I had my colors done recently. I'm a light summer. The bad news is, my palette has probably 13 different shades of blue, and I don't even like blue. But it turns out that a slatey, storm-cloud blue looks great on me - wonderful next to my face even if I wear bright colors. There are next to no sludgy colors on my palette - instead, I can wear my favorite colors, bright reds and emeralds and even cornflower blue.
Getting my palette really helped me with the "outfits" thing. It made me understand 1) my best neutrals (which are the building blocks of all outfits anyway) - my big breakthrough was understanding that "Armani colors" - camel, greige and taupe work best on me and 2) how by picking a scarf in my best colors I can make other colors which I love (black, for example) look better. Somehow, too, it helped me to build outfits.
After my analysis, I bought a lot of clothes from summer sales, and it was amazing - with my palette, I could pick from the full racks colors that suited me and could focus on cut, style, and design instead - shopping was very quick and pain-free. I found half a dozed good scarves, several great dresses and lots of basics, all very flattering. When I showed them to my mother (who is usually very critical about my clothes), she said that I looked 20 years younger and that everything, strangely, looked really good on me (I didn't tell her about the color analysis).
I don't know how much you spend on your clothes. I can spend $200 on one or two dresses - I really felt I got a good return to my investment. Also, I test-ran my new palette by ordering 5 items from Outnet in my new colors. Usually, Outnet is very difficult for me, but 3 of the items were perfect on me. I would never have found them without my palette - I would have ordered something boring black instead.
Take a look at YouTube color analysis videos. There is an American color consultant there (from Macy's or one of the other big department store chains - she is possibly also a personal shopper) who seems to know her stuff and also use a lot of common sense. Check out whether you like her style. I'd definitely want to be seen by her. My feeling is, you will be able to use the info and then hit Marshall's/ Loehmann's/ TJ Maxx/ Cent 21 racks and look like a million dollars.