for each clothing, shoe, and accessory purchase i make this year, i am
donating/selling/recycling a comparable item in an effort to better
manage my closet. check out my "one in, one out" tag for more of these monthly posts!
oh dear. november is always a tough month of spending for me as it is my birthday month, there are always sales around black friday/cyber monday/small business saturday, and i visit my parents for thanksgiving and always go thrifting with my mom. i'm glad i had a no-spend october as i sure made up for it this month. for my birthday, my mom & dad gifted me a $50 gift card to dsw that i had to use right away. instead of picking out 1-2 pairs of shoes that the gift card would cover entirely, i went to the extreme and bought 7 pairs of shoes to take advantage of a promotion online and use a certificate i had. each pair of shoes ended up being really cheap and i did end up returning one of the pairs, but it still seems a little frivolous when i stop to think about it (and have to share it with the interweb). because i paid for that purchase with a combination of a gift card, paypal balance, and credit card and then returned one of the pairs that was credited to my credit card, i honestly had no idea how to adjust the prices for the shoes i bought so these prices may not be exactly accurate. that probably only bothers me because i keep track to the penny of what i spend on clothes.
anyway, let's get on with it!
{what came in}
{what went out}
what really stood out to me this month was that i finally showed some tough love in dealing with my "what if" syndrome. you know, old favorites that hang around in your mental "to get rid of pile" all year that you just can't bear to part with because - what if...?!? i'm getting rid of three specific items this month that fall into that category: my mossimo varana shooties that are worn down to nothing and scuffed beyond belief (and that i actually mentally replaced with these heeled booties some time ago), my scalloped white blouse that doesn't fit anymore, and my chinese laundry open-toed sandals that feel too "sexy" to wear to my current work place - not to mention that i hate open-toed shoes. why did i ever buy them in the first place?! it makes perfect sense to me why people hold onto clothes & shoes because of an emotional attachment or the "what if..." syndrome. what if i fit back into this one day? what if i can somehow wear these shoes so the terrible scuffs don't show? what if i wear this blouse with a sweater and magically love it?
i think the truth is, those "what if" statements are never tested and if they are, they rarely hold true. i spent all sandal season at my new workplace and there was never one day where i think i would have felt comfortable wearing those open-toed sandals. yet i kept telling myself, "what if i want to try wearing them next summer?" and "what if i get another desk job in the future where my feet can stay hidden all day?" these statements are never going to hold true, but it's so hard to get rid of something if you feel you didn't get enough use out of it or if you know it wasn't a good purchase to begin with. yet i honestly know that three months from now i will probably not be yearning for any of these items.
do you struggle with the "what if" syndrome with your own wardrobe? how do you deal with it?
note: i decided to only get rid of one headband even though i purchased two this month as i don't own an excessive number of headbands. the ones i have are also different enough so i don't feel i need to edit that collection of accessories down any. i also did add 5 pairs of socks this month but didn't picture the combination of tights/socks i got rid of.
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