Money and Clothes · Real Men Real Style Community

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Money and Clothes

As a guy who has been in the finance world for nearly 43 years, 2/3 of which as a financial advisor, I basically see people’s expenditures on a pretty intimate basis. And I’ve seen lots of them. When I was a Raymond James Branch manager we had over 4,000 accounts for which I was responsible. Considering I’ve also been dabbling in Classic Timeless Menswear since I was 14 years old (1975), a fellow brother’s posts in the community triggered me to offer my two cents on clothing and money. I went through some old photo albums and saw clothes that are well over 30 years old. Much of which I am still wearing ( see pics from the 1990 to 1993 time period primarily) Many others I would happily buy new today (examples are the casual batik shirts that I replace when they finally give up the ghost). To me there is a tremendous overlap of frugal finance and timeless style. So from a financial professional’s point of view here is my take on clothes and money.

For the better part of my financial advisor role, I, like many in my field was pretty dismissive of Dave Ramsey. Most of us constantly are reducing his work to being “pretty good for people who are in a lot of unnecessary debt” but not that useful after that in guiding people.” To be honest I used to recommend his courses to client’s spoiled kid (yes many times spoiled by my clients who were the first generation of having wealth). These “kid’s ( mostly in their 40’s) had gotten themselves in a lot of financial trouble and I knew enough without actually reading his books that in their situation they might benefit from him. One time I had a week or so before speaking with a spendthrift daughter of a client so I thought “what the heck” and spent half of a Saturday morning speed reading the 9 week Ramsey course that I had been recommending. I was shocked on how valuable his stuff was. Here are just two things I discovered: 1) I learned that even though I had never had a car payment since I was married and had never paid any interest on a credit card since realizing how stupid that was 6 months into our marriage-I was still wasting a lot of money on expenditures simply because of the “ease” of pulling out that card. Every fast food restaurant in the world knows how much more folks spend with a card versus cash. On that particular Saturday morning I was still working for a regional bank when I looked at the previous year’s Credit card statements (cards chosen so I could get mileage on an airline🙄). I had dropped over $36,000 on credit cards the previous year. After Taxes! That meant that I had to earn $52,000 before taxes to spend that amount $40,000 each year can buy a hell of a lot of flights fellas. Credit card miles are usually a scam and certainly had became a dangerous justification for overspending in my case.

2.) I learned how valuable knowing your “liquidity” divided by your “burn rate” is. In other words take the present dollars you have liquid (able to write a check today) divided by how much you spend every day on average ((net income per year subtracting savings) divided by 365 days). I was planning to go out on my own and I discovered I only had 8 days cash. I locked up my credit cards or cancelled them and within a year or so saved up enough to leave a job I hated. I took a 95% pay cut but thanks to that Saturday morning exercise I was able to do it. SO (after recovering economically several years later) I SAID “HOW MANY BOOKS COMPARED TO Ramsey’s 10 MILLION TOTAL MAKE OVER BOOKS THAT RAMSEY HAS SOLD HAVE YOU SOLD MCGuire 😎. I added a certification as Ramsey Solutions Master Coach to my arsenal and primarily do it as pro-bono church work.

Gentlemen- the first step is to gain financial peace and freedom and that involves a budget. Most people have it backwards and feel it’s restrictive. A budget means (as Ramsey who stole this from John Maxwell says) “tell every dollar where to go versus wonder where they all went”. Just like planning your time, planning your expenditures is very empowering. This step precedes all of his baby steps. It is critical to achieving financial peace.

For the sake of this post I am going to focus only on clothing. Money, like time, is finite. Clothing is part of one’s personal expenditures. (See chart). While I was funding my son’s college and simultaneously building my financial advisory practice I only allowed 1% of our family income for all of our clothing expenditures (a ridiculously low figure.). The only way I was able to pull this off was.:

A) I had a lot of quality old outfits (since I buy CTM of quality) that never go out of style

B) I was on the front end of the great de-evolution of dressing down for the office back in 2012 when I went out on my own so it wasn’t that hard to stretch my existing wardrobe.

Now that college isn’t a factor, and my business is doing well, and I’ve replenished and tailored several items (as well as loosing 37 lbs so I can wear some things I hadn’t been able to wear), I have filled in several holes in my wardrobe. But your journey and mine are probably quite different. So let me offer some general advice:

First- DO THAT BUDGET

Second- take the time to find out what holes you have in your wardrobe (I did a complete inventory of the value of my clothing to replace of new- then figured out true need versus want). This will give you a timeline to stay within your budget

Third-that percentage needs to adjust down until you have ZERO debt beyond a mortgage {Sorry, I would suck as a Ramsey guy if I didn’t say this but I’ve heard a lot of folks try to argue this one with me. I wouldn’t try if I were you. You will most likely fail if you try to convince me revolving debt and car payments have any redeeming value whatsoever 😏) the ratio of liquidity divided by one’s burn rate I mentioned earlier is the secret sauce that provides financial freedom. The charts I provided are general guidances. Everyone is in a different life stage here in the community by career and age and there is a lot covered in a typical 9 week Financial Peace course that I haven’t the space to do so here. (I’ve taught many of them). But again for the purpose of this post, clothing is a small part of that 5-10% typical personal expenditure (as are Watches, and perfume etc). Naturally if one chooses to substitute entertainment, recreation etc that’s fine. Just don’t sacrifice giving (to something bigger than your self your soul will be grateful) and saving ( your future you will be most grateful).

Here is a similar take by Antonio a year ago

https://www.realmenrealstyle.com/build-budget-wardrobe-tips/

Oh. By the way. The member that triggered all of this is young master @ William Werhs. While I don’t presume to know his personal financial situation, I am VERY impressed with his efforts to dress as well as he can and to do so in an economical manner as he has recently taken on his teacher role. Keep it up William. I would wager you are making a very strong impact on adults here as you do with children in day role

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Money and Clothes