How much money do you spend on a new wardrobe?

[Annaiyah]

This question is directed to MtFs or FtMs

So when you transition, and you're ready to get rid of the clothes that belong to your unwanted gender, how much do you spend on a new wardrobe of your wanted gender? When budgeting your transition, how much would you be willing to spend on a new set of clothes that belong to your preferred gender?

Also, what do you do with the clothes that belong to your unwanted gender? Throw them in the trash? Donate them to charity? I plan on donating my male clothes to charity instead of trashing them because I'm sure someone else can benefit more from my donation than I did, and besides, I don't want the money my mom and I spent on these clothes to go to waste by throwing them in the trash but to each their own.

I'm just here asking because I find myself with this pesky little habit of blowing my extra money on female clothes when it could be going to other important things, when I've just barely begun my transition.

[JamesG]

Too much and... not enough. LOL!

I too am casting off male clothes. Practically because as part of my transition I've lost a LOT of weight so they wouldn't fit anymore anyway.  Adding insult to injury to my checkbook,  a year ago I spent $1500 on a pair of new suits...   I'm trying to sell them for a fraction of that... 

So that adds another dimension to the wardrobe issue, one that cis women can easily identify with. As you transition, and even seasonal weight fluctuations, will change what fits (in addition to the frantic turn over in woman's fashion!).

So my strategy is to suffer along with my baggy man clothes until I get down to my ideal weight/bodyshape before even starting to go shopping (although I do web-shop) for any outright female clothes. That's the plan anyway...

[LittleEmily24]

Too much and... not enough. LOL!

THIS explains it perfectly LMAO.

In the last 3 months alone i've spent a good 2k on clothes 😛 I'm trying to sell my male clothes so i can get more money LOL but my male clothes were never "amazing" due to my lack of interest.

It really all depends on how you feel about clothes. For me, wearing male clothes was a huge trigger and simply putting on my clothes in the morning to get ready for work would cause me to be depressed and break down halfway through the day, i just couldn't do it, so I started buying female clothes so I could begin dressing full time, and I started dressing full time about a 2 months before starting hormones even. So it doesn't really matter how early you are in your transiton, if you feel like the clothes you wear are important to you, then so be it

Even though I have enough clothes to wear a new outfit every day for maybe 2 months, i still want to buy more 😛 I'm willing to spend pretty much anything on new clothes lol. In fact, most of the time I have to stop myself from buying everything.

I went and bought clothes in a size smaller than I should to make up for the weight loss and muscle mass reduction. Most of my clothes is casual stuff so its not that big a deal, its the dresses that I worry about, but seeing as the changes are still going to take around a year (if i estimate the longest time for any changes to fully develop) I'm not gonna wait a year to start presenting as myself, especially if not doing so leads me to depression dysphoria and suicidal thoughts.

[alena]

I agree with the 'Too much'! Most of my male clothes I donate to charity and will continue to do so during transition, except for underwear which I just trash!

[Hikari]

I made a deal with myself, and it seems to have worked out pretty well:

Until I go full time, I am only allowed to buy one new thing a month, and not in the month that I noticed it. Otherwise it is all hunting for stuff at the goodwill outlet store or the like. Turns out if you see something, but have to actually wait until next month to buy it, you find you don't want it nearly as much as you did when you first saw it.

In effect this means, I rarely buy new clothes, since I included shoes in the deal with myself. Secondhand shoes are exceedingly rare, so if I buy something new I buy shoes more than likely.

If I didn't set rules like this for myself I would never, ever be able to save money.

[allisonsteph]

How much I'd be willing to spend and how much I can realistically afford to spend are two completely different questions. I find myself using the "but it's cute' justification way more than when I dressed as a male.

When I made the decision to live full time I boxed my male clothing up and put it in my storage unit. For my own well being I had to get them out of the house, but I wasn't completely certain that I wouldn't have to detransition at some point so I put them out of sight, but accessible. Since then I have begun HRT and legally changed my name and gender. There is no turning back now. One of these days I need to pull my male clothes out of storage and donate them to charity.

[smile_jma]

Well I started buying bottoms in high school or college, so by the time senior year of college came around, I didn't have any guy pants left, except for my 1 suit pants. I think I gave them away. Tops... I sometimes still wear the guy tops (sweaters and the smaller guy tees, mostly) but I've recently found out that I'm missing a big amount of those. No idea where they went, they just disappeared. Now I'm stuck with 2 guy tees, maybe 3? guy sweaters, and the rest is women's tops (though not very girly), and all girl bottoms.

I may have spent about $8-900 on that wardrobe change over the course of 3-4 years. I still see stuff I want everyday, but then I remember. The fitment on models/mannequins are so very different than on real people. Damn. ..And then I end up not buying. (Not saying models aren't real people, but they tend to be skinnier than the average person on the street).

[Julia-Madrid]

Hi y'all

I've tried to find a middle path so that I don't waste too much cash.  I'd truly love to ditch the suits, but they still get the occasional obligatory outing (aaargh!).  What works for me, since I'm a petite European size 36, is to buy cute androgynous stuff that works either way, and hopefully I'll not need to get rid of too much as I advance.  I'm already doing that for shoes and shirts, and at some point that will extend to jeans and the rest.  One of the advantages is that work colleagues gradually experience my evolution, so by the time my big news arrives, they should only be surprised by how long it took. 

Not sure whether this would work for everyone...

