I felt an intense pressure to dress well

"That girl needs some new clothes," says one boy in my grade to another, without realizing I can hear. "Some very new clothes," his friend agrees. I am in sixth grade and my father has been dead for one year. As always, I am wearing hand-me-downs: an oversized purple top, matching patchwork-print leggings and basketball sneakers. I'm about as interested in sixth grade boys as I am in fashion. Middle school is weird; it's like all of a sudden I'm supposed to start wearing bras and makeup and shoes that aren't basketball sneakers.

Two years later, I have grown eight inches and hips. I have glasses, braces, a report card of straight As,wholesale fashion shoes and all of the poise of Cosmo Kramer. It is at the end of the school year at my confirmation party that I have my first Cinderella moment. I am wearing a lilac silk sheath dress and shimmery pink lipstick with my hair done up in a French twist. My usual high-waters are nowhere in sight. I feel beautiful and it shows. The prettiest girl in school tells me I look like Barbie and my longtime crush asks me to dance. For the first time, I experienced the transformative effect of the right clothes.

My hometown of White Plains, New York, is a Manhattan suburb that Forbes once ranked as the third most expensive city in America. My father used to say that we weren't rich, but we were rich in love. After he died, my mother and I fought often, especially about money. I wanted a clothing allowance and she wouldn't give me one. Most of my classmates were well-off and well-dressed; I resented our frugal lifestyle. By the start of high school, I was earning enough money from babysitting to buy all of my own clothes. The newly-opened Westchester Mall became my favorite place to go with friends and escape from my house.

Once I got to college, my shopping habit became difficult to maintain. The people around me seemed carefree with deep-pocketed parents and I felt like could never keep up. I couldn't afford to go on spring break or a wardrobe of cute going-out clothes on my student-worker salary. I felt cheated but also lost. I was supposed to pick a major, a path, an identity, but all I wanted to do was go shopping. During my senior year, I started charging purchases here and there, figuring that after I started working, I could pay off my credit card.

A few months later, I started my first job in Manhattan as a financial news editor. I decided that I wanted to write for a fashion magazine, but I needed money and health insurance and could not afford to hold out for my dream job. I was happy to be earning a living, but frustrated and feeling stuck. I felt that my father would have been most proud of me in a business or legal career. I tried to cure my bad days with Marc Jacobs dresses and Chanel makeup.

As a Manhattanite, I felt an intense pressure to dress well, and my bills skyrocketed. A starting salary of $42,000 doesn't go far on 5th Avenue, so I used credit cards to make up the difference between what I could afford and what I wanted. I stuck to the sale racks at first, because no one loves a bargain more than I do, but sometimes I saw a bag or dress I liked on Gossip Girl and just couldn't say no. If I was the only girl willing to stimulate the economy during a recession, so be it. I started a fashion blog about shopping in Manhattan. I'm not sure if the blog fueled the shopping or the shopping fueled the blog, but both felt like my only escape. Celebrity style and my latest purchases were all I wanted to talk about. I kept thinking that one day, I would have a better, higher-paying job and I will be able to pay all of my bills and finally focus on having the life I want. But that day never came.

The credit counselor pulled my credit report and was quiet for a long time. I didn't breathe. In order to be eligible for a payment plan, he said, I would need to bring in an additional $700 per month. "Otherwise, you're looking at a bankruptcy," he said.

The word hung in the air. I tried to envision myself facing a judge in court and, more terrifying, telling my mother what I had done. I couldn't bear to move back home or to give away the cat I rescued. That would mean I had failed. I had dreamed of living in New York for years and I there was no way I was going to leave now. If I was going to live on a small salary in America's most expensive city, I would have to make some serious changes.

Gone too are the days of dropping $60 on beauty products every time I hit the drugstore. I started clipping coupons from the Sunday paper and shopping around for the best prices on groceries, food for my cat and cleaning supplies. I applied to a few part-time jobs, but since I already worked late nights, it was too difficult to find anyone who needed part-time help only in the mornings. I was secretly glad about this because my day job exhausts me, but getting turned down by a gym and multiple thrift stores is a new low.
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