Month: May 2013

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Neglected Wardrobe Areas

As many of you know by now, I spend a lot of time at home.  I’m self-employed and have a variable schedule.   A lot of the things I do involve sitting in front of my computer in my home office.  While I’m working from home, I generally wear workout clothes and loungewear.  I also spend a lot of time exercising, including almost daily walks by the water with my husband and trips to the gym a few times per week.

Neglected Wardrobe Areas

Have you overlooked a key area of your wardrobe?

Something’s Wrong with This Picture

Even conservatively, I would guess that I spend 50% or more of my waking hours in athletic wear of some sort.  Surprisingly, however, a very low percentage of the money I spend on shopping goes toward this clothing category.  We’re talking an expenditure of maybe 5% of my total clothing dollars, if that.  An abundance of attractive athletic wear is available in stores, but the garments I wore until very recently were old, pilling, stretched out, and long past their prime.

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Resisting the Allure of a Sale

As many of you know, I recently accepted a challenge from a reader to not shop for a month.  I committed to go the entire month of May without buying any new clothing, shoes, or accessories.

At first, it was really easy for me to refrain from shopping.   In fact, I started to feel like it would be “a piece of cake” for me to breeze through the challenge and I even considered the possibility of extending my shopping hiatus.

Sale Temptations

The ever alluring store sales – so difficult to resist!

Then, It Happened…

Then, it happened… I learned about the Nordstrom Half-Yearly Sale.  For those of you who are unfamiliar with Nordstrom’s sales, here’s the bottom line.  They only have sales three times per year – two half-yearly sales in May and November, and the “Grand Poohbah” of sales, their Anniversary Sale in July.  I can’t remember the last time I haven’t shopped at one of these sales.  After all, Nordstrom is my favorite store, I love shopping there, and I’m a “regular.”  Many of the salespeople know my name and greet me warmly when I arrive.  I feel “at home” there, like I’m in my element.

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Project 333 Week Eight Update

I have now completed almost two months of Project 333.  Amazingly, I continue to learn more and more about my wardrobe and myself as I navigate this challenge.  As those who have been following my journey know, it’s really been a roller coaster ride for me. Case in point… While week seven was quite easy and smooth-sailing, week eight had me feeling confronted at times.

I sometimes wonder if would have stayed the course with the challenge if I were not blogging about it.  While I hope I would have honored my commitment to myself in any event, it definitely helps to have a group of readers who are routing for me to succeed.  Knowing I’ll be writing about my experience also helps me to think more deeply about what I’m learning and pushes me to find wins to report even in the more difficult weeks.

Wins for Week Eight

While I had to wrack my brain a bit more this week to find the positives, I do have some wins to report.

Still no shopping!

I continue to honor my promise to you (and to myself) not to shop at all during the month of May.  I have to admit that I found it more challenging this past week, as notifications of Memorial Day sales were everywhere!  Every time I looked at my television, email, or Facebook page, I saw yet another notice of “amazing deals” to be found in stores over this holiday weekend.

I had to harness all of the willpower within me to resist temptation this week, especially for the all-too-easy online shopping. But I’m proud to report that I did it!  I’m pretty much taking it one day at a time at this point and reminding myself that May is almost over.

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The Nuts and Bolts of Wardrobe Tracking

In my last post, I outlined the value of tracking your wardrobe.  If you’ve decided you’d like to start tracking, today’s post will help to point you in the right direction.  The methods outlined below range from a simple technique you can start immediately to more detailed options that require a bit of planning and set-up time.

I understand that many of you might not be as detail-oriented and “anal retentive” as I am, but you really don’t need to be in order to see some great results.  Even if you choose to only take on the first method, I promise you’ll gain increased awareness that will help you better manage your wardrobe and guide your future shopping.

I’ll do my best to explain my tracking methods and will use some photos to illustrate my points, but please feel free to ask questions if there’s anything you don’t quite understand.

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Why Track Your Wardrobe?

In a number of my posts, I’ve made reference to how often I’ve worn various garments in my closet.  I’ve even coined some new terms, such as “wardrobe benchwarmers” and “wardrobe all-stars” to describe rarely worn and frequently worn pieces.  Such information has elicited a number of questions from readers, asking how I track my wardrobe.

Track Your Wardrobe

Do you know what’s in your closet & how often you wear your clothes?

But before I outline the specific methods I use to track my wardrobe (that will be my next post…), I first want to discuss why I feel it’s important to do it.  After all, some of you may not be convinced.  You may feel that wardrobe tracking is too difficult or time-consuming to even consider.  In truth, it doesn’t have to be either of those things.  Although the initial set-up may take a bit of time, I probably spend less than a minute each day in tracking what I wear.  In my opinion, the benefits far outweigh the time and effort involved.

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