I used to be just like them, I think to myself as I watch the line at the coffee shop extend almost out the door. I used to stop there almost every day for a hot chocolate and a bagel with cream cheese in the morning, something to perk me up just a bit before I went to work. Now I drive on past the place, sipping on my mug of homemade hot chocolate and munching on an English muffin from home with some cream cheese on it.

Every single day, millions of people spend at least $5 on their morning coffee run. $5 per day, for 365 days, adds up to $1,825. An extra $1,825 a year into a retirement plan starting at age 25 that earns only 7% a year adds up to $391,662.46 on your sixty fifth birthday.

I used to be just like them, I think to myself as I watch some of my coworkers go out to eat together. Instead, I slip my brown bag of leftovers out and head off to the lounge to catch up on my reading and perhaps chat with that interesting woman who just finished up the latest Pynchon novel.

Every single weekday, millions of people dine out for lunch at a cost of at least $10 a meal. $10 a day, five days a week, fifty two weeks a year, adds up to $2,600 a year. An extra $2,600 a year into a retirement plan starting at age 25 that earns only 7% a year adds up to $557,974.88 on your sixty fifth birthday.

I used to be just like them, I think to myself as I eye a line of people waiting for some take out food to bring home to their families, handing over $25 for some prepared food so they can drive home, plop it on the table, and make their family believe that food magically appears – that it’s not something you make for yourself. I plan to go home, make an inexpensive and delicious meal for my family that costs less than $15, and take the leftovers for lunch tomorrow.

Every single day, millions of people take a meal home with them to their families at night; other nights, everyone dines out. That extra $10 a day, 365 days a year, adds up to $3,650. An extra $3,650 a year into a retirement plan starting at age 25 that earns only 7% a year adds up to $783,324.93.

I used to be just like them, I think to myself as I watch the hordes of people jamming the parking lot at Target. Some of them walk out with huge bags of consumer goods, chatting on their Razr phones, and jump into their SUV.

Every single week, millions of people buy $100 worth of consumer goods that they don’t need – or even necessarily want. They see ads, or they see their neighbors having something, and they must have it now. $100 a week, fifty two weeks a year, adds up to $5,200 a year. An extra $5,200 a year into a retirement plan starting at age 25 that earns only 7% a year adds up to $1,115,969.76 on your sixty fifth birthday.

I used to be just like them, I think to myself as I go to sleep at night. But when I glance up at the ceiling just before I close my eyes, listen to my wife’s breathing next to me and my son’s shallow night-time sigh in the baby monitor, I’m glad that I changed things.

Just a few simple changes can make you sleep a lot better at night.

I have a confession to make. The last few months have been the happiest for me in several years. I am convinced that the biggest reason for the turnaround is that I finally have some grasp on my money which I never really had before.

For years, I wondered seriously whether or not I was clinically depressed. I often looked at depression websites and noticed that I matched up with many of the symptoms, but I never bothered to actually address whether or not I was in fact depressed.

It turns out that I wasn’t depressed after all, but that my spirit was being crushed by debt and a fear of money. I was suffocating in debt and it surrounded all my thoughts, but I was too frightened to do anything about it.

Ask yourself these ten questions:

1. Do you buy yourself things as a reward on a regular basis, for such minor events as “payday” or “I got through work without killing anyone day”?
2. Do you realize that you need to change things, but feel too trapped by debt to even know where to start?
3. Do you lie awake at night wondering how you’re going to pay for the essentials in your life?
4. Have you lied to anyone about money in the last month?
5. Do you think to yourself “I shouldn’t be spending this money,” but you do so anyway?
6. Do you read or hear about people that are rich and believe that you’ll never get there without a miracle?
7. Is your first thought after a windfall involve what new things you can buy?
8. Do you owe so much money to various people that you can’t conceive of how to begin paying it off?
9. Do you believe that you will never be out of debt?
10. Do you believe that you will never have “enough” money?

If you answered “yes” to the majority of those questions, there’s a good chance that you feel a general malaise in your life. For me, it coated everything with a sense of sadness and helplessness. I felt as though I was slogging through a swamp flowing backwards and it took all of my effort to merely stay in place.

After a while, things did begin to slip backward and I was nearly swept away by an onslaught of unexpected events. I finally realized that I had to do something to fix things, and so I started as easily as I can.

