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. We asked Rent the Runway members to share how they spent their money on clothing and clothing-related services (goodbye, dry cleaning!) before subscribing to fashion.

For as long as Alexa can remember, she’s loved to shop the latest trends for less at fast fashion stores like Zara and H&M. The ability to switch up her look in tune with the latest runways, for more than half the runway price, kept her closet feeling fresh without a lot of buyer’s remorse. “I treated fashion as disposable, and would buy new pieces almost every time I went out,” she says.

In the last few years, however, as an uptick in friends’ weddings collided with an increased awareness of fast fashion’s toll on the environment, Alexa began to second-guess her long-held fast-fashion habit, worrying that she couldn’t afford to keep it up. After turning to Rent the Runway Unlimited as a wedding guest solution, she quickly found herself renting outfits for everything from the office to date nights with her husband.

“Unlike the throwaway fashion I used to waste money on, these designer pieces were cut nicely and fit me really well.”

ALexa

“I was amazed by how fun it was to try new trends without consequences,” she said. “I also noticed how much better I felt in the clothes because they were high-quality, designer pieces.” 

Since joining RTR, Alexa has quit her habit for good and saved money, spending 8% less on clothing the year she joined compared to the year prior. As she’s replaced buying with renting, she feels that she’s finally doing right by the environment, too, and it’s trained her to shop more consciously when she does decide to invest in an item. 

“We’re all responsible for our environmental impact, and what we put on our bodies can make a big difference,” she said. “I’m proud and grateful that I’ve found a way to ditch my toxic fast fashion habits of the past.”