Alter three thrifted trousers myself or pay a tailor for one good pair Alteration How-To

Split it. Hem them yourself, pay for the waists.

Hemming trousers is genuinely a beginner job. Measure, press, blind hem or hand stitch, all three done in an evening. It's the single best value alteration skill and you'll use it forever.

Taking in a tailored waistband is not. You unpick the waistband, deal with the centre back seam, the lining, the facing and usually a belt loop, then rebuild it so it doesn't look rebuilt. 45 is fair for that, and a badly done waistband is visible from across a room in a way a slightly imperfect hem is not.

At two evenings a month, learning waistbands on wool trousers you like is a recipe for three unwearable pairs and a lost autumn.

Ask specifically what the 45 covers. Some quotes include the hem, in which case doing hems yourself saves you very little and the whole calculation changes.

If you do want to try a waist eventually, practise on a pair you don't care about and start with the centre back seam only. Many trousers have a deliberate seam allowance there for exactly this, sometimes 4cm, which is your whole adjustment without touching anything else.

135 for three pairs of wool trousers that actually fit is not expensive next to buying three pairs that fit off the rack, which is roughly impossible. If the wool is decent the alteration is the cheap part of the outfit.

Worth knowing that 4cm at the waist on trousers that otherwise fit often means the seat needs a small adjustment too, or you get a waistband sitting nicely with diagonal wrinkles below it. Another argument for letting someone who does this daily handle the first one.