Fashion Jobs – 5 Ways to Make Your Money Last When You’re Unemployed

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You’ve just been fired, laid off or quit a job that probably wasn’t for you. Your unemployed self is staring at the decreasing figures in your bank account and at some point, it will get to zero. It’s finally time to become someone who saves their money and spends it wisely – a saver.

 

Long and gone are the days of blowout sales, leisure shopping, eating out at every restaurant possible and getting your nails filled every two weeks (don’t worry that last one hurt for me too). You have to learn how to manage your money and spread it out as far as you can – or until you land another job. Here are five ways to make your money stretch during these dark times!maxresdefault

Reduce, Reuse and Re-Style
Keeping up with the latest trends is hard enough as it is, with the fashion week schedules switching up on us every other month. Spending your money towards them? That’s a whole other conversation. The great thing about trends is that they are like boomerangs. They always come back around when they’ve been tossed or thrown away.

 

The clothing you already have in your closet is probably going to be a new trend in a couple weeks. You just don’t know how to wear it yet. Re-using your clothes is quite simple once you’ve found the balance between multi-purpose dressing and borderline hoarding.  If you really feel like you need to have new clothing in your closet you can always trade-in your clothes. Second-hand stores like Common Sort offers this neo-shopping way. When there are days where you’re thirsty for inspiration, you can always turn to creative fashion bloggers, like Aimee Song from Song of Style, who put up cool videos about how to maximize your closet.

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Skip the Junk and Pack a Lunch
Packing your lunch is not only economically-friendly, but it’s also therapeutically-friendly. This allows you to become an amateur part-time chef and an expert at organization, time management, and meal prepping. The trick is to maximize your groceries as long as possible. This can easily start with making a couple meals at the beginning of the week and making them last the entire week. If you’re on the go, you’ll definitely need to utilize this trick. If you love to cook this will be very easy for you.

 

Cooking is a survival skill but some of us can’t turn into Wolfgang Puck overnight. An easy place to go for quick recipes and awesome meal plans is Tasty. I know you’ve been hypnotized by those quick meal making videos all over social media, so why not put them to use? A good tasty recipe will have you walking right past the fast food line and towards your fancy old lunch bag (no new lunch bags, you’re saving money here).

 

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Emergency Money
Spending money – even a cent – has to be an emergency. Emergency meaning life or death which includes those pre-authorized payments like your phone, internet etc. Not your subscription to a beauty box. An emergency also does not equate to the sale happening at your favourite store. That lifestyle of shopping and buying things for leisure needs to come to a halt. Unfortunately for you, your days of leisurely spending money are over. It all starts with deciding what is needed and what is not. If you can still breathe air without it, you most likely don’t need it. It’s all about minimizing your spending habits and maximizing the things you already own.

 

If you’re terrible at keeping track of your money and knowing what to spend on and what not to spend on, there is something you can do. Budgeting. Budgeting your money will always help. You can do this through apps, like Mint, or just taking out all the cash you’ll need for the week, hiding your cards and just using that cash that you took out. This way you won’t be tempted and when it comes spending you automatically think, “Is this an emergency?”

 

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Deals, Deals, Deals!
As much as we want to sometimes, we all cannot be hermit crabs that stay at home and never go out. Sometimes we get invited to things by friends and family that usually cost money. This doesn’t mean you have to spend a lot. Finding deals for these said outings has become very easy thanks to the internet. The worldwide web is home to various websites that offer deals for food, entertainment, attractions, you name it. Groupon is great one to start with.

 

You can find deals from all over the country. Especially when you do a Groupon with a group, everything is much cheaper because it’s split a couple ways. Although, if your friends have similar character traits to the bourgeois (fancy and expensive lifestyle), try and see them every few months. You just have to be smart about how you’re going to pitch it to your crew. Make sure you’re quick to suggest to do something fun and that you’d think everyone would enjoy. And act fast on it. This way you save money, have fun with your friends and are very distant from becoming a hermit crab.

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Try to DIY
Doing things yourself is the key to success. Once you’ve mastered how to accommodate your external needs on your own, you can pretty much do anything. This can include things like getting your nails done, cutting your hair, buying that cute ripped tee, plucking your own eyebrows, you name it. Turn your bathroom into your own spa if you have to. The internet, once again, has bestowed things like YouTube that have variations on variations of tutorials that can help with a novice DIY-er. Don’t worry if you’re not good at first, practice makes perfect and practice makes you save. Some awesome YouTubers to check out for great DIYs are LaurDiy and withwendy, these ladies know how to work with what they’ve got and save, save, save. Become the Jack or Jackie of-all-trades and you’ll be one step closer to not spending a dime on all special services.

Inspirational Images
Image courtesy of Tania Sarin
Image courtesy of Aimee Song
Image courtesy of Tasty
Image courtesy of Mint
Image courtesy of Hadid News
Image courtesy of With Wendy

By: Prescylla Veronique, Toronto, @prescyllav

 

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