Fashion Fridays: Bargain Shopping

How do you find cute additions to your wardrobe, especially your career clothes, at a reasonable price? 

The answer to this question constantly eluded me, and with three young children I have to watch when and where I spend dollars on myself.  Plus, quite frankly, I hate the messy chaos that pervades so many brick and mortar discount stores, and I’ve had incredibly limited luck finding high end pieces at secondhand stores. 

So my darling friend Kristin introduced me to ThredUp after she’d made a few killer finds. 

Have you shopped here?  It’s a very well organized on-line consignment store with an incredible selection of higher end items with little to no wear!  And your first shopping outing you get 30% off!  What!?!?!

You can select your style or just pick a category (outerwear) and size (they add equivalent sizing – why doesn’t everyone do this?) and “waa-laa” –  style on a budget!

Even better than any second hand or last call I’ve been to, anything that doesn’t work can be returned for FREE! 

I received my first polkadot box this week with five blazers/jackets, a pair of shoes (Kate Spade) as well as a pullover for the boys (the kids selection has more limited options with less of a delta on the deal – but the women’s section, wow!) for $200!  Not everything worked, and one item disappointingly smelled like cigarette smoke because they must not clean them first, but here’s a look at the items I kept:

This velvet teal blazer was about $10:

These plummy heels were 75% off of retail Kate Spade shoes and in excellent condition:

My biggest steal of a deal was a high end leather jacket which retailed for $700 that I acquired for just over $100.  However, I didn’t like how it fit, so back it went (which means I spent less than $75 for heels, a blazer, and a kids pullover). 

 They estimate your savings against retail, and while it may be inflated, it still came in pretty impressively at nearly $1500 savings versus the new retail cost. 

What’s your favorite way to save money on career wardrobe pieces?  How do you look sophisticated one a limited budget?