How to Save Money on Lululemon (& More Fashion Brands!)

How to save money on Lululemon and other high quality fashion brands.

Welcome to the Frugal Friends podcast, where you'll learn to save money, embrace simplicity, and liver your life. Here your hosts, Jen and Jill.

Welcome to Frugal Friends podcast. My name is Jen, my name is Jill, and today's a case study on how to buy very high quality items for as little as possible. That was something in our twenty twenty five Mega survey that you said that you wanted to know more about, to talk more about. So today is a deep dive into my experience trying to do just that.

Jen went on a field trip yesterday. I stayed at the office and kept working. And now I'm going to ask her about her field trip and we're all going to learn together. But first, this episode is brought to you by being on your phone. Usually we know it's to scroll social media or probably make some impulse purchases. But what if you could be on your phone doing something productive and what if that thing was actually helpful for your finances?

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Yes, all right, So I wanted to purchase more high quality workout clothes. And I thought it would be good to take you guys along with me. I guess post because I didn't take any video of it, but to walk you through the process of what it is truly like to be buying high quality clothes secondhand. Uh, because that's a huge barrier to entry to buying secondhand online because you don't know what's going to fit, you don't know how it's going to feel, you might be skeptical of where you're buying it.

So that's what we're doing today.

Yeah. A lot of times when people think about buying secondhand clothing, it's going to the thrift store, just digging through and finding something that fits you. We don't often think about how could I actually get the brand's styles, fits, sizes, that eye colors that I really like. Well, okay, it works to go to the thrift store for some things, but for other things, I'm going to have to go straight to the source and pay full price.

But today we're shaking up that idea.

Yeah, and so what were the two brands for you that you wanted to check out?

Yeah?

So it started with workout clothes because my I wear ath leisure pretty exclusively. Unless we're recording a video, and my workout pants are kind of like disintegrating because I wear them so often and I work out in them. It's not just like daily wear, it's also running and strength training. So I wanted to buy higher quality athletic wear and that's where this started, and then it kind of evolved from there because I wanted to create another example to show you guys, So it evolved into jeans

Okay, so let's talk about step one.

So step one was researching what the best quality actually is. I had an idea that for workout clothes it would be Lululemon, but I didn't know if that was brand or quality, because there are brands that are synonymous with quality but whose quality has declined over the years. So that was what I really wanted to figure out first. So I wanted the longest lasting for running and strength training. So for me, that's the leggings. They're bras two, but I can wear a bra much longer than I can

I'm not going to do that. What was the prompt that you gave chat GPT? Then finally, what are.

The best quality.

Athletic or workout clothing for someone who runs and strength trains weekly? And that's when it started giving me back some brands and across male and female. I said specifically for curvy woman, and that's when it came back that it gave a few of the stack that I had seen before. The Lulu Lemon, Alo wory Uh and Born Primitive were kind of the the standard ones, and so after reading through the response, I decided for me Lululemon and Born Primitive were probably the ones that would be

What it did. It had filtered.

Reddit forums, articles from magazines that rate the different workout gear, and customer ratings from the website, so it took into count all of those things. I asked it to also weigh Reddit responses heavier than the other responses, and so that's how I got to Lululemon and born primitive, So that was really important. You can always ask the model how it got to its conclusion and then made well, I started with no research.

Okay, so you.

Went to these places because you could go in person and be able to try on their things. And then step two, you say, is to research what the best items are for you.

How did that go?

So? Yeah, there are a lot of different options at every store, and they're all four different things. So with Lula Lemon, I'd heard a lot about the align legging that is their most famous legging, and so I assumed that maybe that would be right for me. Then I get to the website and I see they have like six different types of leggings and they all come in different lengths and different features, which is which is a sign of a really quality like retailer. I think that

That's the thing.

I would be super overwhelmed to try and figure out, Okay, what is going to be best for me? So I think that's another good reason for going in person and being able to talk to somebody like what does all this mean and what does it mean for me?

Yeah, so I had to decide what I wanted and how I wanted it, and Kim shout out to Kim at Lululemon in Hyde Park Village was fantastic. So there was there's two Lululemons in Tampa. There's one at the International mall, and there's one at Hyde Park. Hyde Park is like I was trying to think of this yesterday when I was there. It's like the upper east side of Manhattan of Tampa. Hyde Park borders Davis Islands, and that's where all of the professional athletes and very wealthy

So I talked.

