I have said it before and I’ll say it again- neatness, being organized, etc… is one of my hardest things. Its probably one of my bigger character flaws, and it sometimes hurts me a lot in the frugal department.
Lately I’ve been feeling like I had no clothing. And that my kids had no clothing to wear.
I knew intellectually that we probably did have what to wear, but the problem was that our clothing shelves were so stuffed and disorganized and messy that we couldn’t actually find the clothes that we did have.
To be honest, my problem was in part that I had too much clothing, most of which I wasn’t wearing since it didn’t look good on my body shape or the color wasn’t flattering, and I have decided that unless it is super comfortable or I have another reason to wear it, not to wear any clothing that I didn’t feel good about myself or my body when I wore it. Because there was so much and there was barely any room to store it, lets just say my shelves were a disaster zone, and I could never find anything I wanted to wear. And the boys had so many clothes on their shelves that they’d outgrown that it made it hard to find the things that actually fit.
So, the other day I went and took every last bit of clothing off my shelf. Asked myself “Do I like this? Do I want to wear it? Does it make me feel good when I wear it?” and the clothing to which the answer to my questions was no, went into the giveaway pile.
If there was something that I wasn’t sure about, but hadn’t worn it in the longest time, it went there as well.
By the time I finished, I had a huge bag (about the size of 2 giant garbage bags) filled with clothes that I simply don’t wear and were doing nothing but taking up room in my house.
And in about 2 weeks we’re having a clothing swap locally, where I’ll hopefully pass on these clothes to people that will love them.
Once that was done, I repeated the same thing with my kids, getting rid of the clothes that no longer fit or that my kids refuse to wear.
Then I organized my clothing so that I can find it easily, and now that the shelves aren’t stuffed, I actually am able to keep a semblance of order there.
And despite now only having a fraction of the clothes I did before I started this, I actually feel like I have so much more, since I can actually find what I have.
Same with my kids.
And I passed on my boys’ outgrown clothing to a friend with a son a year younger than Ike.
This clothes decluttering really made it hit home that for us, when it comes to clothing, less really is more, because I saved money now that I got rid of a bunch of things, because I no longer feel the need to go shopping so that I have what to wear.
How often do you go through your clothes shelf and get rid of clothes? What makes you get rid of clothes? Just not fitting anymore, or also if you don’t like how it looks on you, etc? Do you feel the abundance after you get rid of things, or do you feel a need to shop to re-fill your closets?
