I have been dreading writing this post for a while now. Some of you will remember my well intentioned pledge to buy no new clothes for the entirety of 2013. Well, I failed. I failed badly. It started easily enough, I needed a new pair of black jeans because my Acne ones sustained a rather large, unfortunately placed hole and I forgot to take a dress with me to wear to a wedding (in fairness to me I did try to borrow one before buying a new one from Witchery)… These small relapses were a slippery slope to full blown failure. Failure is not something pleasant to admit. I feel as dirty as Sarah “I quit sugar Queen” Wilson probably did yesterday when she admitted to eating two croissants (what a silly thing to give up anyway!)…
In a post earlier this year I admitted to buying two dresses and received the most amount of comments ever on a single post. People telling me to ‘reconsider the parameters’ of my project and other stuff. I felt bad. Then I went and lost 9 kilos and buying new clothes seemed like a really good, fun idea. I won’t list all my purchases, lets just say there are a few extra items… ahem.
Anyway. What have I learnt?
Having goals is pointless if you haven’t thought of how to implement them, considered the hurdles and how to clear them, and have a decent amount of willpower up your sleeve. It’s also important to know why you want to do something. Buying no new clothes for a year because ‘it kind of seemed like a good idea at the time’ is bloody stupid.
So, I am clearly no authority on how to scale down your spending. So I’m referring to others who have clearly had more success:
365 Day Challenge: do not buy any new clothes for one year
56 things to do instead of spending money
Go easy on me, internet!
My Bloggable Day 
such a good idea!!
It is! I wish I had succeeded haha 🙂
Well you know what, you tried. At least you tried. I could never even begin to think about trying that! 🙂 x
Thanks Clare! I did make it an entire 3 months before buying something, so that’s pretty good for me 🙂 x
Good Morning Rebecca.
Thank you for the referral to my story about not buying any clothes for a year.
Congratulations on losing the weight.
I just checked on a Kilo converter on-line, 9 kilos is 19.8416036 pounds. Great job! I don’t know how you could not buy new clothes if you lost that much weight.
Plan’s change as life changes.
You may have failed at not buying new clothes. But you were successful at losing weight.
If you want to try again, here is a coupon for “one save” You just need to change the date. You could start on September 1st.
The coupon has helped me stick to my plan.
All the best,
xo
Pamela
Thanks for that Pamela! That coupon will certainly come in handy if I decide to try again 🙂 x
Hey, you gave it a try & probably spent less than if you hadn’t tried. Maybe?! 😉 Don’t beat yourself up about it.
I was waiting for your next wardrobe post so I too could ‘fess up. Guess what? I failed miserably with my shopping ban. I started so well – I sold clothes on eBay & only bought more with the proceeds & then I crumbled. My only consolation is that my purchases are now more thought out & if something isn’t right I return it instead of letting it linger in my closet making me feel guilty.
Well that’s an excellent consolation! I certainly did buy a lot less in the first half of this year… Then I went a little crazy! Never mind. I’m going to take your advice and not beat myself up about it! My consolation is that I have linked up with other people (like you!) by attempting this challenge. The internet is good like that 🙂
You tried, good for you! And you lost weight, so you are obviously a disciplined person. Like my friend Pamela, I also gave up shopping for a year, so far so good: http://kathleencaron.com/how-i-quit-shopping-and-became-happier/ But if it doesn’t work out, I won’t worry about it. Cheers!
Well done Kathleen! Hope the rest of your year without shopping is as successful 🙂