fairly simple: I was unable to come up with a clear picture of how much I was spending vs saving (altho I had a rough idea). Now I here is what it changes: What I can do now: Is it useful ? Since I don't actually need to save more than I do (I am already saving 60-75% of my income), 1) isn't important. Since I don't have any visibility on my personal situation within a few years, 2) and 3) are not important. Conclusion: Since I don't actually spend any time building theses informations I am happy to use this app. It's kind of fun. If I did'nt had that tool... It would be a waste of time for me. Depends on your situation ? Nb: the app is Moneytree. Works only in Japan. Until we get free returns from all online retailers, I am still shopping at malls and physical stores. Some stuff just doesn't fit you and retailers don't offer enough measurements to really do you justice. The most important thing in clothes is fit, and you have to try something on to validate that. "There is no objective ""should"".  You need to be clear why you're tracking these numbers, and the right answer will come out of that. I think the main reason an individual would add up their assets and net worth is to get a sense of whether they are ""making progress"" or whether they are saving enough money, or perhaps whether they are getting close to the net worth at which they can make some life change.  Obviously shares or other investment property ought to be counted in that.   Buying small-medium consumer goods like furniture or electronics may improve your life but it's not especially improving your financial position.  Accounting for them with little $20 or $200 changes every month or year is not necessarily useful. Things like cars are an intermediate case because firstly they're fairly large chunks of money and secondly they commonly are things people sell on for nontrivial amounts of money and you can reasonably estimate the value. If for instance I take $30k out of my bank account and buy a new car, how has my net worth changed?  It would be too pessimistic to say I'm $30k worse off.  If I really needed the money back, I could go and sell the car, but not for $30k.  So, a good way to represent this is an immediate 10-20% cost for off-the-lot depreciation of the car, and then another 12% every year (or 1% every month). If you're tracking lifestyle assets that you want to accumulate, I think monetary worth is not the best scale, because it's only weakly correlated with the value you get out of them.   Case in point: you probably wouldn't buy a second-hand mattress, and they have pretty limited resale value.  Financially, the value of the mattress collapses as soon as you get it home, but the lifestyle benefit of it holds up just fine for eight years or so. So if there are some major purchases (say >$1000) that you want to make, and you want to track it, what I would do is: make a list of things you want to buy in the future, and then tick them off when you either do buy them, or cross them out when you decide you actually don't want them.  Then you have something to motivate saving, and you have a chance to think it over before you make the purchase.  You can also look back on what seemed to be important to you in the past and either feel satisfied you achieved what you wanted, or you can discover more about yourself by seeing how your desires change.  You probably don't want to so much spend $50k as you want to buy a TV, a dishwasher, a trip to whereever..." Sounds like you're a man, so you're in luck. Our formalwear all looks similar enough that you can get by on a very short rotation. You can buy 1 pair of decent slacks in a versatile color like navy or grey with a pair of brown shoes with matching belt then have as little as 2 button down shirts (white and light blue). You can help keep the button downs clean by wearing an undershirt. This outfit can even overlap your interview outfit if you want to save more (especially if you want a good jacket/sport coat). The real key is to just not pick anything flashy and nobody will ever notice. You'll be running to the dry cleaners every single weekend, but you won't have much in terms of up-front costs. For women though I have no clue how they manage this stuff. You can save a bit by getting an interior cabin, but it can be a bit weird to be in a room with NO window and NO natural daylight.  It's strangely really easy to lose all track of time, especially if you don't set an alarm.  We spent very little time in our stateroom outside of sleeping, or changing clothes etc. So IMHO there's no reason to overspend on the stateroom. OTOH, A room along the outside of the ship will cost more, but might be worth the cost difference.  You don't need a full balcony or any of that, however a simple window even if partially occluded by something, really changes the feel of the room and makes it a lot less 'cave' like. JohnFx covered just about everything else I'd have had to say. Buy a lot of best quality of products. We are happy to help you. Just visit Budget Closeouts and order any item you love to get it on your doorstep. We have many categorized items of General Merchandise for personal uses, daily uses, apparel, fashioned clothing, watches, kitchen accessories. You can purchase toys and much more for your infant. There is a branding clothing including towel and other wear. New fashioned and artificial jewelry for women available at our site at low cost. Google Maps and Craig’s List are easy wins and free.  I would offer free inspections and estimates.    What about getting into one of those new mover mailings.  That is when most people will be updating their fixtures. However, we would also like to include on our budget the actual cost of the furniture when we buy it. That would be double-counting.  When it's time to buy the new kit, just pay for it directly from savings and then deduct that amount from the Furniture Cash asset that you'd been adding to every month. Capitalism works best when there is transparency.  Your secret formula for wealth in the stocks should be based on a fair and free market, as sdg said, it is your clever interpretation of the facts, not the facts themselves.  The keyword is fair. Secrets are useful for manufacturing or production, which is only a small part of capitalism.  Even then we had to devise a system to protect ideas (patents, trademarks and copyrights) because as they succeed in the market, their secrecy goes away quickly. I think it is just semantics, but this example demonstrates what they mean by that: If you put $100 in a CD today, it will grow and you will be able to take out a greater amount plus the original principal at a later time. If you put $100 extra on your house payment today, you may save some money in the long run, but you won't have an asset that you wouldn't otherwise have at the end of the term that you can draw on without selling the property. But of course, you can't live on the street, so you need another house. So ultimately you can't easily realize the investment. If you get super technical, you could probably rationalize it as an investment, just like you could call clipping coupons investing, but it all comes down to what your financial goals are. What the advisers are trying to tell you is that you shouldn't consider paying down your mortgage early as an acceptable substitute for socking away some money for retirement or other future expenses. House payments for a house you live in should be considered expenses, in my opinion. So my view is that paying off a note early is just a way of cutting expenses.