Thriftmas Style Blogger Challenge

Earlier this week I was invited to join in with the Thriftmas Style Blogger Challenge, to buy a complete party outfit for the festive season for less than £75 online. Could it be done? There was only one way to find out… I was very excited to give it a try and set to work immediately – any excuse to shop, eh?!

I decided to start my search by looking on VoucherBox.co.uk to find out what sales and promotions were currently going on – I always find that this is the best place to search out special offers and any store-wide sales are all listed in one place. So within a couple of minutes I’d found out that New Look was offering 60% off dresses and ASOS had a sale in progress offering a whopping 70% off fashion and accessories. So I headed straight to these websites to see what bargains I could find!

I found my dream dress in the New Look sale at only £15, reduced from £24.99. I had actually wanted to buy this dress at full price earlier in the year because I loved the tulip shape of it and I always find wrap around styles really flattering, so I’m thrilled that it has now been reduced AND still available in my size! I think that the bright color is perfect for Christmas and New Years parties and it even comes with the belt so that’s one less accessory that I need to buy! The soft sheen of the fabric makes it look more expensive than it is – no one would ever guess that I’d got a party dress AND a belt for just £15!

While I was on the New Look website, I decided to hunt out some accessories. Partly because there was an ‘Under £10’ sale section, but mainly because I would be able to get free Click and Collect delivery if I spent over £19.99! So really, if you deduct the standard postal delivery cost of £3.99 that I would have needed to pay if I didn’t buy my £8 bag, this means my handbag has ‘technically’ only cost me £4.01! In total I spent £23 at New Look. Oh how I long for the good old days of NUS student discount (don’t forget to use yours if you’re a student to get extra cash off full-price items) but hey, I’ve already got most of my outfit sorted at a fraction of the price (originally £43.98) it should have been!

I found a voucher code on VoucherBox.co.uk for 10% off everything on the Dorothy Perkins website and I was sure that I would be able to find the perfect pair of party shoes there. I’d admired my friend Megan from Briar Rose Blog’s silver shoes for a while and had even featured them on my blog earlier this week, so when I saw this pair of lookalike kitten heels reduced to £13.30, I knew that they were the ones for me! The lower heels will ensure that I can continue to party the night away at any festive gathering I go to in my Thriftmas outfit and I will still be able to walk home afterwards without sore feet! I used my voucher code to get £1.33 off my shoes and even with the delivery charge I only spent £15.92 in Dorothy Perkins rather than the £22.95 it would have cost me at full price. My outfit was nearly complete…

I hopped over to the ASOS website after seeing that there was a 70% off sale on the VoucherBox website and I wasn’t disappointed; there were 1000s of discounted items from jumpsuits to hotpants, but what I was really interested in was the jewellery! Of course, I always start my searches by setting the drop-down sort box to ‘price from low to high’ so that I can work my way up from the cheapest possible option and I immediately found a gorgeous horseshoe necklace for only £3. I love horses and unicorns so this necklace is the perfect accessory for my party outfit. I was going to stop there, but I had a quick look in the petite section to see what was on offer and I spotted a smart black blazer, and seeing as my Thriftmas outfit is supposed to see me through the Winter party season, I thought that a coat to keep me warm on cold nights was essential! So I added this classy jacket to my basket, which took my spend to over £15 and therefore entitled me to free delivery again! So if I deduct the cost of the standard £3.95 delivery, I’m actually getting my necklace for free AND a pound off, haha! My total spend at ASOS was £21 rather than £44.95 and now my outfit is ready to grace any Christmas party!

In total my outfit should have cost me £111.88 at full price, without voucher codes and with delivery charges but I have managed to save over £50 and bring this total down to £59.92 – yes, I will be wearing an outfit this Christmas that is worth almost double what I paid for it! I know I could have saved even more if I’d chosen a cheaper dress or even skipped the blazer (but who wants to be chilly on a night out?!) but this outfit would definitely see me through all the work Christmas parties, family events and festive nights out friends that I’ve got planned during December so I’m sure that my cost-per-wear will be very thrifty indeed, thanks to some good advice from VoucherBox and a bit of clever calculating!

Let me know if you find any festive bargains yourself and I’d love to see what you’ll be wearing this party season, so please tweet me your photos and deals to @Cassiefairy.