The Great American Apparel Diet
no buying for one year

KristinD

Kristin Dickert, 46, of Seattle, WA, is the direct descendant of several generations of women in her family who, like her, were born to shop. What a style maven her grandmother was! Born with the RAT (Retail as Therapy) gene, it seems she was internally wired to have the perfect justification for this or that apparel purchase, be it the gorgeous fabric or the stunning silhouette, the classic timelessness or the latest trendy fad, the incredible bargain or the once in a lifetime investment, the perfect fit or the perfect fit once she lost 5 pounds...you get the idea. It all left her a little heady, with a nagging desire to buy something to match tomorrow. One day she began to look anew at her budget, her time, her priorities and her closet and she said, "Good grief, enough already. It's time to focus elsewhere." Then she heard about the Great American Apparel Diet. Her husband thought it was the answer to his prayers. Her children prayed that there wasn't also a Great American Toy Diet. Kristin just basically liked the idea of consumer abstinence and seeing where that road would lead. 'Stuff is overrated,' she is beginning to believe, and she decided, despite her cursed RAT gene, that GAAD might just be the answer to her prayers too, as well as the perfect justification for...you guessed it... ratty jeans.