Saving money can be challenging. Here’s what works for us when it comes to saving money on clothes.
Pick a department store and be a loyal customer. Make use of the rebate apps Rakuten and Ibotta. Stack deals. Compare prices with Amazon. Put things in your online shopping cart and see what happens. Don’t buy things you don’t love.
Now, let’s get into the details and see exactly how you can save money with these ideas!
Pick a department store and be a loyal customer.
For us, that’s Kohl’s. I’ve heard of great deals at Macy’s and Belk, as well.
The reason this saves money…well, there’s actually several reasons.
- Department stores are great for the basics–from underwear to tennis shoes.
They usually have really good quality items to choose from, in name brands we prefer plus store brands that have great quality, too. How does that save money?
- They offer coupons on a regular basis. Knowing the quality of their store brand is great, because the coupons pretty much always include the store brand.
The coupons sometimes, though, exclude those brands we love so much. So, how does that help save us money?
- Kohl’s Cash
When you shop during certain times…which you know because you’ll receive mailings and/or emails…they happen very regularly, every month at least….for every $50 you spend, you receive at least $10 in Kohl’s Cash.
This can be used on pretty much everything, including all those name brand things that you couldn’t use the coupons for originally.
Let me show you some examples of actual deals I have gotten. The first is clothes we bought for my dear and very picky husband.
| 5 shirts and 2 pairs of Khakis, regular price | $196 |
| Subtotal, on sale | $125.48 |
| Kohl’s cash & coupons | -$53 |
| Shipping | FREE |
| Tax | $5.80 |
| Total we paid | $78.28 |
| Kohl’s Cash earned to use on the next order | $10 |
The retail price of the khakis (Dockers) alone was $116! For 7 pieces of nice men’s clothing, we paid an average of $11.18 each.
And remember there’s still $10 in Kohl’s Cash to be used later. So cool.
| 5 pairs Levi’s jeans | $178.50 |
| Kohl’s Cash used | -$5 |
| Shipping | FREE |
| Tax | $13.88 |
| Total we paid | $187.38 |
| Kohl’s Cash Received to use on next order | $45 |
Did you get that?! $45 back!!! Otherwise, kind of average prices on jeans, but the $45 in Kohl’s Cash makes it a great deal.
Here’s another deal, this time for shoes.
| Under Armour Tennis shoes | $52.50 |
| Washcloth | $3.99 |
| Subtotal | $56.49 |
| Kohl’s Store Coupons | -$6.10 |
| Shipping | FREE |
| Tax | $4.03 |
| Total we paid | $54.42 |
| Kohl’s Cash Received to use on next order | $10 |
At first glance, this may not seem like the best deal, but there are few things to consider.
This order was for myself. I have a really hard time finding: shoes that are in my size AND I like them AND they are comfortable. So, when I saw cool looking Under Armour tennis shoes on sale, in my size, I knew I needed to jump on them.
Those shoes are regularly $70. I had a free shipping coupon (also very common), and I knew that if they didn’t fit, I could return them the next time I was in town. Returns are simple, with or without a receipt if you use your Kohl’s charge.
The reason I ordered the wash cloth <so random> was that I needed something to keep the subtotal at $50+ so that I could get $10 in Kohl’s Cash. I try to order something useful, and we always need more towels.
That’s not all, though! I clicked through from Ibotta to the Kohl’s website/app, and I got back a little more money in Ibotta rebates.
What’s Ibotta? So glad you asked! 😀
Shop Rebate Apps.
Specifically, Rakuten and Ibotta. In the above examples, I didn’t know about Rakuten at the time {tears}…I could have saved even more.
Rakuten, formerly ebates, is an account you can set up for free, here.
<As of this writing> The beautiful part of this is that when you set up a new account and then spend $30+ in qualifying purchases, you’ll get back $30!!
That’s real money that is mailed to you as a check from Rakuten! Very cool! When I joined, it was just $10, but hey, I still loved getting that check for essentially doing nothing, haha.
Let me walk you through the process. It’s not hard.
1. Click on the link to Rakuten.
2. Join by entering your email and password, or continue with google, facebook, or apple (whichever’s easier for you).
3. Once you’re logged in, just go to Rakuten (on either your internet browser or the app) and search for the store where you’ll be shopping.
It will show you how much (usually a percentage) you’ll get back from your purchase. It will say “Activated!” when you look at the store, so you don’t have to do anything further to save money on your shopping.
4. Go ahead and make the purchase, and when you’re finished, it will show up in the Rakuten dashboard, within a day usually.
Let me show you one of the best deals I’ve gotten recently, which combines several of these ideas. It was from Zappos.
| Clarks Step Cali Bay, retail price | $90 |
| My sale price | $47.06 |
| Shipping | FREE |
| Tax | $3.76 |
| Total | $50.82 |
| Ibotta gift cards (2 @ $25 each) | $50 |
| Total charged to my credit card | $0.82 |
| Rakuten rebate received | $0.47 |
I paid 35 cents for these shoes! And they were delivered to me!!
