Today I conducted a clothing purge event from two of my stuffed to capacity closets.  My goal was to give away to the girls in my family or charity at least 10 things.  Seeing as I easily have a few hundred things, 10 seemed like a cake walk.

I started off slowly picking out a thing here or there, but  I soon realized that the more I pulled out the better I felt.  By the time it was all said and done I had purged over 50 items.  It was gratifying and liberating.  I was, for that blip in time, in total command of my universe.  I was in control of my stuff.  For once, my stuff was not controlling me.

Unfortunately, the good feelings were fleeting.  When I looked inside my closets at the end of it all they were still packed to the gills with more clothes than any one woman needs.  Indeed, a casual observer would have been hard-pressed to tell the difference between before and after photos.  In a state of maximum closet compression, the removal of 50 items was barely noticeable.

On my birthday this year I promised myself that I would try to buy no more than 26 clothing items (to include shoes and scarves) for an entire year.  My thought was that I could still buy something every other week and that should suffice for a woman with so many clothes, shoes, and scarves.  It made perfect sense to me in early July.

Alas, my timing on this 26 item goal was poor in that it was before my Hawaii trip.  I wanted to buy some new outfits for the trip and some additional items in Hawaii and in that frame 26 items  seemed like a pretty paltry limit. But I made it work and I haven’t blown it yet.

I have 6 items left for the year.  I used up 20 of my items in two months.  It occurred to me after I purged today that perhaps good little purgers should get bonus items.  I quickly realized how sad a thought that was.  My stuff is out of control and after purging over 50 items I barely made a dent.  I reminded myself firmly that 6 items is all I have left for the year.

I can’t tell you whether I will successfully make it to July without going over my original 26 – July is a long way away.  I can tell you this – I will think long and hard about every single considered purchase with only 6 items left.  And as is clear from today’s purge and all the clothing still packed in the two closets – I do not really need more clothes.  What I need is more purges like the one I conducted today.  Stay tuned and I’ll let you know how my closets fare. 😉