I put myself on a clothes-spending diet in January; my goal was to buy no clothes, absolutely none, from the begining to the end of the month. I also decided that the time was right for a serious clear out of the contents of my over stuffed wardrobe. As this is the last day of January I am reflecting on how the spending cut back and the wardrobe clear out went.
I am not sure if the people I read about in magazines, you know the ones, with shelves of neatly folded colour-sorted tees and jumpers (sweaters) and pristine stacks of shoe boxes with pictures glued to the front showing at a glance what’s in the boxes, actually exist. What I do know, for sure, is that I am not of their tribe. Decluttering chez moi has been a case of weeding out unused bits and pieces from drawers filled to the brim with not so neatly folded items and removing some of the clothes from my bursting at the seams wardrobe to give the remaining contents a chance to breathe. I have ignored over the years the decluttering mantra that says if you haven’t worn something for six months it is time to let it go. That meant that there was a lot of scope to consign a heap of stuff to one very large bag destined for a charity shop. The bag is at the front door, ready to go; I just hope I can resist the urge to *rescue* items from said bag.
The spending diet proved easier than anticipated. However I have to fess up that I cracked in the last few days; I bought a white blouse from COS, which doesn’t really count as I used a voucher to pay for it, and a pair of much reduced Surface to Air jeans. I can as Oscar Wilde said ‘resist anything but temptation’ so the secret to the success of my almost total no-spending-on-clothes January was to stay away from the shops. I am an avid sales and outlet shopper so I felt a pang or two when I saw enticing discount signs emblazoned across shop windows. The easiest way to make sure I didn’t succumb was to remind myself that although I may have found some of my best buys in the sales I have also indulged in credit card carnage buying items that I seldom wore.
I would like 2012 to be the year in which I restrict my clothes buying to only filling necessary gaps in my wardrobe but I am not going to make any rash promises to myself.
Just Add Attitude 
i will rescue them.. Can i be your charity shop? I do clothes shopping about twice a YEAR i am so useless at it. I can never see anything I LIKE! i bet i would like your hand me downs! c
I would so love them to be rescued it’s such a shame you live an ocean away.
I am about to do a clean up in readiness for my next trip to Italy. I am away for 4 months, so I like to tidy my workroom and hopefully put things away where I will easily find them on my return.
I am not sure why but there is something about getting things organized and declutteing that feels very good.
I don’t think those magazine articles are based on any kind of reality. You’d need a mansion, a house keeper, a PA and a few others to make the clutter free, ultra tidy and labelled life!
I am in total agreement with you I think what glossy magazine so often depict as an *ordinary* life is beyond the reach of most ordinary folk (like moi) without a fleet of servants.
I think you have a wonderfully balanced approach! I just took a carload of Stuff to the various charities. Along with the household parts collection left from the remodeling and updating of our house before we moved in last year, there were probably five bags of clothes from the two of us! Now, I’ll give us a bit of credit in that R’s shoes do take up a fair bit of said volume, but still! It really does feel wonderful to send those things that still have life in them to people who might actually put them to good use and so have them off our hands. I love having my closet pretty organized (though you’re not going to see any photos of it in any of those aforementioned chichi magazines!) but even organization doesn’t fix the problem of having too much. So thanks for the good reminders! It’s a wonderful way to “diet”. 🙂
Yes, I do think it is nice to know that things I no longer use or need may still have life in them and that by putting them back into *circulation* they may find an owner who has good use for them. Well done on having a pretty organized closet – I wish I did! I am working towards getting it organized which probably means an another go at declutering as I found some items difficult to let go of this time.
I need to do this with eating out! We spend a small fortune at places like Panera Bread and Jason’s Deli. However, when it comes to clothes, I could honestly use quite a bit more. All of my clothes for every season fit in the smaller half of an old 50s closet.
I wish sometimes that I could fit all my clothes into half a closet. I think having less clothes makes it much easier to choose what to wear. Thanks for stopping by and for your comment.
I am not much of a shopper and I love to pare down. I always tell my husband how luck he is to have me. 🙂
I hope he appreciates how lucky he is! 😉
I don’t know if can understand how lucky he is, until I learn how to add the “y” to luck. 🙂
I am so used to missing errors when I am proofreading my own posts that I think part of my brain is programmed to fill in the missing letters when someone else leaves out a letter. I never noticed the y was missing! 😉