Hey everyone! Sorry to jump in mid-thread, but I've been totally inspired by reading other people's posts. I'm not a minimalist, but I do need to minimize various aspects of my life (like too much furniture in a small house) and too many clothes. I had a baby five weeks ago, so totally culling my wardrobe right now isn't really the greatest idea, but I did manage to reduce what I have here by about a 1/3. I have a pile for Goodwill, a pile of nicer items for a consignment shop, and I'm storing maternity items and "skinny" items in our crawlspace. The latter I will give up after one year if I don't fit into them then. Since we just started having kids, I can't imagine I'll be revisiting my smallest sizes again, but I'm keeping three pairs of beloved jeans and two pairs of expensive suit pants just in case. But that's all that's in the skinny box.
My biggest problem is that I attach too much sentimental value to things that aren't really worth it. I feel terrible giving away sweaters that other people have given me, for example. I'm finally starting to get over that, since storing them is causing me more stress than it's worth. I also, like other posters, go up and down in weight a lot (and will do more of that now that we're having babies), so it makes sense for me to have a range of pants and skirts. My shirts are easier since, other than button downs, my shirts tend to fit regardless of weight fluctuations.
But here's my long-term strategy:
Only buy dresses (like the wrap dresses!) that can stretch over a variety of sizes (I loved that most of my stretchy sun dresses fit all the way through 9 months of pregnancy)
Slowly reduce dress pants to three pairs (one in each size range) - all black in classic cuts
Reduce tanks to three suiting tanks, two nice tanks (I have two nice nursing tanks from Target, so these will work), and three casual tanks
Three T-shirts (I rarely wear T's anyway)
Use my larger shirt collection (long and short sleeved) to accessorize fewer pants and skirts
Try to reduce shirt collection to flattering basics that are nursing friendly (since if we have even two more kids I'll be nursing for the next million years)
My short term goal is to get rid of enough clothes today that I can covert the small closet adjoining my actual closet from clothes storage into a linen closet (since we don't have one) and luggage storage. So far it's looking good.
Thanks for all the inspiration! I have so much respect for those who can live with less. I'm hoping I'll eventually get closer.
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