Not Quite a Capsule, but Still Pretty Small: My Wardrobe

I’ve been reading a lot lately about capsule wardrobes. And I honestly have no idea why this idea even appeals to me, because I’m the type of person who when I have plans with a friend, I try and think of the last time I saw him or her, and then try to remember what I was wearing so I can be sure not to wear the same thing.

That said, I honestly don’t have that many clothes. I take up one side of a walk-in closet with my wardrobe. I counted my items one day, and while there were some things in the laundry, I came up with 116 pieces of clothing. If one was to do a Project 333 wardrobe, you’d end up with 132 items (right? That’s 33 items every 3 months? Or do you keep some items from season to season?) Of course, my number wasn’t counting shoes or jewelry. Anyway, my main point is that I have a medium sized wardrobe that over the two years I’ve really been trying to edit down to only the pieces that I truly love. I have all but stopped buying clothes in retail stores (aside from my recent “emergency” Target trip to get something to wear to a bachelorette party). The way I have been shopping lately is via a personal shopper through my favorite thrift store. My shopper knows my sizes and style, and picks things for me to try on at our session, which I have done four times now. I have gotten some incredible deals (a $425 purse for $40 that I adore and carry daily) and I now try to purchase higher end brands that last longer than my previous wardrobe of mostly Target and Old Navy stuff.

Still, I think my wardrobe could still be edited down more. At this point, I’m not really trying to save space because my clothes don’t take up that much space, and I’m not trying to save money, because I feel like I’m already doing that via thrifting. But I’d like a simpler morning routine. I’d like to get up and just select something and know it’s going to look good and fit well and match. I sometimes stand in my closet unsure of what to wear, and then get frustrated at the time and energy I’m wasting. I’m suffering from choice fatigue.

So, I have a few options. One is to create a smaller capsule wardrobe for each season with my existing clothing. I’ve thought it might be useful to reorganize my closet into sections for the seasons. I wouldn’t see the need to take out everything but the current season’s clothing when my clothes currently fit on my hanging bar. I’d be creating a storage problem when there isn’t one! But right now everything is all mixed up, and my cotton skirts are hanging next to sweater dresses, and that just doesn’t make a lot of sense. My other option is to just continue to edit things out until I only have items I truly love. Really, the best option is to do a bit of both. There is some chaff in my closet right now that could use separating, but the organization of the closet could also use some help. I might also go back to planning a week’s worth of outfits on Sunday night. The time I’d spend up front would save me a lot of time in the morning.

I will keep you updated (and maybe snap some photos of my current set up) and let you see how my closet evolves!

July Monthly Goals

Time to set my July monthly goals. I really want to make these happen, so I think I’ll set fewer this month.

*Declutter a cabinet in our bedroom. Turn it into a craft, art supply, computer cabinet. I want to be one of those people who always knows where the paper and string are. Right now we have some kid’s art stuff in the kitchen, sewing stuff in the master closet, and computer paper and CDs and such all over the place. I thought it would be nice to have one dedicated space to this kind of thing, and the cabinet that currently houses playing cards, pens, and a bunch of books from college seems like a good place.

*Remodel our bathroom! We had a contractor come out and take measurements, and we’re holding our breath waiting for the estimate to come back. In order to either sell or rent out our condo, we need to address the shower. It cannot be sold or rented in its current condition: there are tiles falling down, the shower base is so dirty and cannot get clean (believe me, I have tried). I’m excited we’re finally making steps toward making this happen.

*Declutter our garage. In the summer we don’t park in there because we can’t with the bike and bike trailer being down. But right now, I feel like we can barely walk in there.

*Continue simplifying and saying “no” as much as possible. That includes saying “no” to our kids sometimes when they want to get fast food for lunch or have ice cream after playing in the park.

June Goal Recap

Well, here it is, July 8, and I haven’t posted in a really long time! I’m going to update how June went and create my July goals.

* Automate our weekly daycare payment to go into savings instead. I will set up our bank account to withdraw the same amount weekly that we pay to daycare. If we stick to it, we’ll save a big chunk of change this summer!

We did awesome at this. Our weekly daycare payment is going into savings automatically, and I have barely noticed. We ended up purchasing a new computer in June because our laptop broke, and seeing as though I work from home one day per week and M works from home full-time, we needed to replace it. However, we paid cash and the daycare payment replenished our savings in no time, which felt fantastic!

* Find free and cheap things to put on our “summer bucket list.” One of my ideas is to visit every park in our school district. The kids love exploring new areas, and who knows, maybe one of these parks will become our new neighborhood next year!

We’ve been doing pretty well at this, but we could do better. Our problem tends to be we’ll be out doing something for free, and then we hit meal time and end up grabbing something out. A really fun beach trip ended up costing $50 in lunch the other day. We need to pack more picnics, or stay close enough to home that we can go home for lunch or dinner.

