Shop On The Off Season

If you're a growing teen, this might not work as well, as it is hard to gauge what size you'll be next year. If you've stopped growing, try this tip! Go into your favorite retailer at the end of the season, and see what deals they have. Many stores are trying to get rid of their excess, and thus give out many sales. Buy an outfit for next year, often up to 50% off!

Check Clearance First

How many times have you gone into a store, fallen in love with an outfit, only to find that the price was the equivalent of your monthly grocery expenses? It's hard to leave a piece you love, so you'll either walk away upset, or you'll buy the piece and feel bad about the price shortly afterward. Before you check anywhere else in a retailer, go to the back, where clearance items are typically stored. They may not be the height of fashion, but you can find really cute pieces of outfits back there, for a lot less than they would be typically.

Don't Shop At Your Favorite (expensive) Store

Now, I'm not saying you should stop there altogether, just maybe don't go there as often. Checking stores that aren't name brand, such as Walmart or Target can reveal some pretty amazing deals. I bought a really cute swimsuit for about $20 from Target, and it lasted for years until I got rid of it because it didn't fit anymore.

Every time I go to Walmart, I search the racks, including clearance racks (Walmart prices are already low, but sometimes clearance can go as low as $3 for something you'd pay a whole lot more for, at a name store), and often find another friend to buy. Walmart can have great, in-style tops, skirts, pants, and shoes between $10-$20.Just because you're going cheaper, doesn't always mean it's going to be ugly or of bad quality.

Shop Online

Online stores or marketplaces like Amazon and Zulily Can give great deals, with quality (I'm actually wearing a Zulily tunic-shirt right now). Amazon often has really cheap things, like shirts as low as $5, and a perfect Spring dress for less than $10. I do caution that Amazon's clothing is a little hit or miss because Amazon does not actually produce the clothes, they provide a market for others to sell them. Sometimes those sellers make really cheap clothing.

Zulily does better here, and I haven't gotten one thing I didn't love from them. They come exactly like the pictures show. I believe Zulily also just provides a marketplace, but they must do some sort of quality check, as all of the outfits I have bought were in great condition.

Shop Used--Wait, don't go before you read it!!

The final, and probably most resented tip is to shop at stores that sell used clothing. My favorite is Goodwill, but I know there are other stores that do the same thing. The great thing about these stores is that they are able to sell really cheap. And I mean really cheap. At Goodwill, all tags have a color, based on a day-of-the-week setup(ex. Monday=Gray). When a color's barb gets its day, that piece can go on sale, I believe it's always 50% off. In addition to that, they often have another sale going on, some pieces of clothing as low as a dollar.

One reason people avoid these stores is because clothes are not washed from donation to your purchase. Some people are afraid of germs, others afraid of bugs or something. Solution: inspect the item of clothing before purchase, and wash them, as soon as you get home. Another reason people avoid these stores is because they believe they won't find anything. However, there are a ton of cute items there, I almost always find something good Plus, you can quality-check the pieces yourself, before purchase.