Despite not spending any money there.

Well they and they were totally fine, Like they weren't trying to push me for sale. They were absolutely fine with me not spending money because I am sure they get enough women going in there who are spending lots of money. They're not desperate. So she so Kim took

Yeah, versus for what you're doing and where you might have been drawn to a type of pant that might be best for yoga. She was able to help you know, this is actually gonna best for the type of exercising that you did, which is really cool.

Yeah.

So we we went through and I tried on some things that I really liked for Madewell. I went in there only knowing that the ones, the pants that I liked were curvy, but I wanted to try some non curvy styles as well, just to compare. The ones that I bought online were too big and I love them, but they're too big. So I went in there and I just tried the things and was able to find like the one pair of pants that they didn't have my size. The lady in there, I forget her name,

Shorts, which is the reason for step three sizes.

Is getting Yeah.

So after that, after I figured out the type of items and the type of items that were not best for me, Like I found this jacket this half zip at Lulu. I think I can call it Lulu now because I've been there. I've been inside the store. Uh it just felt so good like that I felt it fabrics, oh much longer than I should have. And there are another associate walked by, She's like, you find everything, okay. I was like, uh huh, but I'm not gonna I don't need that. I don't that's not what I need.

So.

Once I figured out what.

I needed, then I got to try on the sizes. And that was also something I really needed, because there were some things where I needed a twelve, there were some things I needed a ten. I really thought I was going to be an eight up top because I'm so small, but really I was a ten.

So that is there.

There was just like no substitution for trying. And I think that's the biggest thing when you are shopping secondhand online is like already knowing your sizes for sure. And then another thing is once I found the size, I like, I took a picture of the tech and what that does is so I remember the name of the item and the size, but also they'll have descripture like descriptors, so like high rise, loosen the thigh, tighten the thigh. So these mean different things across brands, but I mean

The most annoying part of shopping to me is figuring out sizing, and especially online shopping. It's why I don't do it very often. However, many of these, especially nicer brands, will even have measurements and so being able to If you are solely shopping for these things online, you're just cut in two your ability to find these things secondhand through the internet. Then having measurement, you know, the fabric kind of measuring tape would be super helpful here.

That is something else I could have done. I could have brought my tape measure with me and also taken pictures of the top and the n seam so that I can compare that. Because Posmark and eBay most of the time they will have those pictures, so if I had them on the ones that I liked and I could compare them, that would be another way to confirm that what I'm buying is going to be similar to

So so I just want to buy buy considering price per wear, you know, price per ware, yes, with.

The budget planner, the spenning planner.

Absolutely yes.

And anchoring, so we have an anchoring bias in our brains right. The first price we see is usually what we anchor are, what we think something should cost. So I was just I didn't want to leave my anchoring bias at one hundred and eighteen one hundred and twenty eight like that full price. I also wanted to look, okay, what's clearance. So I wanted that to kind of be my anchoring bias. And I think the rule of thumb when you're looking secondhand is looking to get like fifty percent off.

What you could get new.

So that was kind of that's that's what I did. And then for Madewell, I didn't. I looked at their sale rack as well, but I when I was there, I found the best short of my life. I found the best pair of shorts I have ever put on my body.

Find that.

And so this was something when I was a lul Lemon, I liked these pants, but I was I was very much like, okay, I can absolutely put these back and wait for them, like I can wait for these secondhand. I put these shorts on, and I was like, I can't wear any other shorts, but these, like I cannot, these are it? And I was like, should I walk out with these eighty eight dollars shorts? Should I?

What did you do?

Buy these?

What?

I left them? Oh?

WHOA?

That takes some will power or something, some knowledge of an ability to find a deal.

Yeah.

I knew that I could go and I'd go to Tampa like once every six months and I cannot tell you the last time I've been to Hyde Park, but I was like, these I can always buy them online.

That was really the thing.

