Goodwill (Wardrobe) Hunting

One of my favorite bloggers is Paula Pant, who created the blog, Afford Anything . The link will take you to her "Start Here" page, which lays out her philosophy, but in a nutshell:  You can afford anything you want - but you can't afford everything . This means you need to pick and choose. What will you focus on? Paula chooses to spend as little as possible on things that aren't important to her (such as her car), and instead spends lavishly on travel - she had saved enough money in her twenties to take off for three years of international travel. We can apply this same mindset to our closet. I just read The Curated Closet: A Simple System for Discovering Your Personal Style and Building Your Dream Wardrobe  by Anuschka Rees (available at your local library). As the title implies, her prescriptions are very practical, and she includes lots of exercises to help you identify your personal style, choose from a limited set of colors and figure out what's missing fro...

Dana Thomas, author of the book, Fashionopolis , published in 2020, has a scary message:  Our addiction to cheap, trendy clothing is poisoning the planet and keeping millions in poverty . Fast fashion is bad for you. The fashion industry as a whole is responsible for ten percent of all carbon emissions worldwide, and a whopping twenty percent of all industrial water pollution, according to Thomas' research. Meanwhile, sweatshop operations (Thomas reports of young people working in 110-degree heat in some of the factories she visited) paying low wages to the people manufacturing our clothes continue in many countries, including our own. Her research shows that one in six people worldwide, nearly twenty percent, is employed in some manner by the fashion industry. Of those millions of people, only two percent of them are able to earn a living wage. There is a Sisyphean side to the fashion industry as well:  We will only wear the clothing these people worked so hard to manufacture...

I once worked on a small advisory team with a colleague who commuted approximately 20 miles to work in a Hummer. This was back in 2007 and 2008, when gas prices were creeping into the $4.00 per gallon range here in Phoenix. He and I were both working in a call center; we weren't meeting with our clients in person. However, I regularly overheard my colleague on his client calls discuss both his car and his large property, located in a beautiful rural area just outside of Phoenix. More details emerged later:  The Hummer was leased and the house outside of town was rented. I eventually heard my co-worker mention to another colleague that he'd given up the house with the large property in favor of accommodations closer in - likely to compensate for the high cost of gas for his Hummer. Why do we do this to ourselves? Why are we willing to spend so much money on looking good to others? I'm not immune - for years, my husband and I lived in a very modest house while I dreamed of ow...

I remember in my twenties being terribly influenced by a mailer I received from a chain boutique that was advertising a compact wardrobe with separates. It showed me how each of the pieces would mix and match, what jewelry I could purchase to properly accessorize the outfits, and when the store's next sale would be. How handy! I'm embarrassed to confess that I gave in to their siren call, purchasing several of the pieces advertised. And while I regret being so easily influenced by the mailer and spending so much money on the advertised clothing, it did end up being a positive lesson on the value of carefully curating a few quality separates that can mix and match well. Chances are you don't have to start from scratch. It's now fall; if you've been following this blog, we've already discussed starting with your own wardrobe to identify some of the foundational pieces you'll be wearing for the next couple of months. But let's assume that you want to take ...

I felt like I learned a lot of impractical things at school. Even though I had a career in finance, I never did need to understand quadratic equations. Meanwhile, the things that are so important to daily life, such as how to construct a good wardrobe, control expenses, invest in a retirement plan and adjust your behavior for greater success, are not typically taught at school. I wish I'd known these principles before I launched into living on my own; they would have saved me a lot of anxiety and money. 1. I wish I'd known how to build a quality core wardrobe with separates. All items except white jeans purchased used In my 20s, as in my teens, I focused on purchasing expensive one-of-a-kind outfits (usually dresses) rather than on learning how to identify and select quality separates to build what's now known as a "capsule wardrobe."  2. I wish I'd known about the 50-20-30 budget. It wasn't until I went through a financial crisis in my mid-thirties that I...

Here in my home state of Arizona, the temperatures have dropped (sometimes even below 100!), and giant pumpkins have started showing up at the grocery store, signs that fall is nearly upon us. Take some time this weekend to plan out your fall wardrobe in three steps: 1. Edit last season's clothing, including shoes, accessories and outerwear. If you don't know what you already have, you can't shop thoughtfully. Gather everything you might wear this fall in one spot and do a careful review. What do you have that never got worn? Is it time for it to find a new home? What doesn't fit right now? It's okay to set clothes aside for a time, but don't include them in your fall wardrobe if they don't fit today. Below are some of the work clothes I no longer need:   I've already given away the two dresses shown here, but I'll be setting aside my work trousers and blazers for now, in case I have occasion to wear them. 2. Create a compact, intentional wardrobe fr...

At the age of six my husband had saved enough money to purchase something he'd wanted for a long time - a kid's football helmet he'd seen at a local store. His mother drove him to the store, he triumphantly counted out his money to make the purchase, and then he carried his prize back to the car. Cost in today's dollars, according to US Bureau of Labor Statistics  inflation calculator, would be $140.00 As soon as he got into the car, he realized he'd made a huge mistake. He'd just spent a large chunk of his saved money on something that didn't make him happy after all. It didn't turn him magically into a football player - it just made him feel empty.  How often do we do the same thing when we shop for clothing? Ah, we say, I'm finally going to get the outfit that will prove to everyone that I've "made it", that I'm someone to be reckoned with, that I'm beautiful. This outfit will let me catch that cute guy's eye, it will let...