A “No Spend” Month in Review

I’m definitely someone who, at times, can get carried away with shopping, for clothing specifically. You order those few items of clothing that you’ve been eyeing for some time, and then, without even realizing it, you’re “stuck” in a spending cycle, unable to keep track of how many packages you have coming in the mail…and then there’s in-store shopping, which you can, all too easily, rationalize as being different from all of your online shopping expenditures.

I found myself in this situation back in January—online shopping a lot more than usual, and even though I had a purpose for each of the clothing items that I was purchasing, I felt like it was time for a break from spending…and what better way to hold myself accountable than challenging myself to a “no spend” month. I had been seeing people on social media partaking in a no spend January as a way to start off the new year saving money, so I decided to do the same in February, but solely relating to clothing. Clothing items are my favorite, and the most frequent, things that I shop for, so I wanted to take the month of February to put a pause on updating my wardrobe. This way, I would be saving money, and giving myself a chance to do a long-awaited and necessary closet clean-out and organization.

…So, one month later, and here we are. I’ll be honest, the first few days of the month were hard. From emails, to text messages, and all forms of social media, stores always seem to have a way of reaching you, and drawing your attention to their newest items, no matter how hard you try to stay away. However, after those first few days, it became SO much easier to resist the never-ending stream of advertisements.

I did buy some things over the course of the month—a few “restocks” of makeup and skincare products, a couple of books, and a fun gift for myself (that I’ll probably talk about in a future blog post). Regardless, I consider this no spend February to be a success. Not only did I purchase absolutely no new items of clothing over the course of the month, but I also feel like I developed a new outlook on buying clothing, altogether.

Now that I’m slowly beginning to look at spring and summer clothing, I’ve found myself looking at things more critically—really thinking about whether or not I “need” or could really make use of it, and deciding against a lot of items that I would have, beforehand, said yes to in a heartbeat. A month may not seem like that long of a period of time, but I can honestly say that this month “away” from clothing purchases helped me to reduce the impulse to spend on things that I really don’t need. I definitely think that I’ll be better for it (and my wardrobe too)…