Ethnic Wear Under Rs. 3,000 for the Whole Family

Most festive shopping advice assumes one person buying one outfit. A family of four across six days is twenty-four outfit-days, and it is a completely different calculation.

The rule: one good thing each, then volume

Buy one proper outfit per person for Ashtami, and fill the other five days at the Rs. 2,000–3,000 level. This is better than four mid-priced outfits each, because the days differ enormously in how closely anyone is looking.

Ashtami and Dashami are photographed. Shashthi, Saptami and Navami are lived in.

What Rs. 3,000 actually buys, per person

• Her: a printed saree, a cotton or linen saree, or a ready salwar suit. A kurti for the daytime.
• Him: a cotton-silk kurta from RANJH kurta pajama. This is the easiest and cheapest person to dress and always has been.
• Children: kurti suits and palazzos or a kurta set. Buy a size up.

The band itself is ethnic wear under Rs. 3,000, with more room at under Rs. 2,000.

Where the one bigger amount goes

The Ashtami saree. Everything else in the week is replaceable and that one is not — it gets photographed, it gets remembered, and it gets worn again at every wedding until it does not. Silk sarees, Banarasi, or under Rs. 10,000 if that is the ceiling.

Two ways families waste money at Puja

1. Buying six outfits per person. Nobody wears six. Four gets worn, two do not, and the two that do not are always the mid-priced ones.
2. Buying children's clothes to fit now. Six weeks between the shop and the festival is a size on a growing child.

The six-day plan allocates the days, and the gifting guide covers everyone outside the household.