Clothes, clothes, clothes... oh, and shoes

[wwcitizen]

We typically go through our clothes about once a year and thin things out in preparation for the following year's clothing debauchery. However, we didn't really do that this past year, even though we had the time. Granted, about a month ago, I took about 6 sweaters I hadn't worn in over two years to GoodWill (for the tax write-off), but that's so clearly not enough!!

This past weekend, Matt and I put all this new furniture together that we had been ordering for the last couple of months. Finally, all the pieces arrived ON FRIDAY - all together over the course of the day! We got:

• New bar furniture in the kitchen
• New shelving for Matt's bathroom
• A 2-door armoire for the dressing area for a linen closet
• A 3-door armoire for the bedroom as both a shoe solution and new shelves for me

Everything worked out wonderfully and it all looks great.  The only problem was the amount of stuff I have: We were under the impression and driven by the hope that many of my clothing/shoes storage issues would be solved by my 3-door armoire. As I was moving my clothes out of the previous armoire onto the bed, I noticed that I was in trouble; there wasn't going to be enough room for it all in the new armoire! I have too many pairs of jeans and WAY too many t-shirts and shorts.

spikejrt's post this morning reminded me that I need to go through and thin things out a bit, but his post mentioned something else: Not buying any new clothes for a year.  I like that thought; I don't need new clothes. If we were able not to buy any new clothes for a year (not a New Year's resolution by any stretch), we would certainly be able to extract things that we don't wear in a given year more readily. PLUS, it would force us to use the clothes we have.

I made a promise to myself, with Matt's prodding, that for every visit to DSW with the intention of buying a new pair of shoes, I would have to get rid of three pairs at home.  I was good about that and actually did it about four times.  Then, this past summer, I stumbled across an amazing sale at the Kenneth Cole outlet in Upstate NY. I walked out of there with 7 new pairs of designer shoes for about $120. In retrospect, it would have been smart of me simply to buy a whole bunch of the shoes and donate them directly to charity without thinking about it, but that didn't happen. Instead, the other 2/3s of the new 3-door armoire that was supposed to be my end-all-be-all shoe storage solution isn't what it was supposed to be - fully.  Ho hum.  I'll have to dive in there and get rid of more... and then NOT BUY ANY.

Anyone need a new wardrobe with size 12 shoes?  Photo uploads aren't working properly today or else I would have posted some pictures. So, those will have to wait till later.