The Cost-Per-Wear Method: Why I Buy One Great Thing

The Spreadsheet That Ruined My Sunday Scrolling

I once owned forty-seven pairs of jeans, none of which fit. I counted them in a moving box the week I left a Surry Hills share-house in 2022.

I'd been doing what most women I know were doing: buying five cheap things instead of one good one. Five tops at $39 each on a Sunday scroll, telling myself I was being smart with money.

Late 2024, sitting at the kitchen table in a Newtown terrace, flat white going cold, trying to work out where the money went each month. The line item I couldn't explain was a recurring $80-to-$140 weekly that traced back to ASOS, The Iconic, and a handful of fast-fashion brands we all know.

I built a column. "Cost per wear." Price of the item, divided by the number of times I'd actually worn it.

A $59 linen-look dress from a 2023 mid-year sale, worn three times before the underarms went see-through. Cost per wear: $19.67. A $45 going-out top worn once: $45. A pair of $35 sandals worn twice because the straps cut: $17.50.

And then, in the same wardrobe, a wool coat my mum bought me in 2019. $310 at the time. I'd worn it almost every winter day for five years. Conservatively, 350 wears.

Cost per wear: 89 cents.

Why Five Cheap Things Always Costs More

Here's the thing the budgeting advice doesn't tell you. The maths of cheap clothing relies on you wearing it. Cheap clothing is engineered, structurally, to make wearing it unpleasant after a short window.

A synthetic top that pills after three washes. A dress where the dye runs the first time it sees rain. A pair of boots with the lining glued in.

You don't stop wearing these because you're fickle. You stop because the object stops being wearable.

One Australian Bureau of Statistics figure that's stuck with me: the average Australian throws away around 23 kilograms of clothing per year, and about 60% of what we buy is synthetic. That's the environmental tax. The financial tax is quieter but equally real: you keep buying because nothing lasts, and you blame yourself for needing more.

Before I buy anything now, I write down a cost-per-wear target. If I can't realistically picture wearing it enough times to hit under $5 per wear within the first year, I don't buy it.

The Coat (And What to Look For)

The coat my mum bought me finally went in 2025. Not because the wool gave up but because I'd worn through both elbows of the lining. I researched the new one for about four months.

What I wanted: something with at least 70% wool, a clean cut, structured shoulders that wouldn't collapse on a Melbourne tram, and a price I could justify spreading across the next five winters.

I found one. It's the colour of milky tea. The wool is dense enough that it stands on its own at the door, like a small, well-behaved animal.

It's been worn approximately 90 times since April. Cost per wear is already under $1.50 and dropping.

Three things tell you if a coat will go the distance. Fibre content: anything below 60% wool will look tired by the second winter.

Lining: a real lining, fully tacked at the hem, will let the coat hang properly even after a hundred wears. Buttons: sewn with a shank, not glued, so they don't fall off in your bag at the worst moment.

Press the lapel between your fingers. If it springs back, the canvassing is real. If it stays flat, walk away.

The honest test of a coat isn't how it looks in a fitting room under good lighting. It's whether you reach for it at 7am on a Tuesday when you're running for the train and it's nine degrees and you don't have time to think.

The Cardigan I Wore on the Plane and Twice More That Week

If a coat is the most obvious investment, a heavy cardigan is the sneakiest. Mine has done duty as a coat substitute on the in-between days, as a plane-cabin blanket on the redeye to Perth, as a layer over a slip dress on a too-cold evening on the harbour, and as a Sunday-at-home jumper when I refuse to put on jeans.

One garment, four functions.

The reason a good cardigan beats three cheap ones is the wool. A 100% wool cardigan in a heavier gauge will hold its shape after a hundred wears, won't pill the way an acrylic one does, and will only get softer with washing.

It also smells like wool, which is to say, like nothing. Acrylic, after a few wears, smells like a tram seat.

Buy one good cardigan every three years. Wash it cold, dry it flat, hang it on a wide wooden hanger so the shoulders don't form the sad little ear-shapes that wire hangers leave.

Oversized is more forgiving across body changes, layers over a heavier knit without feeling stuffed, and doesn't look dated in three seasons the way a slim cropped fit will.

Boots Are Where the Maths Gets Brutal

I have a friend who buys ankle boots roughly twice a year. One pair in February ahead of the cold months, one pair in June when she's bored. She told me once, slightly proud, that she