My mental Shopping Trip

It’s August and I can’t believe I’m eight months into this One Year No New Clothes
challenge.  Omg, I can see the finish line now.  Whew….

I think most of you have gotten to know the “real” me over this time and I’m not going to
start lying to you now.  No, I haven’t purchased new clothes, but I’m already planning
my first shopping trip IN MY HEAD.

Seriously!

I’ve picked the day, the places, and the items.  It’s like I’ve started planning my wedding
or something. Is that sad?

And as excited as I get thinking about my first new purchase in a year (it will be a purse,
btw) I’ve started to wonder how these new items are going to make me feel.  Will I feel
elated or will I feel guilty?  Either way, I know I’ll value them more than I’ve valued new
clothing in the past.

My hope is that I continue to purchase new clothing LESS in the future, and when I do
go shopping, I will go knowing exactly what I need.  The last thing I want to do is fall
back into old habits of shopping just to produce a “fake high.”

It’s not like I think buying new clothes is a bad thing, but maybe we should all be a bit
more deliberate in what we are buying.  I read this great article that suggests everyone
not shop for three months and then keep track of the items you wear during that time.
 This will show you how little of your wardrobe you actually wear, and you’ll start to
notice the outfits you wear over and over.  Turns out there’s a REASON why we wear
only 20% of our wardrobes.  Fashion stylist Ali Call explains it this way:

We are living in a fast-paced world and with so many variables at
play, an easy solution is to quickly choose from something paired with
success at an earlier date. These pieces become the wardrobe front-
runners because they have a proven track record.

And now that I have had almost a year of wearing the same things over and over, my
eyes are finally open and I see this pattern for myself.  There are times when I take the
time to mix up my wardrobe and work at pairing pieces together.  If the outfit is a
“success,” I find that I wear it over and over again…and I grow lazy…again.

So instead of heading back to the mall out of wardrobe boredom, maybe we should go
with a purpose and treat it like grocery shopping.

No, really.

Think of it this way – if you know you want to cook a certain recipe, you go to the store
with a list of the ingredients you need.  If you didn’t do that, Lord knows how the meal
would turn out.
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Why should we put more thought into what we’re buying for our refrigerators then we do
for our closets?