The Mirror Has Two Faces: Redefining Your Perception of Affordable Fashion

Examiner.com folded ealier his month. I was their Salt Lake City Budget Fashion Examiner a couple of years ago, so I have decided to repost all my articles here on my blog. This one is part of a two part article looking at the two sides of buying clothes on a budget.

Do you set reasonable limits when it comes to budget fashion? Do you carry healthy perceptions about yourself and in how you view money?

Today's focus is going to be a little more philosophical as we examine some seemingly opposing ideas behind budget fashion. 

The word budget is relatively versatile and can be used as a noun, adjective and a verb. When examining the various definitions it is easy to see which ones are most prevalent in our particular culture, or rather, foremost in our thoughts when we hear or read the word 'budget'.  

The most common definition would be the adjective form of the word, which describes something as being cheap or reasonably priced. Yet the actual noun simply means an allotment or a predicted amount of resources over a short period of time. If we examine this definition we find that the specifics of this amount will vary from person to person. 

We have found that in writing about budget fashion it has been a matter of some perplexity to know how to write articles that will apply to all budgets. We disagree with the idea that anything we write about must all be as absolutely cheap as possible, especially because some people really will not ever want to purchase second-hand. There is nothing wrong with this. Though our current culture is very much enamored of the idea of applying the three R's of being eco-friendly, there are some definite, though often overlooked cons that are often concealed behind the more obvious pros of wearing secondhand clothing. So we have also written a sister article today that covers all the things to watch out for when shopping second-hand to help you avoid these cons as much as possible. 

As for this article we are not only going to acknowledge that secondhand is not for everyone but would like to help all our fashionable readers re-evaluate their perceptions of what is affordable and what they personally feel to be expensive. Consider that perhaps you have been limiting yourself by how you define these two words in your own life.

Some of my readers may be familiar with Carol Tuttle. A local of Draper Utah, Carol is an entrepreneur and author who is known for her life changing energy healing techniques and in more recent years her personal beauty profiling system that she bases upon her theories about each person's individual expression of energy and movement. Carol's program, “Dressing Your Truth” has been life changing and empowering for thousands of women, by encouraging them to look at themselves in a new way and discover their true nature and learn how to best emphasize their own natural type of beauty.

In these videos Carol discusses how our personal perceptions of money are often false beliefs that we have been indoctrinated with throughout our lives. She offers some energy healing techniques for purging the limiting beliefs and replacing them with affirmations that will allow us to know that our personal beauty is not at all related to the size of our budgets.

We love the positive affirmations and ideas behind Carol's message and hope that in sharing this today we will encourage all our lovely (or handsome) readers to realize that they are not defined by their budgets and that perhaps they can even manifest a larger budget and elevate their perception of value and worth.

While trying our best to be smart shoppers may we not forget that some standards should be kept high. You are worth more than stained, worn or hole riddled clothing and you deserve better than this. I think often, in our Salt Lake culture, because of how we were raised, some of us can get so caught up in being thrifty that we become stingy and become personal martyrs, by denying ourselves many basic needs. Fearing that wanting nice things makes us worldly we settle for truly less than we ought to and then our self esteem suffers because we have in essence told ourselves that we're not worth it. That we're not good enough to have a nice dress or a hole free pair of socks or jeans. Let us remember that for most of us with these limiting beliefs we have also been taught to seek after anything lovely, of good report or praiseworthy. For those who recognize this teaching, you might also remember that the Temple standards are very high. All clothing is spotlessly white, furniture and décor are immaculate, clean and in good condition. If our bodies are our temples then we should dress them accordingly and never settle for something so obviously beneath us. Not even on laundry day!

One philosophy we love is that if you couldn't wear it to church, you shouldn't have it in your closet. Many who have traveled outside of the US might have noticed that of all the civilized nations we dress the most slovenly. Perhaps we could change this reputation at least within the salt Lake Community. Let us make this dream a reality as we all strive to be better at celebrating our personal beauty and fashionable tastes. 

Photo Credit: SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA - DECEMBER 23: A woman walks past a sale display at Pitt Street shopping mall on December 23, 2011 in Sydney, Australia. As retailers like Kathmandu, JB-HI Fi and Billabong report poor pre-Christmas sales, many stores are dropping prices to battle for last-minute shopper dollars to help boast the seasonally low offline retail numbers. (Photo by Brendon Thorne/Getty Images)