I started by taking one day at a time. I just woke up each morning and committed myself to not spending money in unnecessary ways. I didn’t worry about saving or investing or anything for a while; I just worried about not spending money.

After a month or two, I suddenly began to realize that my checking account had a lot more money in it. I remember the day that I realized I could make a quadruple payment on my highest interest credit card. When I wrote that check and put it in the mail, I felt as if there was a ray of sunshine on me. It didn’t drive all of the clouds away, but I began to feel the warmth of the sun just behind the clouds.

Two months later, I paid off that high interest card. In the five months since then, I’ve paid off all of my credit cards, my auto loan, and I’ve started investing in a mutual fund.

Once these events started occurring, the clouds lifted from my life. I realized that my worries about money were not only affecting me, but they had been affecting my relationship with others, including my wife and my son. I began to see them in a new light, not one clouded in worry about how I was going to provide for them, but as the beautiful people they are and what they give me each day.

Please, if you answered “yes” to many of those questions, wake up tomorrow morning with a plan for the day, a baby step for turning things around. Don’t worry about saving or investing or anything else, just make little changes so that you’re pulling less money out of your checking account. If you want, keep track of the good choices you made and look at that list when you’re feeling down.

Give it a few months. Keep paying your bills as before and just keep making baby steps. One day, you’ll look at your checking account balance and realize that you have more money than you thought, and you’ll realize that there is hope.

Please note that I am not a medical professional of any kind; do not accept any of this advice as a solution to your potential depression. I’m merely offering reflections on my own life; if you’re concerned about depression, please seek professional counseling and don’t rely on this post for answers.

I’m proud of myself. In the past year, I’ve wanted several expensive items for myself, but I’ve fought off the urge to buy them. The closest thing to a splurge for myself in the past twelve months was my investment in a new laptop when my desktop machine was literally dying.

So, instead of spending thousands of dollars on … stuff … I decided to take a trip through these items that I didn’t buy and consider the financial shape I’d be in if I had purchased all of them.

1. A Nintendo Wii
Now that I have a son, I’m moving rapidly towards what one might call a casual or nostalgic video gamer. This system is basically designed for me; not only are the games simple, yet distinctive and interesting (thanks to the remote), the system allows you to download tons of classic games I remember from my youth. It wouldn’t take me long to blow $600 on this machine, games, and accessories – but it’d be a lot of fun. One drawback: I can easily see myself staying up all night playing Super Mario 64 again… the college memories come flooding back!

2. A Kitchenaid Professional 600 Series stand mixer
I love burning time in the kitchen, but one major problem is that mixing bread dough and other such tasks are very time-consuming with my current hand mixer. I either mess it up entirely or get impatient with the speed of the hand mixer. Thus, whenever I see a KitchenAid stand mixer on display, I stare at it with longing in my eye. Not only would I dump $450 or so on the mixer, I’d also buy a ton of attachments for it, too, meaning I’d be down $700 after buying the thing. But, oh, the breads I would make…

3. A handmade liquor cabinet
Currently, we keep our wines and liquors in one of our kitchen cabinets, a kitchen that’s already too small for its own good. I keep my eye out for liquor cabinets and I’ve only seen one that made me go “Wow.” It was a handmade liquor cabinet built by a Mennonite craftsman that made my jaw drop. Dark, well-finished wood and plenty of interior space made me quiver with desire, but the price tag made me quiver in another way: $1,300.

4. A 42″ LCD TV
We currently have a 32″ tube television that has a slight blue discoloration in the upper left corner. Before, this would have meant that a new television needed to be found immediately, and I would have stepped up to the plate by dropping $2,500 on a 42″ flat panel television, expanding our view while reducing the footprint of our current television. It would be hanging on the wall right now, beaming down at me with high-resolution video goodness. Actually, it would probably be turned off right now, as our television is, which begs the question of why I would have bought it in the first place if the television is rarely on.

5. An “ultimate” Dance Dance Revolution setup
I recently sold off all of my video game consoles and the game I missed the most was DDR. The version I had unfortunately had a very terrible pad for gameplay that didn’t recognize about 20% of the footsteps one would make, making the game incredibly frustrating. After realizing how much I actually missed playing DDR, I longed for a complete DDR setup, which would include a pair of $100 pads, the game itself, a game system, and a memory card, totaling about $500 for everything. At least I wouldn’t have to go to the gym any more… wait… I don’t go to the gym.

