As a financially brained person, the things that come easily to the average girl like style, shopping, cooking, etc., have never been my “thing”. It’s not that I don’t enjoy shopping, it is just that it can be tedious. It doesn’t help that the bill that hurts at the end.
The hardest part is that there is no money tree in the backyard. So if I was buying that needed suit for my day job it was taking away from money from my “empire building”. I am the first person to tell you that I LOVE my Starbucks and I have a habit. Yup, my morning baristas know my name. The key is to be frugal and learn to stretch my dollar the extra mile. For Starbucks I signed up for the gold card, allowing me to earn free drinks. Loft offers the same thing.
Did you know that if you get a Loft credit card you can earn free loft rewards?
Now before you say, Elizabeth, we are trying to STRETCH our money. Not get into more debt. Give me a second.
I don’t know about you but we have the following normal expenses:
- Car Insurance
- Groceries
- Car Repairs
- Gas
- etc.
If you are a budding real estate investor you are also going to have repairs/upgrades for your houses too!! I put EVERYTHING on my credit card. My main card is an American Express and my secondary is my Loft card.
I put ANY/all expenses on my credit card that won’t charge me extra. For example, I never put rent because they charge me a 2% fee, yet I always put our electricity in Texas because there is no charge.
Our car insurance alone is $1200 a year. Just by putting our car insurance insurance on our card I get $12. While it doesn’t seem like a lot of money over time it adds up. It works out to be around $40 a month for clothing if you add up all of our regular expenses that I put on our card.
I combine my credit card coupons with Loft’s flash online sales (and you can return the stuff in the stores) to get an outfit, or two or if you are AMAZING (which you all are), for free! Over the year I am able to slowly build up those killer outfits allowing me to always have needed clothes for all the different events we attend.
As professionals on a budget, our clothes have to be achievable for the dinner party to the doctor’s visit and everything in between!
PS- If you are using credit card points and not spending ANYTHING more than you normally would, then it’s free money! While my husband and I have an honest relationship I love my gift cards because it’s “free” money. It allows me to stay sharp for work while not affecting our “fun” money in other categories.
How do you fund your clothing purchases? Do you have any secret tricks you’d care to share?
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That’s what I do, too, and it really does add up. We put every. single. thing. we can on our AmEx Blue, then pay it off every month and then apply the cash back to the bill. It’s a lot every year! AmEx also offers special deals once in a while, right now it’s spend $100 at Target or Walmart in-store and get a $30 credit on your bill. So I’m stocking up my pantry for the summer for 30% off!
I totally agree! I love when the credit cards have their “bonuses”. I have $185 in gift cards set aside from different promotions just offered since March! The best part is the Loft card is just our secondary card to be used when our american express is not accepted. We also have an american express (our is Hilton) and have taken many vacation totally free using points.
This is great advice! Thank you.
This is a REALLY great idea! My last bank card used to give me a decent change of rewards, so I’d use it to pay everything. Then a couple of years ago, they closed that program. Boo!
I love the clothes at The Loft, but find myself shying away due to the costs. I’ll have to take a look at it once I start paying down my debt. It seems like a smart way to get some free clothes.
I love my free clothes from loft. It’s great that paying my car insurance earns me free clothes that I need for work.