When you’re trying to live a frugal lifestyle, and avoid spending a lot of money on things, one of the areas that you are likely to cut back in is clothing. It’s hard to keep up with styles without spending an arm and a leg, and filling up your closet. Even if you go the frugal route, it’s easy to fill up your closet with a bunch of clothing that you might not wear more than a few times.
One way to get around this might be to sign up for a clothing service like Gwynnie Bee.
Clothing Rental
I recently tried Gwynnie Bee, using a 30-day free trial. The idea behind the service is that you pay a flat fee each month, depending on how many items of clothing you want to have at a time. When I was explaining it to my husband, I told him it was like Netflix, but for clothes. (Only, of course, no one gets discs from Netflix anymore; it’s all about the streaming.)
At any rate, you decide how many articles of clothing you want to have at a time, and they are sent to you. You can wear the clothing as much as you want, and then send the items back. When you send the clothing back, you get a new article of clothing. It’s like getting new clothes regularly, but you don’t have to store them anywhere, and you don’t have to keep buying new things.
You do have to pay a monthly fee, though. However, depending on your spending habits, you might actually spend less when you pay the monthly fee instead of buying new clothes. Of course, you can also have the option to buy some of the clothing. If you decide you want to buy, you can do so, and pay about half price for the item.
How Gwynnie Bee Worked for Me
Gwynnie Bee is a clothing rental service that is aimed at women sizes 10 to 32. There are other clothing rental services out there, like Rent the Runway, Le Tote, and The Ms. Collection. One of the problems I ran into with Gwynnie Bee is that, in many cases, it was still difficult to find clothing in my size, and that reflected my style. I tend to choose basic items, and apparently they are in high demand.
As a result, it took a little longer to get things going for me, and it also meant that some of what I received wasn’t a first choice (or even a second choice). The biggest drawback is that you can’t choose what comes next. You choose a number of possibilities to keep in your “closet” (it works best when you have at least 20 items), and the service just sends what’s available at the time.
I ended up with more dresses than I wanted, and none of the tops I was hoping for. Plus, since I wear the smallest size available at Gwynnie Bee, there were times when I couldn’t even add something to my closet.
For me, clothing rental probably isn’t the best option. However, I can see how it might work for someone else, especially someone who has a big even coming up. If you can get a free trial, go for a test drive and see how you like it. Then evaluate whether or not it makes sense for your finances.
{ 0 comments… add one now }