6. A Treo 700p
Pure technolust here, I’m afraid. $325 for an incredibly cool cell phone with all sorts of features on it: a full QWERTY keyboard for editing documents, an email client, a 1.3 megapixel camera, an mp3 player, and so on. Wonderful and amazing and pure technolust, as I already have devices that I don’t use all that often that do all of these things. Why rebuy them?

7. A TiVo
There are several television dramas that I would like to follow, so I considered buying a TiVo to make keeping up with Grey’s Anatomy and the like much easier than before. $250 plus an ongoing programming fee would have been my reward for buying a device that would enable me to watch programs that I don’t already watch and don’t make the minimal effort to even try to catch. Why?

8. A Solis Master 5000 espresso/cappuccino maker
I occasionally enjoy a cappuccino in the afternoon at work and have desired a drink at home a few times. In the past, this would have been more than enough to convince me to drop $550 on this exquisite cappuccino/espresso maker. The truth of the matter is that my preferred morning drink is orange juice and I very rarely drink any form of coffee at all.

9. A custom tailored suit
I’m a very large man and I always wanted a suit that fit me properly. I tried to talk myself into visiting a tailor and having a custom suit made instead of actually doing a bit of research; eventually, my wife saved us both a lot of money and got me a quality suit that fit me for a reasonable price, much less than the $500-$1000 a custom-made suit might have cost.

10. A trip to Italy
I’ve always wanted to visit Italy, so early in the year I began to save up the $4,000 I thought that such a trip would take. After debating it, we decided instead to go on a long camping trip along the north shore of Lake Superior instead, which turned out to be an incredibly memorable vacation that cost about 10% of the Italian trip.

So what did I do with that money instead of buying all of this stuff? I paid off more than $10,000 in credit card debt, paid off my entire truck loan, built up a three month financial reserve, and put a little under $4K in a mutual fund.

I might not have some goodies, but I wake up in the morning without worrying about how I would pay the bills that day – and I never will again.

Recently, I came across this article from an older issue of Scientific American entitled Opinions and Social Pressure. I didn’t find the article too interesting until halfway into the second paragraph when the following sentence appeared:

The same epoch that has witnessed the unprecedented technical extension of communication has also brought into existence the deliberate manipulation of opinion and the “engineering of consent.”

With the advent of the internet and the rampant consumerism of today, this statement resonated with me. In essence, this passage refers directly to advertising, which seeks to engineer your desire for an object.

The article went on to discuss humanity’s desire to fit in and the various different ways this desire can be leveraged, culminating with this bit:

Vhen a subject was confronted with only a single individual who contradicted his answers, he \vas swayed little: he continued to answer independently und correctly in nearly all trials. When the opposition was increased to two, the pressure became substantial: minority subjects no\v accepted the wrong answer 13.6 per cent of the time. Under the pressure of a majority of three, the subjects’ errors jumped to 31.8 per cent. But further increases in the size of the majority apparently did not increase the weight of the pressure substantially. Clearly the size of the opposition is important only up to a point.

Disturbance of the majority’s unanimity had a striking effect. In this experiment, the subject was given the support of a truthful partner-either another individual who did not know of the prearranged agreement among the rest of the group, or a person who was instructed to give correct answers throughout.

The presence of a supporting partner depleted the majority of much of its power. Its pressure on the dissenting individual was reduced to one fourth: that is, subjects answered incorrectly only one fourth as often as under the pressure of a unanimous majority.

The article is fascinating, as it indicates over and over again that our rampant consumerism is due to the effect of advertising working as leverage on some people, then those people working as leverage on others, increasing the cultural desire for more and more physical things.

Even more useful, the article points directly to some potential solutions for fighting off the human desire to “keep up with the Joneses.” Here’s a list of the implied suggestions.

Reduce your exposure to advertising. The best way to do this is *gasp* watch less television, as television is an incredibly effective advertising medium. Advertisements on television are designed to make you feel included in a group if you buy a product; that’s why ads use attractive people, so on some level you’ll believe that you are in that group if you buy the product they’re selling.

Find friends who want to resist the consumerist mentality, or encourage your own friends to resist it. If your common activity is wandering around the mall, you’re constantly being pulled by a social magnet to buy things you don’t need. Suggest staying at home and playing a game or watching movies or just talking about things rather than wandering around in an environment designed to convince you to buy.

