Thrifting, consignment, vintage - what every smart student knows

First of all, I don't want you to go shopping.

Ok, fine. You really, really, really desperately need to get something new for your closet. But you don't think you have the money to get stylish clothing?

Let me help you out.

Exhibit A:


LOOKBOOK.nu: "the scholar. " by Erika A

Pardon my medical jargon, but I think we can all agree that this chick looks hot. Now, let me break down for you how much she spends on this outfit.

As she says on Lookbook:

White blouse: from Mum - $0
Shorts from Value Village - $4
Black leggings - (doesn't say, but these are negligible for summer purposes)

So let me drive home the point.

FOUR DOLLARS. FOR A HOT OUTFIT.

Really, you don't really have to spend more than this on ANYTHING. And look hot! Four dollars for a hot outfit? Now that's something I can get used to!

And that is the first secret of student shopping. If you haven't discovered it already. Thrifting makes cents. (haha.)

I won't belabour the point. Tavi here gives a great newbie guide to second-hand shopping. If you want to get unique pieces that you can use over and over again, and that you won't feel heartbroken if it gets unwashable food stains/ripped/drawn on by your 2 year old nephew, go thrifting. It's good in every way.

Why $350 boots can be a smart choice

I am constantly frustrated by people who only shop at low-budget places like H&M, Suzy Shier, Aeropostale, and the like. Sure, I love the stores too. But my H&M tops have all unravelled, or shrunk, or become so low-quality that I didn't want to wear them anymore.

On the other hand, You see your dream boots in the window of the Holt Renfrew/Nordstrom. They shine like the wings of an angel. They beckon. They call. And to top it all off, they're on 70% off sale for $200! But your stomach tells you that it's not right to spend $200 on boots when your rent is $500 a month. What's a Student Sophisticate to do?


New clothing = money

Price Per Wear Theory

The big buzz around smart fashionistas is Price Per Wear. Price per wear states that the value you get out of an item depends on how often you use it. Do a quick calculation on your iPhone by the shop window:

Price per wear (PPW) = Price / # of times you will wear it

So let's say you buy that awesome, hot ball gown for the grad formal. $200 down the drain. That's expensive, and you'll be wearing it once or twice. So your price per wear will be about $200/2 = $100 per wear! Not the cheapest option.

On the other hand, if you buy that fun, crazy fuschia belt from a thrift store for $5, but you only wear it once, that's only a $5/1 = $5 per wear item! Way better for your conscience, and your wallet.

I wear my mink-brown BCBG boots pretty much every day in the winter, and often in the fall and spring. That's about 100 days per year, conservative estimate. I've also had my boots for 2 years, and I estimate they'll be going strong for a third year, which is 300 days. That's $200/300 days=$0.67 per wear.

The same logic applies to my Aritzia Tahlua Babuton wool pea coat - roughly the same price, and it's definitely going strong for the next two years. I estimate the PPW at $200/(100 days x 4 years) = $0.50 per wear.

I try to aim for PPWs of less than $0.50. If you hit the magic number, pat yourself on the back and pour yourself a glass of red to celebrate your stylish awesomeness. Keep up the good work.

The bottom line
Student Sophisticates do not balk at high prices - we know that quality items will last much longer than those $15 cheap shoes from Chinatown, anyways. We also know that we'll look sexier as we strut down the road, leaving people in our tracks gaping at how awesome we look in our super boots!

Use your iPhone for good, not evil

As I mentioned before, I have a love-hate relationship with my iPhone, because iPhones are ridiculous moneysucking monsters when you let them be. They lure you in with promises of social and productivity bliss, make themselves seem indispensable, lock you in for the long term and then drain you of wallet-health.

But deal with them the smart way, and they can be your best friend on the way to student financial freedom.

Meet your new financial planner

How to train an iPhone: four tips to using your iPhone to help you reduce spending in style

1. Use the Notes app to make shopping lists and menus. This is paper-friendly, efficient, and you never have to worry about going to the grocery store without it. Remember to never spend money on apps if you can help it!

2. Make daily scheduled To-Do lists. Either in Notes or in your favorite free To-Do app.

3. Track your expenses with iExpenseIt. You can download this for FREE, and it lets you track your finances over 100 transactions, which is about 2-3 months. This is lovely for student finances. I almost jumped for joy when I found it, and so far it`s helped me cut down on expenses by about $200. It makes personal finance make sense.

