Here's How Much People Spend on Clothing Each Month
In a fashion-meets-finance article, award-winning financial planner Pete Dunn said we should spend 5% of our take-home pay on clothing. How does this figure clock with real life? As a sense check on this, we also looked at typical UK household spending from the Office for National Statistics and found that the average household spends 3.3% on their household budget on footwear and clothing. To help you understand out what these figures mean for you—that is, how much you could spend on shoes and clothes each month—we calculated clothing budgets for various levels of annual salary. Here's what we found.
Using an income tax calculator, we first calculated the take home pay for a range of salaries between £16,000 and £150,000. From there we determined the clothing budget by taking 5% or 3.3% of the monthly take home pay.
For example, someone earning a £30,000 annual salary takes home £25,120 per year after taxes (£2,093 per month). Applying the 5% clothing and shoe budget recommendation means having £105 per month to spend on fashion. We calculated this as follows: 5% of £2,093 is £105. At a more conservative 3.3% clothing budget, the monthly clothing budget becomes £69 for the same person.
Those earning a higher salary have more ability to spend. For instance, someone a £50,000 salary could technically afford a £165 monthly clothing budget at 5% or £109 at 3.3%. In this case, the additional £20,000 in annual salary (i.e., from £30,000 to £50,000 per annum) provides an additional £60 each month for clothes at the 5% rate (or an extra £50 per month at the 3.3% rate). At the upper extreme, someone on £100,000 per year could spend a whopping £286 each month on clothes and footwear, if they spend 5% of after-tax, take-home pay on shoes and clothes.
| Annual Salary | Annual Take Home Pay | Monthly Take Home Pay | Monthly Clothing Budget (at 5% of take-home pay) | Monthly Clothing Budget (at 3.3% of take-home pay) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| £16,000 | £15,040 | £1,253 | £63 | £41 |
| £18,000 | £16,480 | £1,373 | £69 | £45 |
| £20,000 | £17,916 | £1,493 | £75 | £49 |
| £25,000 | £21,520 | £1,793 | £90 | £59 |
| £30,000 | £25,120 | £2,093 | £105 | £69 |
| £40,000 | £32,320 | £2,693 | £135 | £89 |
| £50,000 | £39,520 | £3,293 | £165 | £109 |
| £75,000 | £54,057 | £4,505 | £225 | £149 |
| £100,000 | £68,557 | £5,713 | £286 | £189 |
When deciding how much to spend, remember that these numbers are educational only, not recommendations for how much anyone should spend. Everyone's budget is unique. If you live in an area with a high cost of living, you may need to budget less than this on clothing. Or you may choose to spend, for example, less on clothing and more on savings (which will help in the case of an unexpected financial event or even retirement) or to help pay down any outstanding personal debts you have.
Here's How Much You Need to Earn to Spend £200 on Clothes Each Month
Another way to look at this data is to determine the salary you need to earn in order to justify a certain monthly shoe and clothing expenditure, assuming once again the 5% or 3.3% of take-home pay clothing budgets.
For example, if you want to spend £100 each month on clothes, you'd need to be on a pre-tax annual salary of £30,000 if your clothing budget is 5% of after-tax, take-home pay (or a £46,000 salary if your clothing budget is 3.3% of take-home pay).
At the 3.3% clothing budget rate, a £200 monthly fashion budget requires an annual salary of £110,000 and you'd need to earn £150,000 per year to spend £250 per month on shoes and clothes.
| Desired Monthly Clothing Spend | Required Annual Salary (assuming clothing budget is 5% of take-home pay) | Required Annual Salary (assuming clothing budget is 3.3% of take-home pay) |
|---|---|---|
| £75 | £20,000 | £33,000 |
| £100 | £30,000 | £46,000 |
| £150 | £45,000 | £76,000 |
| £200 | £65,000 | £110,000 |
| £250 | £85,000 | £150,000 |
How Much Does the Average Person Spend on Clothing a Month in the UK?
According to the latest Family Spending report from the Office of National Statistics, the average household spends £733 on clothing and £177 on footwear each year.
If we consider that the average household includes 2.3 people, we can divide those figures above by 2.3 to arrive at an estimated of per person clothing and shoe spending.
Using this methodology, we calculate that the typical person spends £26.6 on clothes each month plus £6.4 on shoes, on average. On an annual basis, the average person in the UK spends £396 per year on clothes and footwear—£77 on shoes and £319 on clothing.
| Average per person spend on clothing in the UK | Per month | Per year |
|---|---|---|
| Clothing | £26.57 | £319 |
| Shoes | £6.41 | £77 |
| Total Clothes Spend | £33 | £396 |
If your clothing budget doesn't seem to stretch far enough, read our 7 hacks to save money on clothes and, for fitness buffs, 5 tips to save money on workout clothes.