Live in a place where the consumerism effect is less. In other words, look for rural or small town living. In most small towns, there is much less rampant consumerism to tempt you, plus the Joneses aren’t living in million dollar houses. A modest house in a rural area fits right in, so you don’t need to completely break yourself just to keep up with the neighbors.

Following any one of these suggestions can reduce the desire to continue the rat race of “keeping up with the Joneses,” which in the end means you’ll have more financial stability and more freedom to do what you want, not just do what the neighbors are doing.

The biggest advantage that fast food has is that it is so easy and it saves time by allowing us to multi-task. On busy days, I can stop by a fast food restaurant and pick up a quick meal and eat it on the road as I hurry off to a meeting; it’s very difficult for a typical homemade meal to compete with that.

That is, until you discover the kitchen assembly line method.

The kitchen assembly line is basically the mass production of foods that can be easily grabbed and eaten at any time – in other words, food products similar to items sold at some fast food restaurants. These are stored in the freezer and can easily be microwaved and taken out the door with you as you rush off – or taken to work with you for lunch if you don’t have time to pack leftovers.

All you need to do to get started is to devote an afternoon to assembling these foods and some freezer space to store them. You don’t need any cooking skill beyond that of a typical fast food employee. The best part? These are always more healthy than the items you might buy at your typical fast food establishment.

Here are some ideas to get you started.

Breakfast
Breakfast Burritos: Buy a bunch of tortillas, some breakfast sausage, a jar of salsa, a dozen eggs, and some grated cheese. Cook the sausage up loosely and scramble the eggs. Put a bit of sausage and eggs on the tortilla, dump some cheese and eggs on top, wrap it up, and put it in Saran Wrap. Drop them right in the freezer.

Breakfast Sandwiches: Buy a bunch of English muffins or bagels (these freeze pretty well), some sliced cheese, and some eggs. Fry the eggs, breaking the yolk really early on, then put a fried egg and a slice of cheese on each English muffin or bagel. If you want, add a slice of Canadian bacon or something similar to each one. Wrap them in Saran wrap individually and drop them in the freezer.

Yogurt Pops These are great in the morning before a hot day. Mix together plain yogurt (two cups or so), some fruit (about half a cup of whatever you like), and eight ounces of your favorite fruit juice. Pour this into Dixie cups and stick ‘em in the freezer. Freeze them for 45 minutes or so, then insert a popsicle stick into the center of each one, then pop them back in the freezer until they’re solid. I really like these on summer mornings.

Lunch
Regular Burritos: Buy a bunch of tortillas, some meat of choice (chicken, pork, whatever), and some lettuce and tomatoes and salsa and refried beans and whatever else you’d like on a burrito. Cook the meat, then just assemble the burritos individually, wrap them in Saran wrap, and freeze away.

Quick Sandwiches: Buy some English muffins or bagels (these freeze well, but you can also use buns or bread), some cold cuts, and some matching cheeses. I like ham + swiss and roast beef + sharp cheddar; a friend of mine swears by muenster + cappicola. Make sandwiches as thick as you’d like, toss on any condiments you want, wrap them in Saran wrap, and freeze them. You can make hamburgers this way, too, of course.

Homemade Chicken Nuggets: These are so much better than fast food ones, it’s crazy. Cut up a few chicken breasts into one-inch pieces, then put some non-sweet cornflakes in a Ziploc bag and smash the cornflakes into oblivion with a rolling pin or your hands. Put the crumbs in a bowl and add a tablespoon of flour, a teaspoon of salt and pepper, and (optionally) some grated cheese (I like Parmesan). In another bowl, beat a couple eggs with a tablespoon of water until it’s all the same consistency. Dip the nuggets in the eggs, roll them on the crumbs, then put them on a pan and stick them in the oven at 375 F for thirteen minutes. Take ‘em out, let them cool, put several into a number of Ziploc baggies, and pop ‘em in the freezer.

Ready to eat?
With any of these, just grab them out of the freezer and microwave them for a minute or two and you’ll be ready to go. I often do this in the last moments before I leave so my final steps are hitting the microwave and then walking out the door.

The best part? If you make a bunch, you’ll have instant meals for a long time. They’re cheap and they’re way better for you than fast food.