I was like, if I cannot find them used, then I will buy them online and I will sign up for their club thing where I could get a discount and potentially they had twenty five dollars off in your birthday month, and my birthday month happens to be next month, so I signed up for that. I was like, there is no way that buying anything today is going to be a good ideas. This is all for buying second hand, and if I can't get it secondhand, I'll get a

So let's talk about some of these specific ways to get second hand, particularly online, because you've already done the steps of figuring out the brands that are gonna work best for you, the quality brands, your sizing, your style, and then we're onto the fourth step, which is finding them second hand. But now once we know the exact product size that we want, like, what can we do?

Okay, So this is really why I wanted to document the process. I wanted to not just say use these things, go to these websites, try these methods. I wanted to do them myself and report back. So first I went to the Lulu Lemon website to the exact running the fast and free leggings, the running leggings that I really liked the most, and I wanted to see if the Beny Chrome extension could find me the exact ones somewhere else. It's been pushing a lot of poshmark, so I assumed it would push me there.

Which pause for any listeners who aren't aware of what this is, you did just say it's a Chrome extension, but you can download it for your brows browser and it will pop up if anything that you are searching is available on any of these secondhand sites up to forty sites they scour, so you can be on Lululemon's website and if the thing you are looking at is available on eBay, poshmark thread up plus Benny will give you an alert at the top right of your screen

So that's a strategy.

Keep going and so I Actually, I typically have really good results with the Benny extension, and I didn't have as great of results with it this time. So and I'll tell you it usually pushes out Poshmark occasionally thread Up. Those are the main ones you're gonna get anyway. But I was getting a lot of Lulu Lemon. I don't know if it was malfunctioning, but it was getting full priced Lulu Lemon results. So I just went. I just

Those.

For some reason, Poshmark's search isn't great, but Google searches for poshmark is great, so I was finding better results that way. Then I do the same thing for eBay, same thing for McCary, all that, and that's how I was searching through everything. I was also comparing prices across platforms. So these leggings are one hundred and twenty eight full price.

That's how I kind of gauged.

If the thing is eighty at clearance price, I kind of want to stay to half of that, and I had great success with this, finding the exact same or almost identical leggings in black and other great colors, so not just like the off brand weird patterns exactly in my price range for Lululemon. I had more luck on Poshmark than eBay, but I do find that on eBay I find more specialty items, special te patterns, stuff like that,

Not yet? You found okay?

Not yet? Another tip is that when you go to these sites, do not add to Kart always hard it or like it, because sellers will typically have an auto offer turned on, so anytime somebody likes their product, it will automatically offer a discount ten percent or discount on shipping or something. And I will often counteroffer if I know I really like the so I'll like it just to find out what the offer is, and if I really know I want to buy it, I'll counter the

So tell me about these shorts you fell in love with, you left them at the store, But tell me the story's not over.

So this was an interesting story. So Lululemon I had great success. I know that things are like on my list, but I haven't pulled the trigger yet for this, even though that's what I went in here for. This whole project started with that. Instead, I am looking up and down for these curvy Brin shorts from Madewell, and they are nowhere, at least not in my size. Uh, they're nowhere. And I know from trying on the other type of curvy short that I don't really like it as much.

Brin made by Madewell.

Yeah, okay, yeah, so it's discontinued. They don't sell. I couldn't try it on because it wasn't in the store, but it had the same descriptors and I even asked chetch Ept to compare the two. Didn't do a good job. Okay, so it didn't help. I'm gonna say that, but you try. But the descriptors were so similar that I did pull the trigger on those shorts and those were on eBay, and again I liked it. And then I got an offer.

So you're gonna have to follow up with us when they arrive on if they are hoped.

They've already been shipped, which I also chose a seller that was like highly rated, so that's another thing that you should look out for. But yeah, so I am looking forward to getting them and reporting back at a later date.

This is fun. Thanks for taking us along on your shopping spreez, but I just go shopping.

Yeah.

I also saved these searches in eBay and Poshmark and even Facebook Marketplace, so.

It'll alert you.

So it'll alert me when these particular shorts or the particular Lululemon leggings that I like come up in my size.

A lot of times we don't want to be alerted to opportunities.

To spend money.

But when we've done this amount of work and research into the thing we want, and we're willing to spend money to buy the quality over the quantity, then that's when we do want those alerts. That's when those tools and resources available to us are worth it because we're being patient waiting for that deal to come up, and we want to know when we can pounce.