Hugs
Julia

[Nicolette]

Very little. I gradually swapped out male clothes for female clothes over a period of two years. I had the luxury of a seamless transition.

[Hikari]

Very little. I gradually swapped out male clothes for female clothes over a period of two years. I had the luxury of a seamless transition.

Seamless? Then how did you hold your clothes together? I mean, I have tried just gluing pieces of fabric together, and it never seems to work 😛

[MaryXYX]

Almost all of my clothes come from charity shops.  I can get a skirt and top for about £6 to £8.  I did treat myself to a session with the Personal Shopper at a big store and bought three dresses and a pair of shoes for parties and formal dinners.  That's most of my expenditure on clothes so far!

I got most of my jewelry from the charity shops too, but now I'm starting to move up market.  That could be very expensive.

[Nicolette]

Seamless? Then how did you hold your clothes together? I mean, I have tried just gluing pieces of fabric together, and it never seems to work

Girl, get up with the current trends! I wear 3D printed clothes which, seemingly, require no seams. [note: to be posted in 5 years time] 

[Eva Marie]

I have slowly been buying clothes over the years, refining my style, figuring out what works for me and what doesn't. I always look for sales and I am always on the lookout for clothing because you never know when or where you'll stumble across something nice. I get my clothes from a variety of places; some of them come from the big retailers like walmart & kohls, and some come from the thrift store. Just yesterday I picked up a very nice dark gray skirt in great condition for $3.50 at goodwill, and recently I found a denim skirt on the clearance rack at walmart for $3.00. Most of my shoes come from cheap places like payless or walmart but I have a few nice pairs from kohls too.

I am still in the building up phase and I plan to come out soon so I'm spending a lot more than usual on clothes; my normal clothes budget is about $50-$75 a month.

[JayDawg]

As little as possible. In my town, we have both Goodwill and an America's Thrift Store (BEST. PLACE. EVER.) I'm very slowly replacing my not overly feminine to begin with work clothes with actual men's clothing (and socks!).  Last weekend, I got a pair of jeans and a Henley short sleeved shirt at Goodwill for $6 and change.  Then I drove up the street to Walmart and got men's sneakers, 2 pair of slacks, another Henley shirt, a 3 pack of socks, and a double sided belt for about $65. The Henley's and sneakers are not for work, but I also need weekend clothes. Next month, I'll hit up America's Thrift Store and see what kind of deals I can find there - they organize things by size, whereas Goodwill just throws all pants on a rack and calls it good. Those jeans were the ONLY 30x32 pants I found in a half hour of looking.

[Julia-Madrid]

Hi y'all...!!

After going nuts for the past few weeks due to the absence of more female clothing, I went out with a girlfriend yesterday and shopped the whole day.  Luckily here in Spain we have Zara and a few other brands from the Inditex group, and they are soooo nicely priced, especially since I'm buying "transition" clothes rather than the kind of clothes that I would keep for several years.  And I was really lucky - found some nice cute stuff that make a clear girl-in-progress statement! 

I think I heard my credit card sigh on one occasion, but it never screamed with indignation :-)

It's so nice to finally have some "proper" female clothing.  My look has always been andro, but mostly bought on the men's side of the house.  Yesterday I made the really important psyschological breakthrough of going into women's stores and not being scared of telling the assistants what I was REALLY looking for.   A real liberation. 

How have the rest of you felt doing this?

Hugs
J

[Lauren5]

Maybe $150 so far?
Then again, my wardrobe is puny, and most of it is leftover T shirts that work well enough.

[JoanneB]

My main fix comes from roaming the thrift/charity shops. Often I'll find something I like... a lot... and a price I love. Usually several somethings. Afterall, If you are already getting in/out of your clothes there isn't much more of an effort to "just try ____ on to see how it looks on you". The Puppy Dog sale works really good on me.

Ocassionally while roaming the racks in a department or dress store I'll find find something I really really really love enough to justify my budget.

Overall, in the past 5 years I've probably spent 2-3 times as much on my wardrobe than during the last 30 or so years buying male clothes. BTW - a lot of my male stuff is almost that old    I just hate guy clothes shopping. Being forced to look in a mirror at myself in guy stuff totally sucks to start with, without adding the insult of having to PAY for that experience

[latoya rayne]

I shop at vintage shops so everything is like 5 to 15 bucks on clothes but the most in one day was like 300 I spend more on getting my hair keratine straightened and extensions though, like 650 all together lol

[LizMarie]

The answer to building an initial wardrobe is thrift shops. Many items there will simply be unattractive or they won't have your size. But take your time and you will find gems that fit you, your sense of style, and allow you to do this very cheaply. The bulk of my wardrobe is from thrift shops. Heck, the BFF who introduced me to thrift shops has shopped all her life that way. She rarely buys new. And we work out very well together. She's a 10 tall and I am a 12 tall so if something is too big for her, she shows it to me and vice-versa. I love shopping with her! 🙂 Too bad it only happens a few times per year, since she lives several states away.

[WFane]

I've dropped a couple hundred... Mostly on shoes lol. Granted, they're all black shoes, and they're all different types (one of each in heels, work shoes, flats, and boots).
I also picked up a swimsuit, a ton of sheers for work because they let me wear a skirt when it's hot out, and a bunch of skirts at a place in Boston called the clothes outlet, where everything's pretty cheap.

Bras and shoes have by far been the most expensive investment...