For the past year and a half, as I’ve been paying off debt and building up savings, I’ve basically considered clothes shopping a non-option. I’ve purchased a few things here and there and replaced worn-out shoes, but I haven’t really gone out and dropped a good chunk of money on clothes in years. And when you feel like nothing looks good on you because you’ve gained weight, it’s easy to do a lot of window shopping without a lot of buying.
But now that I’ve paid off my credit card, built up some cash reserves, and lost over 10 lbs, it’s become clear that I want new clothes!
I actually really love fashion – I consider it one of my passions – and I’ve been cut off from the thrill of researching trends, buying a few key pieces, mixing and matching them, then repeating the process next season, for so long that I’m starting to get irritated every time I look in the closet. Everything I own just seems so…old. And I’ve been wearing the same things over and over again for so long, it’s boring getting dressed in the morning. I used to love waking up and figuring out what to wear – skirt or pants? Blouse or dress? Big cocktail rings or tiny stud earrings? Now I just look for something that matches and call it a day. No fun.
It’s times like these that I worry I’ve become too up-tight about money. What I really want to go out and spend a few hundred dollars – yes, you read that right, a few hundred dollars – updating my look. Given how long I’ve gone without new clothes, it doesn’t seem like that much money, and it’s my damn money after all. No one says I have to save it, and if I want to spend it on clothes I should be able to, especially because I have so many other frugal habits. But I know if I did I would feel so guilty afterwards; I would obsess over how much money I spent and calculate how much closer I’d be to my savings goals if I hadn’t spent that money on a wardrobe update. It just seems so frivolous now; I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to have a care-free afternoon at the mall again.
So for now I’m hanging on to my old clothes. Sigh.