Yeah, and I'll say one more thing about secondhand Lululu Women and murcart and Madewell. Don't assume that eBay or Poshmark or Murcari will give you your lowest prices or thread Up because I found that Lululemon's own like new, like their second hand part of their site was giving less expensive prices than other websites.

Interesting.

Yeah, and then I also found the same thing for Madewell. They didn't have the curvy style like pants or shorts, but they were selling their second hand shorts on their site. They partner with thread up to do that twenty five thirty bucks, same price that I paid for eBay. Wow, But you couldn't be exactly sure of what style it was going to be. You just saw a picture of the short and you know, so you could tell the wash and the size. But so I didn't want to

Pants so big.

Yeah, So I couldn't take that chance. But check, you know, the if the site, and that's a way you can find out if it's.

A good quality retailers.

If they have their own resale they believe in their product enough to sell it secondhand on their own site, that's gonna be good quality. And the prices are not always bad from the comparisons that I took.

Do you know what's also good quality?

But we don't always know exactly what we're getting with it.

Oh, but I have a good idea and I'm willing to take a chance.

The middle of the week.

Bro, that's right, It's time for the best minute of your entire week. Maybe a baby was born and his name is William. Maybe you've paid off your mortgage. Maybe your car died and you're happy to not have to pay that bill anymore. Tough bills, Buffalo bills, Bill Clinton, this is the bill of the week.

Hi, Jen and Jill. This is Kayla from Kansas, and my bill of the week is that on September eighteenth, twenty twenty four, I pre ordered something that finally got delivered to me today, just a little book called by What You Love Without Going Broke? Happy, Really stay to you both. I am so excited to finally have my hands on this book and to get a chance to read it and to share it with friends and family.

I know that voice that is my good friend Kayla. Oh that's so so I'm so thankful for you, Kayla. Kayla's been a listener of the shows like since the beginning and will text me every once in a while, just like commenting on an episode or just popping in to say how she's used the things she's learned from Frugal Friends, and it is life giving to me.

I love it so much.

This is such a kind, kind Bill of the Week that you f for us, and I'm so glad you know how.

The tangible copy of the book. And something I also.

Love is when our friends and listeners who are also our friends, like describe themselves as the Frugal Friends community. I just it's so heartwarming, because friends, it is the reality, It's how I view things. But it's cool to hear it confirmed by others. So thank you for sharing your gratitude and thank you for showing your support. If you are listening, are like, what's this book about? How do I become part of the community by what you loovebook

If you do that, definitely leave us the bill of the week.

But also if you've got any other kind of bills to leave for us, it's not a pre order anymore.

We're fair used to saying that it's an order. You order it, just get it to your door. You don't even have to wait.

And if you have a bill that you want to submit, if it's about buying the book or literally anything else bill related for We Friends podcast dot com slash bill cannot wait to hear it.

And now it's time for the lightning round.

All right, what's your favorite fashion item to thrift? So mine is jeens because they're so dang expensive.

Are expensive.

I rarely buy jeans, and then when the times come when I'm like, okay, I gotta do that, thinking all right, I'm willing to spend fifty bucks, It's.

Like, yeah, right right, you wish what age are you living?

Is?

What is two.

Thousand and nine? You in high school? No way? In my mind, no way, yeah, Captain of Captain of jeans.

Jeans jeans are similar feel similar to me as bathing suits. They feel like these have to fit me so perfectly. I have to feel great in them, and they got to last meat because I.

Don't want to do I don't want to do this again again ever, And that's our new segment.

I don't want to do this again ever. Yeah, so uh, I just avoid it.

That's what the audiobook would have been like. And they got us to say things in unison like they wanted us to, and we refused.

We could have been like that the whole time.

That's true. Oh yeah, that's funny. How about you.

I don't I don't do this often, but quality jewelry because I do pretty much thrift practically everything, but like my favorite thing, I do think it'd be jewelry.

Because you do wear jewelry. I do not wear much jewelry.

I wear my wedding rings, which is actually from a pawnshop.

Yeah, I wear.

And it's always quality because I am I am sensitive.

I am a sensitive skin.

