December 30, 2016 by Debbie Roes

The Best of Recovering Shopaholic 2016

It’s almost the end of 2016, so it’s time to wrap up my year in blogging. I have been writing “Recovering Shopaholic” for four years and have published hundreds of posts on the topics of wardrobe management, personal style, shopping behavior and psychology, accountability, living a fuller life, and various other topics. I’ve grown and changed tremendously since the start of the blog on January 2, 2013, as I summarized this past summer and will be revisiting again soon. I appreciate all of the support and encouragement I have received along the way from readers and I’m grateful to all those who have accompanied me on my journey.

At the close of each of the previous three years, I compiled “best of” posts (2013 | 2014 | 2015) in which I reflected upon the top posts from that year, and today’s post will further that tradition. During 2016, 77 new posts went live and thousands of comments were made by dedicated readers.

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December 16, 2016 by Debbie Roes

Normal-Sized Wardrobe Revisited…

The most popular post on “Recovering Shopaholic” – by far – is one that I wrote way back in February 2013, just one month into the blog. Which post was it? The title is, “What is a Normal-Sized Wardrobe?” and you can access it HERE. In that essay, I wrote about a closet decluttering session my husband and I did and how it got me thinking about the concept of a “normal-sized” wardrobe. My pondering led to a basic formula that used frequency of wear as a guideline in figuring out how many clothes and shoes we need.

normal-sized wardrobe

That single post has been viewed over 100,000 times! Clearly, a lot of people are interested in the concept of wardrobe size and whether or not the number of clothing pieces they have is “normal.” I furthered the discussion of what’s a normal or ideal wardrobe size a year later with “What is Your Ideal Wardrobe Size?” In that article, I delved a bit deeper and looked at how climate and lifestyle issues affect how many clothes a person might need or want to have.

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December 10, 2016 by Debbie Roes

Compulsive Shopping Tips & Resources “Cheat Sheet”

Before I dive into today’s post, I want to give you a heads up about my recent appearance on “I Can’t Stop Spending,” a podcast about recovery from compulsive spending, shopping, and debting. This podcast is run by Susan B, who wrote a guest post here earlier this year titled, “Debtors Anonymous is Not Just for Debtors.”

Susan and I talked about my compulsive shopping history, when and how I created this blog, some of the rules I follow to manage my shopping, and how I went from out of control spending to being able to stick to a budget for four years now. To listen to this podcast (it’s 42 minutes long), click here. I also recommend that you listen to Susan’s earlier episodes, as she offers a lot of practical tips and inspiration to help those of us who struggle with overshopping.

Many people struggle with shopping around the holidays – and all the time…

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December 2, 2016 by Debbie Roes

Revisiting Project 333 and the “Love It, Wear It” Wardrobe Challenge

At the end of September, prior to attending Courtney Carver’s “Tiny Wardrobe Tour,” I decided to put together a hypothetical Project 333 summer capsule. I wrote a blog post about this and concluded that it would be useful to try out that capsule during October, as warm weather where I live usually continues until at least early November and sometimes longer (our cool weather started just a week ago!).

I reasoned that if nothing else, I’d learn some useful things about myself and my wardrobe through doing a short version of Project 333 (even if not the full three months that it’s intended to be). In today’s post, I share my thoughts on that experience, as well as about how I’m revisiting the “Love it, Wear it” Challenge (LIWI) that I did during the full year of 2015.