4. Never buy apps. Unless absolutely, absolutely necessary. Chances are the advertisements you see in the App store make the App seem too good to not buy. It`s all marketing, baby. Save that money up for a nice new bottle of polish.

Moneysuckers - the phone bill

Last September, I joined the iPhone world. I had moved home for a couple months and decided that the save on rent was worth justifying the data plan. I signed up for another 3-year contract with Fido, with a 2-year data plan option, and committed myself, for better or for worse, to paying a lot of money every month.

Yeah, exactly.
Image credit: Toothpaste for Dinner

A snapshot into the phone bill

Let's take a look at how much I've been paying.

Apr 6, 2010	81.26
Mar 6, 2010	106.42
Feb 6, 2010	85.08
Jan 6, 2010	87.27
Dec 6, 2009	80.02
Nov 6, 2009	93.15

Ouch.

If on average I'm paying $85 a month, that's like $1000 per year! I could take a sophisticaed Parisian holiday on that money. Smart students know better. By making a couple tweaks, I paid $55.94 in May - $30 less than I would have otherwise. By making another couple of changes, my June phone bill is slated to run around $20. Now that's something a Student Sophisticate can swallow.

The data delusion

Most people who get the iPhone inevitably sign up for a data plan. They make you do it, in a sign-up-or-pay-$800-for-your-phone kind of way. Most people pay the $30 for 1GB plan - if you were "lucky", you might have even gotten $30 for 6GB.

But unless you're downloading movies onto your iPhone every day, chances are you'll never hit 6GB. You won't even hit 500MB. A quick look at MyAccount showed that I hovered around the 250MB range for most of the 7 months I used the phone.

So it won't surprise you that the first thing I suggest is....

1. Quit. The. Data. Plan.

Wifi is everywhere now. Cancel your data contract and enjoy the same amount of productivity as you did pre-iPhone.

Cost: $200 penalty for premature end to contract.

Payoff: A savings of $30 a month. Yowza.

If you're not willing to go that far...: If you say you're going to cancel and put on your best angry voice, you'll be transferred to a customer relations agent who will offer you $15 for 500MB instead, a "secret plan". That's still pretty good. When I did this, they added 500MB but forgot to remove the 6GB, so I had 6.5GB for $15. They're so organized. :)

2. Take off the System Access Fee

One of the greatest secrets cell phone companies don't tell you is that the system access fee is no longer a "mandatory" component of your payment. That's right, it's no longer an integrated part of any phone package. What that means is that if you're still paying the SAF, you're paying them an extra $6.95 a month for no reason.

Get them to take it off. They won't do it right away, but again, acting angry gets you all sorts of benefits with the Phone Companies.

Cost: about half an hour of phone time, negotiating and acting your best bitchy self

Payoff: An extra $7 a month, baby. Almost $100 per year (not including taxes saved).

If you're not willing to go that far...: Seriously, just do it. There's absolutely no change to your phone plan, and they're ripping you off. With this in mind, why wouldn't someone want to act like their best bitchy self?

3. Slash and burn

Warning: This one is not for the weak of heart. I'm telling you to get rid of your voicemail and caller ID. Will your social life die a painful and tragic death? Will your job prospects diminish and suffer? I don't know. But mine haven't, and I'm saving about $150 a year.

Cost: Nothing! One simple phone call.

Payoff: An extra $11 a month, or about $125 a year (not including taxes saved).
If you're not willing to go that far...: Try taking off just one, or the other. A couple dollars makes a difference.

June

So here we go for another month.

Current debt: $20,000
Summary of expenditures in last month: $600 total: $300 credit card bill, $300 food, shopping, visa for travel, student fees for summer session, $200 for cancelling phone bill. Mom covered rent for the month in exchange for me finding her a tenant for another place = awesome.
Current bank account: $4,300 (Still waiting on that $1,000 reimbursement from school. WTF.)

Apparently surgical trainees suck at managing money. Trainee doctors, it seems, spend more, save less, and know less than other people of the same age and income. Not really a big shocker there. But the credit card debt! The study abstract reads:

"Only 60% of residents budgeted expenses, and 25% and 10% maintained cash balances <$611 and unpaid credit card balances >$10,000, respectively."

Seriously, you've got to be kidding me. Smart people know that credit card debt is the worst kind of debt you can possibly be in. Seriously???

Don't be that person.