A few times in the past, The Simple Dollar has mentioned some reference to a “ten second rule” or a “count to ten rule” without explaining this incredibly powerful tool in detail.

In short, the “ten second rule” says that any time you are about to spend any money at all, count to ten slowly and spend that time considering whether or not you should actually spend the money. It’s quite simple, isn’t it? It’s something that anyone can do, but it’s something that most of us never even consider doing as we’re writing a check or handing items to the checkout clerk.

Why do this? The point of purchase is the point of no return – it is that exact point in which our money becomes a distinct item that we may or may not need. If we take a few seconds to really look at that item and ask ourselves whether we really need it or not, it becomes much easier to separate the necessary spending from the unnecessary spending.

I use this every time I purchase anything, from writing a check for rent to buying gasoline to buying groceries. It makes me really think about what I’m spending and what I can do to reduce that spending, thus increasing the amount of money I have to follow my big dreams instead of regularly spending it on little stuff I don’t need.

Here are some specific examples to inspire you:

Count to ten as you’re standing in the checkout line at the grocery store while looking in your cart. Do you really need that bag of cookies or that six pack of Sam Adams? Maybe they’re vital comforts for you, but for many of us, these expenses are ones that are wasteful.

Count to ten as you’re paying your bills. You’re thinking about buying a new car, but your old one isn’t paid off yet. Do you really need that extra expenditure each month, or is your current car good enough to last for another year or two?

Count to ten at the clothing store. This one gets my wife every time. As she heads off, credit card in hand, to buy some clothes, I whisper in her ear, “Count to ten, honey.” She stands there for a bit looking at what she’s about to buy and then several of the items usually find their way back to the rack.

Count to ten at the bookstore. Look at the books and magazines cradled in your arm. Couldn’t you just read them at the library or check them out there? What about the unread books at home?

The ten second rule is incredibly powerful at helping you to get off of the consumerist treadmill and get on track with building your personal savings.

Here’s an interesting mental exercise that grew out of a community dinner the other night. Would you be able to make do with half of your current monthly income? It’s not as obvious of a question as you might think, so just take a minute and imagine yourself with half of your current monthly income. Could you survive?

I took this to heart and got out a copy of my monthly budget. Next to it, I added another column. I then carried over my income amounts, but divided them in half, and I went through every category, trying to figure out where I might shave some money to make it through.

The biggest cut was in entertainment expenses, which I reduced by 90%; there are many options for free or almost free entertainment that I could look at if this were the case. I then started cutting away services: Netflix, cable, internet, and so forth. I chopped my clothing and hygiene budget as well; I could wear clothes many more times and Ivory or generic soap can get you clean. I also reduced my monthly savings by about 75%, but didn’t eliminate it, and I lowered insurance costs by looking at rates with higher deductibles.

I was able to make it under that 50% threshold. I would lose a lot of the luxuries that I consider an everyday part of my life, but I would still have a home, still have food on the table, and still have a wonderful family.

As I sat there looking at the modified numbers, I realized two things. First, I really do waste a lot of money. Many of the things that I view as services are really just forms of entertainment, which is sad considering the number of sources of free entertainment available. Second, I now have a nice checklist of places to work on my frugal willpower. Do I really need all of these services and expenses? Is it really cost-effective to have a relatively low deductible?

This exercise was simple, but it really opened my eyes to the fat that still exists in my own budget.

One of the greatest challenges of living a lifestyle of financial freedom is determining the exact value of personal appearance. How does one balance a desire for less expensive clothing and personal care items with the expectations of the culture that enables their income and personal lives?

On the one hand, many people who overspend are focused heavily on their appearance to others, often buying clothing and technology items in order to boost their appearance of affluence to others. Thus, the natural tendency for people trying to manage their spending is to drastically cut these costs, as expensive clothing can easily be functionally replaced by less expensive clothing or by reusing clothing more often.

On the other hand, a polished personal appearance is often vital to a person’s public persona, to their workplace situation, and also to their self-image. Many people cringe at the thought of not wearing designer clothes or having to wear outfits many times. Plus, a well-dressed appearance pays other financial benefits as well by creating a more positive general impression of yourself in the community. Others will have a higher opinion of you and you’ll subtly find yourself in better situations.

For me personally, this was a tricky balance, but it was one that I managed to figure out over time. The key was to make sure that I leveraged every inexpensive trick that I had, while also maximizing the utility of the expensive items. Here are seven tips on how to maximize the value of your personal appearance while trimming some fat and not hammering the credit cards as hard as you once did.

