Clothing is perhaps one of your must-have monthly expenses, especially if you are a woman. I know this from my wife. A typical working Malaysian woman could spend between $50 and $200 a month for clothing. Although percentage wise, out of the total income, this could be a small amount (which seldom go beyond 5% and rarely go beyond 10% – of the total income), this expenses category could promise us many benefits if its total expenses is reduced.

I would like to share my experience managing my family’s clothing expenses in this article. Here you go …

Last weekend, my wife and I did an exciting cost saving project: sewing maternity dress for her. We called it ‘Project Runaway’, borrowing the project name from a popular American reality show, which focuses on fashion design. We tailored a beautiful maternity dress at material cost. And it is an interesting family project.

To start the story with, my wife is a high school teacher. Her teaching career demands her to dress properly. She also needs to have plenty of clothes, so that she doesn’t repeat the same dress every week. And currently, she is expecting our first baby and therefore she needs a new set of dress: maternity dress. A new set of dress calls for new budget, new expenses. And her tummy grows every day! That calls for ‘Red Alert’ – she is in a need for many maternity dresses urgently. As family’s CFO, I have to balance this need with other needs.

The following tells our journey.

1st Milestone

We bought a maternity dress of high end brand. It costs us around $125. It is expensive. We know that we have to save more money for other costs i.e. O&G services, food supplements for expecting mothers, baby delivery, post-deliver cares and treatments, baby stuffs, and so on. We must do cost saving!

2nd Milestone

Then we did ask a local tailor to sew maternity dress for her. We bought the material around $30 at Kamdar. We came out with the design after we studied fashion magazines. But the tailor charged us $40 for her service: that is more than the material cost. Thus the total cost for it was $70 a piece ($30 + $40 = $70). We are quite satisfied with the completed dress. And we had saved around $45 a piece ($125 – $70 = $45). Anyway, we do think that we could still lower the cost further.

3rd Milestone

Then we did buy some maternity dresses of brands that aren’t popular, which cost us roughly $50 a piece. Their quality isn’t bad. And we had saved around $75 a piece this way ($125 – $50 = $75). Yet we think that we could still lower the cost.

4th Milestone

Next, my wife came out with a brilliant cost saving idea: maternity dress DIY. Luckily, she knows how to sew using sewing machine as she used to operate her mother’s sewing machine (at kampong). That’s mean less a hurdle for her. And my mother (here in Kuching) has just got her long-idle sewing machine fixed. My wife tailored the material which we bought long time ago, that we haven’t sent to tailor. The total cost of the dress is $35 ($30 material + $5 accessories). The completed dress isn’t really up to our expectation. But I said to her, “Never mind. It was your first try. Try again.” Anyway, we had saved $90 a piece ($125 – $35 = $90).

5th Milestone

I gave her $30 encouragement – we bought two materials at Kamdar, two meters each, one costs $5 a meter and another costs $10 a meter. Last Sunday, we sew one dress for her. (Proudly) I helped her to co-design her latest DIY dress. It was quite interesting and challenging. This mini project made my brain’s neurons fired actively. Lucky for me, my wife always ask me for opinions whenever she buys new dresses and whenever she designs dress to send to tailor. Hence, I know which dress is good on her and which dress isn’t. It took us few hours to nearly complete one dress from measuring to cutting to sewing. We cannot accomplish the last steps with her mother’s (aging) sewing machine – will complete it with my mother’s this coming weekends. When both completed, one would cost us $10 and another would cost us $20. It would save us $105 and $115 a piece. And most importantly, we are very satisfied with the initial result. We think our DIY dress is at par with the dress on the shelves at dress shops. I asked her, “Are you considering opening a maternity dress boutique?” She replied, “Maybe. It would be interesting. So, when are you going to design my next dress?”

Dress cost equals material cost, plus exciting experience and better relationship!

The Financial Outcomes

Two possible financial outcomes, lower dress cost means:

• we could buy more dresses with the same amount of money; and/or
• we could save more money or divert the budget allocation to other necessities.

Our Advices

Our advices for beginners:

• Utilise your existing resources
  We used our mothers’ sewing machines. We experimented with our unused material first before buying new materials specifically for this project.
• Do not be over ambitious with your first experiment
  Build your confident by trying simple dress design that you could use at your home e.g. night gown. Once you are confident with your sewing skill, then you could try more complicated designs.
• Think then cut
  You might be too excited to cut and sew. Do not do this but design, plan, measure and mark first before you begin cutting and sewing the material.
• Go to class
  Or learn from your mother.

Husbands, give encouragements and supports; and participate.

Good luck!

Disclaimer: We didn’t receive any kind of benefit from Kamdar by mentioning it in this article.