Ballin’ On A Budget: Shopping for your trip!

Today, I’m going to let you in on another one of my (not-so-secret) secrets for ballin’ on a budget: thredUP! I placed an order recently to grab a few more warm-weather essentials for our upcoming trip to Amsterdam and Iceland, and it seemed like the perfect opportunity to share a few of my tips for packing and traveling in style without breaking the bank.

Since moving to Nashville, my winter wardrobe has dwindled to just the essentials. No complaints here, but when I started thinking about what I’d need to head to two Northern countries at the tail end of winter, I knew I needed to grab a few more pieces.

There are a ton of ways to buy clothes online today: traditional retailers, curated shopping sites, personal stylists, and on and on and on. When I found thredUP, it seemed like a perfect fit for my style, budget, and values. I immediately was drawn to their insane selection of designer and name brand pieces, and those prices. Everything is 60-90% off retail price, which makes clicking “buy” super easy. I’ve found everything from comfy travel clothes to beautiful cocktail dresses, and just about every style in between. I also love that they are focused on helping their customers be conscious consumers- something that I strive to be, but isn’t always easy, especially when shopping for clothes. Buying secondhand keeps other people’s used items out of landfills, and encourages us to rethink how we can reuse what we already have. You can also send your clothes in using one of their Clean Out Kits, giving other people the chance to love the clothes you no longer need or want.

Besides their great selection, prices, and eco-conscious practices, they also have curated collections, making browsing by look and style even easier. Blogger and designer Emily Henderson does a curated collection each month, and they feature both celebrities and real people on their blog with inspired fashions.

SO, back to the pieces I grabbed for our upcoming trip to Holland and Iceland. It’s going to be in 20s-30s while we’re there in early March. My go-to cold weather look usually includes jeans, boots, and some layers on top. I grabbed these three SUPER comfy and warm sweaters for under $30. These will be great layering pieces, with the option for a short or long-sleeved shirt underneath and a coat over top. 

I tend to grab great neutral pieces and layer in color with accessories. The top sweater is a warm wool sweater in tan. I’ve got a beautiful purple scarf my husband brought home from Scotland a few years ago that will pair perfectly with this, along with some long dangle gold and amethyst drop earrings, skinny jeans, and my go to block-heeled grey boots.

That grey sweater is a bit oversized, which I was honestly hoping would be the case. We’ll be spending a day hiking the Golden Ring in Iceland, and I want to be able to layer up with a thinner long-sleeved shirt underneath, and my white GAP puffer coat over the top. Black lined gloves, a white and red pom-pom knit hat and a grey scarf will make this the perfect sweater for a day in the elements.

I’m always drawn to beautiful jewel tones, and this blue sweater went in my cart the second I saw it. I can just see us sitting in a cozy cafe in Amsterdam sipping coffee and relaxing by a fire while wearing this with some fleece leggings and tall riding boots.

Check out thredUP for yourself by clicking HERE– you’ll even get $10 off your first order by using this link!

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One of my other favorite ways to find great clothing items for way below retail is our neighborhood’s online garage sale page on Facebook. I think most towns have something similar at this point. I suggest searching for “Your Town” + Garage sale, trading post, or other similar phrases to find one in your area. I grabbed my white GAP Puffer coat for only $10 from a neighbor cleaning out her closet. It’s in excellent used condition, is super warm and water resistant, and will serve me well on our adventures this month.

I just added some close ups of my thredUP finds in my instagram story- check it out at instagram.com/anniekennedycountry!

We head out to Amsterdam and Iceland THIS SATURDAY (!!!!!), so be sure to subscribe and check back for tons of photos and updates!

Amsterdam, Iceland & NYC: Finding Flights and Planning your Adventure, Part 1

I’m so excited to share that our next adventure is coming in just a few short weeks, and it’s checking quite a few things off the old goal-list for 2017. My husband and I are heading out the 2nd week of March for adventures in Amsterdam, Iceland, & NYC.

We planned to use our favorite flight booking sight Momondo to book flights when we found an irresistible deal on Cyber Monday. However, a little extra digging and I was able to make our trip even more exciting.

Here’s what went down: Cory has been to Amsterdam a few times, and wanted to take me to show me around. We’d been seeing a lot of really inexpensive flights there, so we’d been watching the deals for fights to Amsterdam for about a month. Cyber Monday rolled around and sure enough, there were some amazinggggggg deals on airfare. The great thing about Momondo is they show you which airlines the fares come from. When I noticed the flight we were about to book was on Iceland Air, I remembered an article I had read several months before about their new stopover program. Basically, to increase tourism to Iceland, Iceland Air started offering free stopovers on your itinerary to and from Europe. Iceland has been on my travel bucket list for a while, so I hopped over to their website and found our EXACT. SAME. FLIGHTS. for the same price, but with a 2 and a half day stopover in Reykjavik when I booked with them directly. That was more than enough to convince me to click “BUY” right then and there.

This flight was out of New York, so we waited another few weeks until we found some great low fares from Nashville to NYC, and booked those tickets as well. The whole thing came out to well under $1000 round trip combined for both of us.

 

We’ll be in Amsterdam Sunday through Friday, and I’m so excited that I’ve got two shows booked while we are there! I am a country singer/songwriter, and my biggest music goal for 2017 was to play outside of the US. I am thrilled to be checking that off so early in the year! I’ll be performing at a songwriter’s cafe Sunday evening, and again on a Radio show for Songwriters later in the week. I’ll be posting as much video content as I can of these shows, in addition to the Live Stream the venue puts up for their performers. If you’re interested in any of that, be sure to follow along at my music instagram (@Anniekennedycountry) or Facebook (Facebook.com/anniekennedycountry) pages!

We’ll leave Amsterdam late morning Friday and take a quick flight back to Reykjavik where we’ll have 2 whole days to explore. Our tentative plans are to spend one day driving the Golden Circle and exploring some of Iceland’s natural beauty, then spending one day in Reykjavik and getting a feel for life in the capital city.

We head back to NYC Sunday evening, and we’ll spend our 24 hours eating amazing food, exploring the city, and I’ll be doing a live-t0-vinyl recording session with a Manhattan based management company. Same thing here, we’ll be doing a ton of live videos and other content, so we’d love for you to join us on social media for that!

Rest assured there will be A LOT of post-trip posts full of photos, stories, and memories, but until then, stay tuned for more of our planning process when traveling abroad. Look out early next week for a post on packing for a trip like this, and how I used the online second-hand retailer ThredUp to grab some essentials!

Cheers!

-Annie