* Quiet our master bedroom. I didn’t do this last month, but I really want to focus on making our master bedroom a decluttered, minimal haven for us to relax.

Ugh, still working on this. I quieted the space somewhat by taking out all the tchotchkes and framed photos off the surfaces. But I want to take the next step and work on a cabinet that right now just holds a bunch of junk, and then make a few tweaks to make it cleaner, more minimal, and relaxing.

* Take care of the school’s community garden. One thing we adore about our neighborhood is my eldest’s school. We are participating in the community garden this year, and have signed up for a week in late June to be in charge. I look forward to digging in the dirt, enjoying fresh vegetables, and being part of the community.

We had our week of being in charge, and it was great! I enjoyed weeding and watering and having something to check on and dote on for the week. We’ve gotten a ton of lettuce from the garden, and last night I also picked some kale, a zucchini, and chives.

* Better anticipate “extras” in our budget, particularly presents and outings. We do have some wedding showers and birthday parties to attend in June, and I need to better incorporate these expenses into our budget. For some reason they always sneak up on me, and they really shouldn’t. I also want to make sure we are as frugal as possible when it comes to these expenses. For the wedding I am in in July, I plan to get my dress altered by someone I know who is extremely affordable, wear shoes I already have, and wear clothing I already have to all the other events instead of buying new outfits.

I did pretty well at this goal. For those events in June, I built the presents into the budget, and that really helped. It was nice that those things weren’t a “surprise” that threw us off track, but something that we had planned for. I tried on the shoes for the July wedding and none of them fit well (my feet have seriously gone up a size since having my kids!), but I scored a pair of better fitting shoes in the color the bride specified from a thrift store for only $3! I wore an outfit I already had to the shower and felt great. However, I could not find anything I liked for the bachelorette party, which was on a lake cruise and then out to bars. My wardrobe is heavily weighted toward professional work clothing and not so much on the girl’s night out clothing. I ended up driving to Target an hour before I had to leave and buying a new top there. Not a great moment for the budget or my simplification plan. However, I really like the top I purchased and will wear it again. And that moment has made me think a little bit more about the idea of creating a capsule wardrobe, which I will explore in a later post.

* Say “no” more. If it doesn’t fit into the budget, if it makes our schedule untenable, or it just doesn’t fit with our values of living a slower, simpler life, I will say no.

I think we did OK at this one. We both said no a couple of times last week when friends wanted to go out, but we already had plans on the books for later in the week. We tried to strike a balance between being with friends and spending money. I don’t think we totally accomplished it, because there were many days that were far too busy. But we tried to be more mindful of our schedule getting too overloaded.

* Dent the credit card debt. We saved a lot of money last month, but didn’t pay down any debt. My goal for this year is to do both simultaneously, so I have will make this a higher priority in June.

We did this a little bit. We paid a couple of small balances. I hope to do more later on, though.

THINK

It's hard when you're feeling pretty good about something, and someone takes the wind out of your sails. It happened to me at work a couple of weeks ago, and then happened again in a situation relating to our home and social life. A friend is working with a contractor who has worked on our condo development, who told her some gossipy details and "horror stories" that made it seem like we need to move pronto. Honestly, I hated hearing it, because the way the condo board handles the shared spaces of the building is outside of my control. And it felt like an exaggeration too. I'm not burying my head in the sand; there are definitely some problems with the buildings, particularly one of them. But the building not being "promising" was just a weird thing for this person to say, and honestly, for my friend to relay to us.

I've heard an awesome saying recently that has totally influenced the way I deal with people. It says to stop and THINK: is this True? Is it Helpful? Is it Inspiring? Is it Necessary? And is it Kind? If  not, chances are, you probably shouldn't say it.

This guideline made me question a lot of the things I read online. I just don't get the same schadenfreude judgy pleasure from reading snark boards as I once did. Mostly they just seem kind of mean now, certainly not necessary or kind. And I'm having trouble gossiping with friends, or discussing work situations with coworkers now too. Am I just getting old? I just feel more empathetic these days to other people's situations, and am realizing that the way people live their lives must be right for them, even if I might make another choice.

I feel good about these changes in myself, but I admit that I still don't have a very thick skin myself when it comes to the judgment of others. I guess that's something I still need to work on.

June Monthly Goals

June is always a time of readjustment for our family. We go from being a two working parent family to having M at home with the kids full-time. We don’t pay for daycare over the summer, which is fabulous, but we also have a big change in our schedule and routine. Because May was so busy, and our July is going to be extraordinarily busy with a wedding and a work conference back-to-back, I plan to make June all about rest, relaxation, and simplification. Here are our goals for June:

* Automate our weekly daycare payment to go into savings instead. I will set up our bank account to withdraw the same amount weekly that we pay to daycare. If we stick to it, we’ll save a big chunk of change this summer!

* Find free and cheap things to put on our “summer bucket list.” One of my ideas is to visit every park in our school district. The kids love exploring new areas, and who knows, maybe one of these parks will become our new neighborhood next year!

