100 Day Shopping Ban - Home Stretch

In January of this year, I am embarked on a 100-day shopping ban with some fellow bloggers. The idea was proposed by the lovely Rachel the Hat and she wrote a great mid-way follow up post which you can read here. It really encompassed a lot of the feelings I was having about this journey.

Since January 6^th I have been purchase-free. My ban included clothes, shoes, and any accessories. I did spend some Christmas gift cards on 3 tunics from ModCloth (see here, here, and here) which I have gotten a ton of use out of, but no other new clothing has graced by closet or dented my bank account. Well, I also purchased a pair of rain/winter boots that were deemed a necessity, but those are probably worth their own post AND were OK'd by the Twitter shopping ban support group :)  

We are two weeks away from the end of this shopping ban and it is making me think that April 15^th will be my most favorite day of the year this year. (My hubs is an accountant, so tax day marks the day we can be normal people again –that AND I get to buy clothes again!) With the weather FINALLY feeling like Spring, I have to admit, I am jonesing for some new springy clothes! I meandered around Target for almost 45 minutes on Saturday just looking at and touching all of the new seasonal styles and making some mental notes for things I will be more than happy to add to my wardrobe. Also, Easter is almost upon us and I always love a new Easter dress. So, when my ban lifts I will likely purchase the following:

1.   Floral, springy dress(es)

2.   Floral, multicolor scarf

3.   Denim vest

4.   Light-weight cardi(s)

5.   Soft, pastel shirt(s)

6.   Linen pants

7.   Comfy wedges

8.   Something in cobalt

It is nice to actually have a well-thought out list of things that I actually need to supplement my wardrobe and I have also been able to do a lot of purging over the past few months as I have been able to clearly see which clothing items I don’t wear. I even started a Pinterest Wish List that can keep me realistic about the clothing items I really want to own, not just those that inspire me.

Some lessons I have learned over the past 90ish days:

1.   I really don’t NEED new clothes – I mean, I know this seems completely obvious, and it really is, but I think I needed to go through this ban to just see how many clothes I really do have.

2.   I can be more creative with mixing and matching. – Again, duh Ashlea.

3.   Shopping is almost like stress-eating for me. When I am unhappy I shop and I am glad to be able to “window shop” in the same way without making impulse purchases and still get that little “high” or bit of inspiration to take home.

4.   Purge, purge, purge. I’ve been able to make way in my closet for some new seasonal items because I purged. I am also going to make an attempt to switch from a winter-to-summer wardrobe for the first time in, oh ever. My drawers are prime real estate, so I will work on actually putting some stuff into storage in the next month or so.

5.   There are actually better things to spend money on than new dresses… kind of. We were able to get a new blender and some new pillow shams that really completed our bedroom and all because I was actually paying attention to things in our home that reside in other places than my closet.

I do miss shopping, totally. I LOVE getting new packages of goodies in the mail and making impulse Target shopping trips. However, I hope to move forward as a more responsible, careful, and thoughtful shopper.