Suddenly Poor
When I was fourteen, my parents divorced and my mother, who had full custody of me and my two younger sisters, moved us to Piedmont, a small enclave inside of Oakland, California.
Don't be surprised if you've never heard of Piedmont - it's only one square mile big and almost entirely residential. However, it was (and still is) home to some very wealthy and successful people in the San Francisco Bay Area who made their money prior to the tech boom. A quick Google search of images of Piedmont will show you the mansions of the families I went to school with.
My mother had gotten a toe-hold into a "poorer" area of Piedmont, choosing the town over Oakland so that we kids could walk to all of our school activities--something that would have been impossible for us to do in Oakland. It didn't occur to her or us that we had suddenly become drastically poorer than our new friends, and that this would have social (and financial) implications for us.
The tension between how much money was available for clothing and the kind of expensive clothing I felt I needed started young for me.
Suddenly Rich?
By the time I was fifteen, my mother had remarried, and money wasn't quite as tight. She provided me with what seemed like an enormous allowance at the time - nearly $150 per month in today's dollars to buy all of my shoes, clothing, birthday and Christmas presents for family members, and the occasional outing with friends.
My mother provided me with no training on how to purchase clothing and build a wardrobe (she likely didn't have any training herself), and so I ended up buying shoes and "outfits" with no rhyme or reason, except that they were trendy and helped me fit in better. I remember spending what today would be over $160 on a pair of crepe-soled lace-up leather boots that were all the rage at the time - paired with a Gunne Sax dress that I got as a (much begged for) birthday gift. Here is a photo of the look; my own dress was almost identical to this one:
I had no sense of how to budget the money I got each month, or how to plan my purchases so that I wouldn't be stuck wearing the same two or three expensive outfits every day to school!
As I became more financially independent, I began to recognize the huge hole in my education about how to plan and budget for a wardrobe. I began reading books, visiting thrift stores, and thinking more proactively about how to make better clothes-buying decisions.
Do you have a similar story of blowing your clothing budget on a single outfit?
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