* Quiet our master bedroom. I didn’t do this last month, but I really want to focus on making our master bedroom a decluttered, minimal haven for us to relax.

* Take care of the school’s community garden. One thing we adore about our neighborhood is my eldest’s school. We are participating in the community garden this year, and have signed up for a week in late June to be in charge. I look forward to digging in the dirt, enjoying fresh vegetables, and being part of the community.

* Better anticipate “extras” in our budget, particularly presents and outings. We do have some wedding showers and birthday parties to attend in June, and I need to better incorporate these expenses into our budget. For some reason they always sneak up on me, and they really shouldn’t. I also want to make sure we are as frugal as possible when it comes to these expenses. For the wedding I am in in July, I plan to get my dress altered by someone I know who is extremely affordable, wear shoes I already have, and wear clothing I already have to all the other events instead of buying new outfits.

* Say “no” more. If it doesn’t fit into the budget, if it makes our schedule untenable, or it just doesn’t fit with our values of living a slower, simpler life, I will say no.

* Dent the credit card debt. We saved a lot of money last month, but didn’t pay down any debt. My goal for this year is to do both simultaneously, so I have will make this a higher priority in June. 

May Monthly Recap

I can’t believe May is already almost over! It has flown by, particularly because this time of year is so busy with birthdays, holidays, end-of-year school stuff, and work deadlines.

Each month I will go through how I did on the goals I set at the beginning of the month. If I don’t achieve a goal, I might move it to next month’s goals, which I will write about tomorrow.

My goals for May were:

* Up the amount we are saving monthly. I’ve already changed our automatic savings plan, and the first larger savings payment comes out today. Right now, we are 7.5% of the way to our down payment goal. It is NOT much. But I look forward to watching this number grow.

We did well with this one. By the end of the month we were 21% of the way to our goal, which is awesome! We made a lot more progress than I imagined we would. I upped the amount of money we were putting into savings bi-weekly, and we made a few large payments to the account as well.

* Stick to our budget and live within our means. This one is a bit vague, but this month, I am setting our goal to no eating out for the first two weeks of the month, and only eating out once per week after that until the end of May. I will also stay out of stores during lunch time by walking instead.

This goal was so-so. We only ate out once during the first two weeks in May, and generally cut back on eating out, but we also hosted three parties and had some birthdays, and didn’t budget very well for those expenses. Money was still tight at the end of each pay period.

* Talk to our condo association about the possibility of renting out our condo to family. They are very vague in the bylaws and the actions of the association on rentals. Basically, it is subject to approval. I want to know what our options will be next year. But I’m also really conflict adverse, and despite being on the board (I know!), I really don’t want to deal with the association. I might make M do this one.

We did not accomplish this goal. However, at our annual association meeting it became clear that at least one person is renting to family currently, and there have been others in the past. I think we have leverage, but we have not asked for approval yet.

* Look in to ways to earn extra income. M has a few freelance gigs going, and I am going to look into taking on a few writing jobs.

M has been freelancing still for extra cash, but I have not made any progress toward earning extra income.

* Declutter our master bedroom closet and “quiet” our master bedroom. I’ll go into this “quieting” business later, but basically as an early birthday present this year, I signed up and took the Nester’s Cozy Minimalist decorating course. I totally loved it, and we really made some nice changes to our living room as a result of the class. I loved it so much, I’m going to go through the same process with our master bedroom. I don’t want to fall into the trap of thinking that because we plan to move in “only” a year we shouldn’t work on our space. If we try to sell the condo, we will want it to be looking its best. And it’s always a good idea to pare things down before moving!

We started decluttering our master bedroom closet and under the bed. We haven’t done the official “quieting” yet, however. I just have been too busy right now.

* Host family and friends at our condo. In May we’ll be hosting a family dinner, my son’s 6^th birthday party, and an informal gathering of friends for a BBQ. This one should be fun and easy to achieve!

We did this, and it was wonderful! We made a lot of great memories in May in the condo!

So, we did the best in the two goals that mattered most – we saved more money than expected for the house, and we had a great time living in the condo. I found this process really encouraging, and am looking forward to setting my goals for June!

Goal Update - 20%!

I'm back with another goal update. M got a bonus at work, and the entire thing went to the house fund. We're really motivated right now to save, and it's exciting. We've honestly never been this good at saving in our entire lives, and I'm kind of giddy over the change in us. Making it 20% of the way to our goal in the first month we tackled this project is pretty darned good! I don't think we'll be able to maintain this pace through the whole year (we'd reach our goal 6 months early if we could!), but because we won't be paying daycare over the summer, I think we'll be making a lot of progress now, and probably less in the fall and winter.

So, time to fill in more on our floor plan! I want to keep up my excitement and momentum, so I filled in the big living room space. I also filled in the laundry room, because I'm kind of sick of our cramped one in the condo.