Here’s the beauty & fashion financial guide that everyone’s been waiting for! It’s a no-brainer to look and feel great without breaking the bank. Learn to differentiate between fashion wants and fashion needs, check out how high-end branding may be taking you for a ride, and kick that shopping or overspending addiction. Add value to every beauty and fashion purchase after you know which irrelevant fashion rules you can bypass. The New Savvy unpacks the realities of why women spend so much money on fashion and whether that spend is truly necessary to keep them looking good. It’s no secret: one of life’s little pleasures is looking good. When women know they look good, they feel good. That generally implies keeping in style with the latest clothing, accessories, makeup, hairstyles, shoes and beauty treatments. Since fashion cycles change rapidly, often from one season to the next, all that “keeping up” can rapidly burn a hole in anyone’s pocketbook. High fashion doesn’t have to go hand-in-hand with high prices. Half the battle is won when women understand how to shop smart within store sales periods and with discount opportunities. Playing the ropes by saving money off retail list price is important. Equally important, however, is developing the right mindset to recognise how to get the most fashion value possible for your money. There are plenty of fashion myths out there that encourage women to spend lots of their hard-earned money on attire. Promotion of expensive designer-label fashion, event-specific dress requirements and the commercial push to purchase all-new wardrobes each season can eat up women’s money in no time. Just as a look-good/feel-good correlation is mainly psychological, so is our assessment of the price we must pay to look good. Turn your thinking on its head and re-think how you budget for fashion. Start to appreciate the value and quality that generic or low-priced beauty products offer. Recognise the monetary value you can glean from past seasons’ gently worn clothing when selling them on consignment or swapping them with friends to achieve an eclectic fashion variety. Change your shopping habits with cutting-edge calculations that enable you to get high value for the money you spend on clothing. Do-it-yourself and save heaps of money by mending that rip in the dress early on, practising self-pedicures until you “nail” them and shortening floor-length dresses into stylish contemporary minis. Follow The New Savvy’s beauty & fashion guidelines and you’ll be able to take a brand new direction to making yourself look good. Discover how to save money by preparing for your fashion purchases in advance. Adopt a rational point-of-view and seek value while shopping once you can look beyond some of the silly rules which the fashion industry wants to sell women. Then you will be in a position to look great, feel great and take pride in sticking to a realistic personal fashion budget!