Take special care in cleaning yourself. I don’t mean buy expensive shampoos or such things; I simply mean take a few extra minutes to cleanse yourself thoroughly each morning. Take a thorough shower and clean yourself as much as you can. Use underarm deodorant as well. Cleaning yourself properly is the most valuable aspect of your personal appearance and it is also the least expensive, as there’s really no need for expensive shampoos or soaps in most cases.

Practice strong oral hygiene and use a strong mouthwash. Brush your teeth thoroughly at least twice a day; your breath is a key part of your appearance and “cover up” items such as Tic-Tacs often only work for a short while. It’s much better for your appearance to make sure your mouth is truly clean. For mouthwash, I recommend Listerine, but many people are hesitant to use it because of the extremely strong burning sensation it provides in the mouth. I also floss once a day, but this mostly serves to reduce dental bills.

Use a fragrance that smells good to you every day. For my own use, I have a small collection that I freely alternate between on a daily basis; I like every one of them that I use in this rotation. Among these are Eternity, Emporio Armani, Dreamer, Dolce and Gabbana, Acqua di Gio, and Platinum Egoiste. Don’t apply them by spraying, just spray a bit on your hand and rub behind your ears and the sides of your neck with your moistened hand; this creates just the right level of fragrance for both men and women and it also prevents you from wasting it, meaning you’ll have many more applications per bottle. I consider fragrances to be a worthwhile gift for a significant other; it gives my wife something to splurge on for me on occasion. Plus, it is a reasonably personal gift that you might receive from a close family member, such as your mother or your sister if you are particularly close. If you are single, a small array of fragrances is a better investment in your appearance than one extra expensive set of clothing – I’ll explain why in a bit. Also, don’t skimp here; you’re better off not wearing any fragrance at all in most situations than wearing Aqua Velva.

Buy only clothes that go well with the majority of other clothes in your wardrobe. I own only ten dress shirts and eight business casual pants and I work in an environment where business casual is a strongly expected mode of dress, yet I manage to regularly elicit comments on how well dressed I am. In the past, I used to shell out ridiculous amounts of money for complete outfits that really only went well with each other, which meant that I would own a closet full of clothes but I really only had fifteen or so options for dress. I’ve moved away from that and drastically decreased my clothes budget. Here’s the key: buy only clothes that go well with other items. This means buy high quality, but stick to the basics. My shirts are a wide variety of subdued solid dark colors, all of which go well with black or navy trousers. Even better, I was able to pick out several of these items in a very high quality at a consignment shop.

Clean and press your own clothes instead of buying new ones or taking clothes to the cleaners. Tending to clothing is an invaluable skill to learn, particularly if you’re travelling. Spend some time to really learn how to use an iron to press your own clothes; spend a few hours learning how to do this on a lazy weekend day by using this tutorial (which is for men’s clothing, but the basic principles apply to women’s garments as well). You’ll save a lot of money, be confident that you have clothes that are wrinkle-free and present you in the best possible way, and also be able to travel with confidence.

Create a different presentation every day. By presentation, I don’t merely mean visual; I mean that you should liven things up using the other sense you can affect, the sense of smell. The key to not making yourself seem repetitive is to bounce around through the clothing colors; I never wear the same colored shirt twice in a row; though I may have three red shirts, they never follow another red shirt. But that’s not what completes your appearance; make sure that if you’re even close to a clothes presentation you assembled earlier in the week, you are using a different fragrance than before. I make sure to never repeat a fragrance during a given week.

Greet everyone you meet. This seems strange at first, but close your eyes and imagine the way you remember people who seem friendly to you versus the people who do not. In almost every case (unless there is a weird jealousy/hero worship aspect going on), you’ll imagine the genuinely friendly people in a positive light, making them appear better than they really are, and imagine those who antagonise you in a negative light, making them appear worse than they are. You can help capitalize on this subtle mind shift by making an effort to be friendly to everyone around you. Make it a point to talk in a friendly way to everyone you are near on a daily basis, even if you don’t like them.

Each of these tips enable you to maintain a strong personal appearance while also minimizing the impact on your pocketbook; while everyone else is buying clothes by the ton and gossiping in the office, you can maintain a smile on your face and cash in your wallet.