Yeah, honestly, I get rashes and it's not good if it's not like real real metals, mostly mostly gold. For me, it's just like my preference. But to remember that you can get these things secondhand, so consignment stores sometimes estate sales. For me, a lot of my jewelry does come from like my grandmother and my mom, which was really fun too. But being able to look for some of these pieces at these second hand places, not only are they less

Type of pieces.

So I love looking at the jewelry section at these secondhand sites.

I love a jewelry pawn shop. They are such a treat.

Unclaimed baggage, which we've talked about in another episode, this is very fun. It is literally unclaimed luggage from airports, people who just for whatever reason don't pick up their bags.

At carousel ten.

And you're like this cannot be a sustainable business model. They've been in business for like thirty plus years, I think.

Yeah.

So they do have an in person store what is it Arkansas or Kansas.

Something somewhere, and it looks very cool.

But you can also shop all of their stuff online. And they've got a massive jewelry section. I spent way too long scrolling through the jewelry when we were prepping for that last episode. But yeah, So if you're looking for something pacific or wanting to celebrate a birthday or something, and you want to give yourself a little something but for less expensive, find it unique. Find it's like a hand There you go, there's there, you got clean baggage dot com.

Well, thank you so much for listening to my Ted talk. I hope it was longer than a Ted talk. I hope that this has inspired you to do the little bit of legwork that you need to do upfront in order to be able to acquire really good quality things online secondhand. And this can translate to other things, not

This is a lot of work, right, Like I think what we just described those were more than one step and required research. So we're not talking about doing this with every single thing we purchase, but we are talking about it with the things we want to last.

Yes, that we would have been willing.

To spend money on, but to recognize we can spend less on it still get that thing, buy it secondhand, like a lot of sustainable practices can be at place. So yeah, for your higher ticket items, do this.

Yeah for things you never want to buy again ever. All right, and if you did take action on this episode, we'd love if you could leave a rating and review on Spotify. That would be so helpful to us. Or if you've read the book, like Kayla, if you could leave a rating review for the book on Amazon. Buy what you love without going broke, like Jeff did I say five stars amazing book.

Loved this book.

We read it at a book club in our office and it was a hit. Definitely helped me reevaluate some things and is already having a positive impact on my life, which I expect to compound over time.

Jeff, thank you. We're gonna have to go thank him in person.

This is our office that we are a part of now we've got a whole studio in an office space. And they when they found out that we had a book, they're like, let's do didn't we didn't force this, No, no. Jeff was like, I'm going to organize a whole building wide book club. And so they bought our book. We got to join in eat pizza with some of our kind of coworkers.

Now fun. Jeff even left us a review, which is so so kind.

Man Tayla for the bill of the week, Jeff.

For the review We've got some Friends.

What a good episode.

Yeah, thank you all so so much for listening and for being a part of this Frugal Friends community. If you want to show some to this community and be of help, leaving these reviews are the best way to do that. It helps other people find this community, It helps us to keep putting out more content. So review the book, review the podcast, do one or the other, do both.

We love it. Thanks for being here, See you next time.

Gorugal Friends is produced by Eric Sirianni.

I'm excited to see these shorts. This is quite the hype.

Yeah, they'll be here in two days, so I'll have to talk about them in a future episode after show.

This is really helpful for me because I actually, speaking of friends, have a friend who's getting into style theory and helping others figure out their personal style, what your body type, your personality, what you feel best in, what you look best in, kind of like the second step after getting your colors done, like, how do we build a wardrobe that fits your your uniquenesses that you feel

Yeah, I'm excited to have more of leisure, more workout clothes.

Yeah, things that stretch.

Things I feel comfortable. I love it. I'm here for that and for you with things that won't disintegrate.

Yeah, the disintegration piece is not good. I've heard of things ripping and tearing, but disintegrating is next level.

I guess it's a bunch of little rips, you know, in the place that might be most prone to them. So it kind of looks like disintegration. But it's surely not like the fabric is still.

There, right, It's just lots of wear and tear.

Right, because I do wear it a lot, and I think I've been wearing it for about two years at this point. Okay, and Lulu Lemon people say their pants, you know, are going five years strong with no pilling. So and I've seen some the Align leggings they said, those pill you know, those you just can't help it. Those yoga pants they pill. But the Wonder Train and the Fast and Freeze you are a wealth of knowledge, right,

Okay, well, on that note,