Here’s a pretty simple way for you to save both directly and indirectly on your clothing costs – avoid dry clean only clothes.

Dry clean only clothes are, more or less, a double edged sword: you almost always pay more up front when you purchase them, and then you have to pay a lot of money over the time you own them in order to keep them clean.

Let me give you a real world example:

This past Christmas I received a very nice pair of dry clean only black slacks, which I’m sure cost well over $100. Now, whenever I want to have them cleaned, I have to take the pants down to my local dry cleaner and pay them $8. Not cool.

Not to sound a terrible grandson, but I would have much rather received two or three pairs of “regular wash” pants that would probably look just as nice, last just as long, but don’t cost me $8 every time I want to have them cleaned.

So, when you’re shopping for clothes and it comes time to choose between “dry clean only” and “regular” clothes, go with the clothes you can clean yourself.