Welcome to Receipt Reality, where real women get real about their shopping habits and reveal the financial impact of life before and after RTR Unlimited. Rent the Runway members share how they spent their money on clothing and clothing-related services (goodbye, dry cleaning!) before subscribing to fashion.

From Manolo Blahnik heels to Valentino dresses, RTR member Mia H. has never met a designer she didn’t like. Before joining Rent the Runway, she spent weekends searching for the perfect printed dresses to wear to her polished Upper East Side office, attempting to avoid repeats and racking up her credit card bill in the process. 

Beautiful items from Rag & Bone and Diane von Furstenberg collected dust in her closet, while a penchant for designer shoes to match each outfit added more bloat to her bills. In the seven months alone that she tracked her spending on clothing and clothing care, Mia spent more than she would have liked ($12,043 total) on clothes, shoes, and accessories.

“I used to spend a lot of money on dresses for work – now, I get to wear around 20 dresses each month for less than the cost of one.”

Mia

When Mia became a RTR Unlimited member in May 2018, she set herself up to spend two-thirds less than what she was spending previously. No longer wasting money on dresses she only wear once, she relied on RTR’s closet to fulfill her workwear needs, saving the rest of her money for investment pieces, like APL sneakers and a Celine purse. 

“It has made my life so much easier,” says Mia, who gets five rentals for each day of work adding a spot to her membership, which allows members to rent more than the traditional four items per week for $39 per additional item.

“It’s like having a uniform – you know exactly what you’re going to wear the next day and don’t need to spend 15 minutes deliberating about which dress to wear or when you last wore it.” 

Renting an average of 20 printed dresses per month for less than the price of one has resulted in major savings, too: $7,145 to be exact.