• If you have a limited amount of money to spend on clothing, here are some tips on how to "buy smart";

1. Make a plan before you go shopping for clothes. Go through your clothing to see what you really need, then go shopping with those needs in mind.

2. When choosing items you wear a lot (like shoes or underwear), buy only good quality items.

3. When choosing items you’ll wear only a few times (like a party dress or a fad T-shirt), you can pay less attention to quality and spend less.

4. Stick to a few basic colors of separates (tops, pants, and skirts), so you can mix and match pieces of clothing. This way, your wardrobe will go further. Stick to basic colors of shoes, too, so they’ll go with most of your clothes.

5. Read the label to make sure an item is easy to care for. If an item must be dry-cleaned, it will cost more to take care of. If an item is polyester and cotton, it should not have to be ironed.

6. Make sure clothing fits well and is in a becoming style and color.

7. Learn when clothes go on sale. Stores have clearance sales for summer wear in July and winter clothes in January.

Directions: Read the way each person below shopped for clothes. Write ‘yes’ if the person followed the tips above. Write ‘no’ if the person did not.

_____ 1. Michelle bought a sweater at a bargain price, but she didn’t have anything to wear with it.

_____ 2. Sue thought that since underwear doesn’t show, she’d buy the cheapest she could find.

_____ 3. Nancy bought some sharp looking purple shoes, but she could only wear them with one outfit.

_____ 4. Jim bought a sweater on sale. It had to be dry-cleaned, and the trim had to be removed by hand before cleaning.

_____ 5. Sam needed a coat. He shopped at several stores. He decided on a good-quality coat that was on sale.

_____ 6. Before his new job started, Joe took a good look at his clothes. He bought five items that he really needed.

_____ 7. Joanne bought a red hoop mini-skirt that was really ‘in’, but she looked and felt silly in it.

_____ 8. Sandy chose mainly blue, brown or tan clothes that went together.

• Stores carry many kinds of laundry products. Which ones do you need? To decide, you must learn about the different products and the jobs they do.

• Using the chart above, choose a letter from each numbered category to best describe the washing method, cycle used, detergent used, and drying method for each article of clothing.

READING CLOTHING LABELS

• Directions: Read each label and the sentences that follow it. Write Yes on the line if the person took care of the clothing correctly. Write No if the person did not.

Dry Clean Only

_____ Mary took her blazer to the dry-cleaners to be dry-cleaned and pressed.

_____ Owen put his blazer in a coin-operated dry-cleaning machine.

_____ Ginny washed and dried her blazer at the Laundromat.

A shirt

Machine wash Warm, Tumble Dry, Remove Promptly

_____ Martha washed her shirt. Then it sat in the dryer for thirty minutes after it had stopped.

_____ Harry had his shirt dry- cleaned.

_____ John washed his shirt in warm water. Then he put it in the dryer.

A raincoat

Machine wash in warm water. Do not dry clean. Drip or tumble dry low.

_____ Larry washed his raincoat in the washer. He used warm water and regular detergent.

_____ Mike’s coat had a dirt spot, so he put it in a coin-operated dry-cleaning machine.

Remove spots by sponging spot with denatured alcohol. Immediately rinse in clean

_____ Jill dried her coat in the dryer at high heat.

_____ George rubbed denatured alcohol into a stain on water his coat. Then he rinsed the coat and hung it up

to drip dry.

• Fred and Bob bought identical pants on the same day. Three months later, Bob’s pants looked old and faded. Fred’s looked just like new.

The difference was that Fred knew how to take care of his clothes, Bob didn’t.

1. Hang up or fold clothes after wearing. Avoid overcrowding clothes in a closet. They’ll get wrinkled and out of shape.

2. Remove any spots or stains right away. If a stain ‘sets’, it will be hard or impossible to get out.

3. Never iron clothes with stains. The heat may ‘set’ the stain.

4. Wash clothes in the correct wash cycle and water temperature. Use the correct type of soap or detergent.

5. Rips, holes or loose buttons should be mended right away.

6. Brush dry-cleanable clothes after wearing to get rid of lint and dust. Have them cleaned before they look too dirty, or they may not come clean.

7. Store woolens in mothballs during the summer.

8. Protect your clothes as you wear them. Napkins, aprons, raincoats, and overalls serve as protectors for your clothes.

Directions: Complete each sentence using the information above.

1. In summer store woolens in _____________________

2. A stain will be hard to get out if it _________________

3. Brush dry-cleanable clothes to get rid of ______________

4. Napkins or coveralls are both clothes _______________________

5. Hang up or fold clothes after ________________________

6. Wash clothes using the correct soap and wash ______________

7. Wash clothes in the correct water ______________________

8. You could set a stain with the heat of an ______________________

9. In a closet, clothes can wrinkle from _____________________________

10. Rips, tears or loose buttons should be __________________________