It’s been almost eight months since I decided to stop mindlessly buying clothes. But for Sally and many others of you, it’s been almost TWO YEARS.
I stumbled upon this site a few days after I decided to start my Year (Almost) Without Shopping, and found out that I was not the first one to come up with this idea, and I was not alone.
The rules of The Great American Apparel Diet are a lot tougher than my rules, but we have a lot in common: try before you buy, quality not quantity, don’t buy anything on sale that you wouldn’t buy at full price — all this after, the non-shopping year is over, of course. I allowed myself that 40th birthday allowance, but Sally says shoes are allowed. No way I’d put in that clause, or I’d have myself a huuuge collection of shoes by now. (That pair of sandals I bought before BlogHer will have to come out my end-of-year savings.)
In the early weeks of my Year (Almost) Without Shopping, TGAAD was a big part of keeping me on track. On more than one occasion, I followed my old habit of wandering over to the mall when I had an extra hour between appointments or before picking the kids up from school. Those after-Christmas sales were mighty tempting. It sounds cheesy, but I really did think about those 300 other non-shoppers at TGAAD, many of whom have blogged their accomplishments — and slip-ups — and that was enough to keep me from buying something I didn’t need. Either that or I’m just really competitive, and the idea that if all these other shopaholics could kick their habit, then so could I.
On the rare occasion that I go “window shopping”, I still get that OMG, I NEED THAT, MY LIFE WILL BE SO MUCH BETTER IF I HAVE THAT urge. But I am able to recognize it for what it is, and — for the most part — resist it.
So thank you, Sally, for creating The Great American Apparel Diet and inspiring (soon to be former) shopaholics like me.
! So we come to our newest poll: What method of payment do you typically use to purchase clothing? Enjoy!
The thing is that there are 24hrs in each day, and although we are creatures of habit and get used to operating in these certain ways because we are used to them, it doesn’t mean we have to. I’m just wondering at what point we lost that excitement about the first snow of the season or a warm cup of hot chocolate and transferred that excited to new shoes and Seven Jeans. While walking through Barcelona a month ago I saw one of the simplest things that brought me the biggest smile, a little old woman standing on her balcony early in the morning watching people walk by with her coffee in hand (pictured left). It was at the beginning of my trip and it was one of the first clear moments that I realized that I don’t see this in my city and that I was not only geographically far from home, but I was far from my culture of to-go cups and drive through food and if I was going to really enjoy my time abroad, I was going to have to rethink the way I operated on a daily basis. It’s hard to avoid the mania around the holidays, but perhaps it might make it just a little less stressful if we practiced those good old breathing exercises and maybe take a moment to watch the snow fall sitting from a cafe with a cup of coffee in real cup instead of one of those throw away holiday to go cups (although they are quite cute).
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