Maximizing your style on a budget is as easy as knowing where to shop. The malls and high-end department stores are great for window-shopping and seeing the latest trends, styles and colors. However, they are not the places to actually shop for clothing and accessories.

Armed with your knowledge of this season's hottest look from your tour of the department stores, head for a consignment shop. Yes, a consignment shop. The days of dirty, disorganized stores with clothes that look like they should be thrown out are over. Today's consignment shops offer gently-used name brand clothing that often looks as good as new. As a matter of fact, if you shop around, you can even find some pieces that are brand new with the tags still on them. Often, people will buy something in the wrong size hoping to someday squeeze into it. When they finally give up, that piece will go to a consignment shop. It's not uncommon to find a suit for which someone paid over a hundred dollars at a consignment shop for around ten bucks.

If you carefully shop a consignment shop you should be able to find everything you need to put together a complete look for less. Today's consignment shops feature not only clothing but accessories as well, like purses, shoes, belts, jewelry and more.

Look for good quality name brand clothing in good shape. Most consignment shops are very selective in what they will accept and put out to sell. This means much of the elimination process has been done for you. It's always a good idea, however, to double check details. Look for missing buttons, rips, tears or stains. If it's something you can fix yourself, point it out when you check out and see if they'll take a little less for the item. You've gotten an even better deal on something you can easily repair or clean.

You can even find items you'd never think would be available such as name brand purses like Coach. Yes, people do eventually get rid of them and sometimes they even wind up in consignment shops. The good thing about quality name brands like Coach is that their designs are usually classic and don't go out of style. You can easily carry a last season Coach purse without anyone knowing it's from last season.

That's actually another key to maximizing your style on a budget. Avoid overtly trendy items that will go out of style before the end of the current season. Opt instead for classic pieces that will carry you through several season. Simple and elegant is always a good choice.

By knowing your brands, selecting classics, shopping carefully and adding a few well-selected accessories, you can look like a million bucks without spending a small fortune. No one will ever guess that your completely put-together look was put together from a consignment shop.

Learn more about this author, Bruce W. Coffman.
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