Five tips for keeping your family stylish on a reduced budget

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This is a guest post from Cara Porchia:

Shopping for clothes for your family may be the first thing you scratch off your list of priorities when you suddenly find yourself with less disposable income. Despite this, what you wear can have a profound affect on how you feel about yourself and how potential employers view you. Not to mention how important staying stylish may be to your budding fashionista offspring. Following these five tips can help to minimize the impact a reduced budget can have on you and your family.

1. Shop more! Shopping more doesn't mean buying more. It means practicing self control until you find a great deal. If you are used to shopping at upscale department stores, and are now finding Saks a bit outside of your budget, keeping one eye on the sales could mean affording some of the same items by waiting a little longer to buy them.

2. Buy bigger sizes. Remember the days when mom bought you a size bigger shoes so you could wear them longer? For the little ones this is a must. Particularly with clothing, if you buy slightly larger sizes, they'll last longer on a growing child.

3. Don't sweat the small stuff. Give up your daily coffee, cigarettes, desert after dinner, or any other not-so-healthy habit to put a little extra money aside for a treat for your family or yourself now and then. Just because your watching what's coming out of your wallet doesn't mean your rating on the fashion chart has to take an ungodly plummet.

4. Don't be afraid to shop at discount stores. Update your current duds with stylish pieces from discount, vintage and used clothing stores. If you shop often enough, you can find some great pieces at lower price points.