You may have noticed that in the above example, I paid using Ibotta gift cards. If you’re not familiar with it, I’ve written more extensively about Ibotta here. Feel free to check it out.
So, I had accumulated $50 in Ibotta rebates that I hadn’t cashed in on yet. When I needed a pair of shoes, I decided to check to see if Zappos had a Rakuten deal, free shipping, and {most importantly} some cute shoes in my size!
Well, all the deal “stars” lined up, so to speak, and I had a shoe buying unicorn on my hands.
If you want to check out Ibotta for yourself, use my link. That way, your account connects to mine, and you can see how much I’m saving all the time! Ibotta gives new members a bonus when you complete your first rebate within a certain amount of time, and I get a little bonus, too!
Stack Deals.
I’ve already shown you several examples of “stacking” deals, in the tables above.
Basically, stacking is combining any offers that the store will allow you to stack so that you maximize your savings.
One great way to do that is to sign up for store emails. Usually this offer pops up on the screen when you go to a new website.
Pro tip: Get yourself a spam email address. Haha, that’s what my kids called mine. I didn’t understand why until I realized that it has “spm” in the middle of it so they naturally thought it was for spam. Gotta love kiddos and their thinking.
It’s pretty simple to open up a new gmail account.
This way, all the emails aren’t clogging up your real email inbox.
The reason this is so helpful is that you will have all of the latest coupons and deals in one place (your email inbox).
Make it something easy to remember and easy to say to a cashier in case you have to tell it to them at checkout. (This comes up at old navy and rack room shoes sometimes.)
Here’s a great of example of how this saved me money this past Winter.
Our oldest goes to school in Chicago. Brrrr.
We had gotten her a heavy winter coat and she had a jacket but needed an in-between. She checked out a couple of thrift stores but didn’t find anything, unfortunately. So, I told her to scout online for the best one with all the features she needed.
She found a Columbia coat that was perfect. I checked several places online including the Columbia website. I signed up for their emails, just in case we decided to buy directly from them.
I checked Amazon and Kohl’s, but they didn’t have the exact style she wanted.
So, I went back to the Columbia website. Here are several details about our purchase.
| Jacket, $150 regular price | $112.50 |
| Shipping | FREE |
| Tax | $9 |
| Total we paid | $121.50 |
| Gift certificate for next purchase | $20 |
We didn’t plan ahead and get her a jacket out of season {always a good idea}, so we paid what I think was a LOT for the jacket. But it’s great quality. I do believe it was a fair price.
But notice that we got free shipping? That’s because we are on the email list.
Also, being on the email list is why I got a gift certificate for $20. I had no idea we would be getting that! What a great surprise! We ended up ordering a couple of things to help Santa out with some stocking stuffers.
So here’s the order, sort of continued:
| <stocking stuffers for Santa> | $19.50 |
| Tax | $1.56 |
| Shipping | FREE |
| Gift certificate from the previous order | -$20 |
| Total we paid | $1.06 |
| Rakuten rebate received | $2.15 |
Notice we paid $1.06 but we received ANOTHER $2.15 from Rakuten! How cool is that?!
Compare prices with Amazon.
This was a really surprising way that we saved money on clothes.
I found something I really liked in the catalog, “Woman Within,” but the price was more than I wanted to pay and the shipping was high.
{You’ve noticed I love me some free shipping.}
So, on a whim, I searched on amazon for the brand and style I was looking at. It wasn’t a brand I’d heard of, so I didn’t know if I’d find anything or not.
Well, you can imagine my surprise when not only did I find the exact item, but it was cheaper, had free (Prime) shipping, and was being shipped and sold by Woman Within!
The same company!
They had it listed cheaper and with free shipping if you ordered from Amazon instead of from their own website.
I call that cray-cray.
And you better believe I ordered it.
Put things in your online shopping cart and see what happens.
I came across this one by accident as well.
A few years ago, I was shopping for Christmas gifts and put a couple of items in my cart on the Vera Bradley website. I was logged in and on their mailing list.
You can create an account without ordering anything, by the way.
Anyway, we were still trying to decide about some of the gifts so I didn’t order that night.
In the next day or so, I received an email from Vera Bradley saying that I had left things in my cart and offering me a percent off my order.
Well, every time since then that I’ve ordered from Vera Bradley, I’ve made sure to put something in the cart a day or two ahead of time!
Don’t buy things you don’t love.
Remember the movie, The Blind Side? I love that one! There’s a scene where they’re shopping for clothes for Michael.
Well, one thing I know about shopping is if you don’t absolutely love it in the store, you won’t wear it.
Leigh Anne Tuohy
She’s so right.
So my last tip for saving money on clothes is to not spend any…if you’re not certain that you love it!
Bonus pro tip: Shop thrift stores for special occasion/formal dresses.
We have found beautiful (David’s Bridal), like new dresses for $14 and $6. Be sure to shop early. Of all the thrift stores in our area, only a couple really seem to get the good formal dresses….Just be open to shopping for them at random times like July or August.
I hope this helps you save money for your family! Have fun!
