092. How To Make Your Shopping Budget Work For You This Year
Be Happier With How Much You Spend and What You Spend It On
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New Year’s resolutions are out. At least, that’s what the internet is telling me. Nevertheless, I have set two intentions for my shopping this year. The first one is to reduce the quantity of fast fashion items I buy from a few to zero. Last year, they made up 30% of my purchases (6 out of 19 items) or 8% in value (£455 out of £5,676). I resorted to it out of convenience or, in one or two cases, impulse, so I expect it will be an easy goal to reach. I would rather my money show up on the balance sheet of an independent brand. The second intention is to make this a year of discovery. I want to try on more brands in-store to make better decisions when shopping online in the years to come. I’d like to become my own personal shopper and know precisely where to go when I feel the need or desire to add to my wardrobe. I will, of course, be documenting the whole process for you.
For this first letter of 2025, I wanted to write something that will help you shop on your own terms over the next twelve months. This newsletter will be useful if you’ve set goals about how much you want to spend or how you want to spend it. It will also be helpful if you’re not entirely pleased with your relationship with shopping or the additions you made to your wardrobe last year. I propose a three-part plan to optimize your budget and feel more in control of your spending in a hyper-marketed ecosystem.
1. Make The Retail Calendar Work For You
In 2025, shopping is going to get more expensive. Albeit, not as drastically as it did in 2024. Fashion leaders have reported that they will resort to less cost-cutting (some good news for quality standards), but over half of them still expect to raise retail prices.
I have always been an aggressive sale shopper, strategically waiting out end-of-season markdowns to get more value for my money and wear brands I couldn’t otherwise afford. If you shop on sale in 2025, you’ll be part of the majority as 62% of US and European shoppers expect to wait for a product to go on discount to buy it. Shoppers above thirty are 25% more likely to wait since we don’t care about trends as much. Done right, it can pay off and allow more wiggle room within your yearly budget.
But shopping on sale isn’t always the best long-term strategy. You can also manage your budget with success by approaching shopping more moderately than I have in the past. Buying full price means getting first pick of size and style and making the most of what you buy, as you can purchase it on time for when you actually need to wear it. As cost-per-wear compounds over the years, sometimes the value of that initial 30% discount matters less.
Most shoppers know that the retail calendar follows a predictable cycle. Winter collections go on sale in January/February, and Summer stuff in July/August, with Black Friday and Labor Day frenzy hitting in between. Since the pandemic, the discount cycle has accelerated. Retailers had to clear unprecedented levels of unsold inventory, customer behaviour adjusted, and the pattern has stuck. While it appears to be to our benefit, that’s doubtful; prices are inflated to account for this behaviour. A New York retailer reported that some brands are now asking for a 4.0 markup, expecting most of the clothes to sell at a 40% discount. Either way, retailers will use any excuse to go on sale, from borrowing holidays and shopping events from every culture to running Private/Reward/Exclusive/Silent sale previews that anyone can access, providing they have registered with an email address. Seasonal items will go on sale within 4 to 8 weeks of hitting the stores/sites, which is an insanely short time to wait out a purchase.
I recommend a hybrid approach (part strategic discount, part full-price shopping). In the next section, I will demonstrate how to plan around four example big-ticket items - a warm winter coat, a work bag, two or three new sweaters to boost your knitwear drawer, and a new bikini - including saving timelines, the best time to shop, etc. But first, to optimise your budget, you must know the retail calendar inside out.
January
What’s New
Lunar New Year limited-edition collections drop in early January. This year, many brands, from Aritzia to Tory Burch, released one for the Year of the Snake. These will usually get discounted in early February.
The second and third weeks of January are when the first of the spring/summer collections for apparel and accessories hit stores and sites.
What’s On Sale
First half of January: post-holiday discounts reach up to 70%.
Second half of January: winter collections final markdowns, up to 75-80%, with retailers regularly adding a limited-time extra 15% off at checkout.
If you have a warm-weather vacation planned between January and when new swimwear drops in March, the resort collections launched late the previous year hit deeper discounts.