Budgeting Bloggers: April

April budget breakdown

 

Well friends, it was another epic month for my wardrobe. I got so much new stuff, it doesn’t even all fit in this collage. Of course, money doesn’t grow on trees (and even if it did I’d be out of luck because I can’t keep a cactus alive), so how did I swing a nearly $700 budget? Well, I chug away at this blog thing everyday and pick up a few cents at a time through affiliate links, waiting to hit the minimum, and the stars happened to align this month and give me two nice payouts. Plus, I sold off more old stuff, including a Marc by Marc Jacobs bag for almost $100! Finally, I didn’t spend all of last month’s budget, and I got to add all this to my modest starting amount of $150. Here are the details:

April Budget

  • +$196 ($150 starting amount + $21 unspent in March + $25 for shoes I returned)
  • +$285 (blog income)
  • +$212 (sold old clothes)

         = $693

This was my biggest budget yet! Next month’s should be significantly smaller because I don’t expect any blog income, and I don’t have much left from this month to carry over (only $4). I just swapped out my winter clothes for summer over the weekend, so I have a couple bags of clothes to try and sell. Still, I’m sure that won’t add up to a huge amount. It will definitely be a challenge to take it down a notch and spend, you know, a normal amount on clothes.

What I Spent

  • -$74 on a floral baseball cap and black panama hat from J. Crew (total orig. $116, both purchased during special promos)
  • -$12 on round oversized sunglasses from Nordstrom
  • -$141 on white jeans and windowpane jacket from Ann Taylor (total orig. $264, both purchased during promos)
  • -$110 on colorblock heels, gold sandals, and silver bag (not pictured) from DSW (total retail $238, DSW total price $157, minus $20 off during special promo, minus $10 rewards certificate, and the bag was on extra sale!)
  • -$59 on cobalt dress from Madewell (orig. $130, on sale plus additional promo)
  • -$171 on Rebecca Minkoff bag from Nordstrom Rack (retail $295)
  • -$40 on crop top from Kate Spade Saturday (orig. $45, got 15% off for signing up for newsletter)
  • -$42 on cobalt pumps from 6pm.com (retail $89)
  • -$22 on snakeskin pumps from Target (orig. $30, Kristin and I both got shoes during a BOGO 1/2 off deal and split the cost)
  • -$18 on floral clutch (not pictured – similar ones here) from C. Wonder (orig. $48, on sale plus additional promo)

         = $689 (total retail value…drumroll please… $1,267!)

What I Received (gifted items)

Keep an eye out for Fran’s next budget post to see all the other budgeting bloggers’ posts! I’ll be linking up with them.

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Budgeting Bloggers: March

March Budget Breakdown

 

March 2014 was another great month of shopping for this girl! And no, that $571 budget is NOT an April Fool’s joke. Thanks to a lot of closet purging, I was able to pump up my budget by more than $200! The discovery of a couple women’s resale boutiques near me has pretty much changed my life…well, the part of my life that involves shopping anyway.

In March, I got A LOT of tops, shoes, and accessories. So for April I might try to find more dresses and bottoms. But I already have my eye on a couple more pairs of heels…what can I say, I’m on a roll. I’m also on a roll with getting some good deals; below I’ll show you not just what I spent, but what I would have spent on all this stuff at full price. I was lucky to have a couple of gift cards burning a hole in my wallet, plus I took advantage of several store promotions.

Without further ado, here’s the breakdown for March’s budget…

March Budget

  • +$212 ($150 starting amount + $62 unspent in February)
  • +$135 (blog income)
  • +$224 (sold old clothes…a lot of them!)

         = $571

What I Spent

         = $550 (total retail value…drumroll please… $1,003!)

What I Received (gifted item)

There you have it…another successful budget month is complete! I can’t wait to check out how the rest of the Budgeting Bloggers did!