Sharing an update on my year of not buying clothes, and tips for making it work

March has absolutely flown by, and I’m amazed I’m writing this in April! It has been for the most part another good month: no clothes purchased! However I have unexpectedly had to make use of my exception rule regarding sportswear. We’ve been travelling in Europe and heading to the ski slopes (although admittedly I didn’t end up doing any actual skiing!). This has necessitated the purchase of some ski wear. I did own some already, but this was from about six years ago, and my body is not the same shape as it was then (particularly postpartum!), and it sadly no longer fitted. So I allowed myself a couple of purchases and bought a new ski jacket and pair of salopettes. Thankfully this is not the sort of thing I need to use very often, so all going well it will last me a long time. I have every intention to trying out the (limited) skiing in Australia before too long as well, so it will still get some use.

Other than ski wear, my body continues to change so I have been rediscovering corners of my wardrobe I haven’t worn for a while. Some clothes are starting to fit again, so I’ve almost been able to shop my closet and put together some new outfits. This has been really lovely, as I had missed the fun of putting together new looks and exploring my taste. Happily, some of the items I sort of panic bought at the end of last year are also starting to fit, so I feel slightly less guilty about having bought them!

So all continues well with the challenge so far. However there is a small cloud on the horizon, as I return to work in April. Whether I’ll have enough clothes that actually fit me by then to carry me through a work week remains to be seen, but I hope that even if the selection is limited I’ll be able to embrace a more minimalist, capsule wardrobe approach to work wear, and just make the most of whatever does fit.

March tip: Beware replacement purchasing

Something I noticed particularly strongly at the start of this challenge was that I still felt a compulsion to buy things. While I wasn’t buying clothes, I still felt the need to online shop, have things arriving in the post, and spend money. I was really surprised by this almost sense of withdrawal from shopping. This manifested in me buying things for my child and my home. This wasn’t quite so problematic as buying clothes, as they were things I genuinely needed, either for practical reasons for the home, or because babies grow out of clothes very quickly. But I can see that if I hadn’t had a real need for anything, I would have made excuses to buy other things anyway.

I took charge of this problem in a large part by noticing that I was doing it. I realised that I was still looking for a buying ‘fix’, and thus was able to nip it in the bud before I started buying things I didn’t need. So my tip would be to really interrogate why you’re making purchases, even outside the remit of the no buy challenge. This doesn’t mean you have to apply the rule to your whole life, but really consider whether you’re buying something because you need it, or simply just because you’re missing the gratification of making a purchase.

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Have you ever tried a no spend period, on clothes or indeed anything else? I’d love to hear your tips and experiences, so please share in a comment!