My No Buy January

Sale PSA: A pretty georgette dress from Ganni, now 50% off, a giant knit scarf from Free People, now under $40, the black editor boot from Everlane, now $158 (I feel like this just recently came out?) and an adorable polo dress from Reformation, now $59 (I would buy this if they had my size).

So more than half the month has passed and I haven’t bought anything so far. Hooray! I was feeling good about this and so decided: I want to try and evolve how I limit my purchasing this year. Always in previous years I tried to hit a number of new clothing purchases (under 25, etc) – but sometimes it could get discouraging…like last year, when I think I got to around August, and was already at the number. What’s the point, I moaned. And kind of gave up and stopped tracking too closely.

But now, I think that was the wrong attitude!

I’m going to try something new this year, and adjust how I limit my accumulation. Instead of limiting myself to an overall number (which I’ll still have, and keep in my head), I’m also going to try and limit it week by week, and month by month. So if it’s Thursday and I haven’t bought anything and I’m putting some goodies into my online cart, I might try to hold out until Monday. See how it goes. Note that I’m not trying to stop shopping altogether – I love shopping! And clothes! That’s kind of like, a lot of the posts on this blog! But I DO want to be more mindful of my purchases…and hopefully this way I can try to instill a habit of going longer, thinking more about my purchases. I don’t want to STOP buying altogether….I just want the purchases I make to be ones I really love.

But since I’m already this far into January – I’m going to try to make it to the end of the month without buying new clothes (and that includes purchases from The Real Real/Fashionphile/etc in case you think I’m cheating by buying resale). Little steps, right?

Anyway. Have you ever tried this? These shopping “diets”? What’s the longest you’ve gone?