Off the Wagon

Reviewing my holiday photos from the Isle of Wight, I noticed that my bikini was not providing me quite as much coverage up top as I needed - one thing on the beach, another thing entirely in the family pool at the leisure centre. So I allowed myself a ban waiver to purchase a swimsuit, with the proviso that it be ethically sourced (The True Cost still vivid in my mind's eye). 

I ordered a lovely pink and purple paisley swimsuit from vintage store Beyond Retro, and when it arrived I could not have been more happy with it. I think I appreciated it more because I bought it to fulfil a legitimate need, and because it was second-hand I didn't need to go through the exhausting, irritating faff of browsing and comparing 9,000 options. And although it was second-hand, I somehow felt it was more "me" than a generic piece from Primark or H&M. 

If only that had been my only ban break for August '19. 

Splurging

In hindsight, it's hard to pinpoint a single trigger. I remember that we went on our annual pilgrimage to beautiful Pembrokeshire, and the deep dismay I felt discovering that our cottage, once a place of retreat and renewal, now boasted Wi-Fi. I felt unable to ignore it, despite encouragement to do so from Dai and his dad, and found myself furtively checking emails before bed and scrolling through Pinterest in the bathroom. I was no longer present. I was checking out.

On our day trips to local beauty spots and seaside villages, my tendency towards comparison went into overdrive. I watched other women constantly, my chest aching with jealousy. I hated my clothes again. I felt old, frumpy, fat. I started sneaking off to the loo and browsing ASOS, Office, H&M, looking for the next fix, the "perfect" item that would pull together my magpie wardrobe. Deep down I knew that the only thing that needed pulling together was me. My compulsion to shop, my fixation on my appearance as all-important, soured my mood and cast a pall over time in an idyllic place with my son and fiance.

Returning home, I couldn't shake off those feelings. One afternoon, watching a makeover show on Netflix, I found myself almost in tears as the stylist encouraged her victims to express themselves creatively with their clothing, an outlet that no longer seemed to serve me.

One o'clock the following morning I started shopping. It began with an £8 dress in the Beyond Retro sale. 

Then an £18 Glossier lipstick. 

Then four pairs of jeans from Topshop.

And just like that, I was off the wagon. 

The next two weeks passed in a sickly blur. 

A package from Zara. A package from H&M.

Guilt, frustration, confusion, anger, disappointment. More guilt.

A package from Pull & Bear. A package from ASOS.

Pinterest, fashion blogs, perfect women, perfect lives.

Nights spent scrolling, scrolling, scrolling, scrolling. Trying to picture that item, this item, on me, in my life. Squelching concerns about waste, about ethics - I can't explain why it felt so urgent, so desperate, why I felt clothes had the power to fix whatever it was I felt I was sorely lacking. Trying to decode the bizarre photography on the Zara website (SERIOUSLY! I hate to ruin my own pathos here, but look at the bollocks they are trying to sell clothes with! You will die laughing). Days spent taking too-small jeans and too-bright dresses and camel toe jumpsuits back to the post office. I could feel myself becoming more irritable by the day, distracted, distressed by this apparent inability to dress myself.

Worse, I decided I needed to jettison some of these clothes I supposedly hated so much, and perhaps - hopefully - some of these stifling emotions along with them. Before I knew it my wardrobe was rattling with empty hangers. I had achieved the minimalist dream, the capsule wardrobe.

Sparking Joy

Despite three house moves over the course of the previous year, and what I thought was a fairly comprehensive clearout each time, I still had a pretty enormous wardrobe. I'd even applied the full Marie Kondo treatment, piling up all the items from each category and sorting through them all (it took me over a fortnight to clear the book pile). But because I had still been continually, mindlessly shopping, I could still barely move for clothes. 

After reading Cait Flanders's blog (many previous posts now deleted) and learning about her super-minimalist 28-item wardrobe, a desire for a Pinterest-friendly, effortlessly curated closet kicked into high gear, and I resolved to clear everything out of my wardrobe that was only so-so, and keep only the things I really loved. I read Anuschka Rees's blog top to bottom, put things into bags and towed them straight down to the Salvation Army clothing bank. Its metal jaws closed with a creak and a bang on a bizarre variety of things: an alarming amount of expensive shoes that hurt my feet, a T-shirt from a metal gig in Birmingham I spent the next eighteen months wishing I had back, miniskirts from Topshop that looked fine at 25 but suddenly mildly embarrassing at 27, bras that stood no chance of ever fitting again post-baby, approximately a thousand geeky slogan t-shirts that I abruptly deemed unflattering.

I expected the result to be an airy sense of weightlessness, an ease of getting dressed, a feeling of smug satisfaction. Instead I felt bored. My wardrobe may have been streamlined, all my choices now flattering, but I missed the sense of possibility. This probably sounds a bit nuts, but I missed the opportunity to be less-than-tasteful. For me, I discovered, getting dressed was about more than looking pretty. Some days, I loved a worn, oversized t-shirt and old jeans. I didn't always WANT to be stylish - or flattering. I missed a little chaos. My closet felt tired and colourless, and with a sinking heart, I realised that - once again - I had simply been wasteful. I wasn't Cait Flanders - when would I learn that I couldn't become myself by emulating other people?

My clearout did at least prove to me that, in shopping my way to a new persona via Pinterest, I had been buying the wrong things. Most of what I donated was two-a-penny; meaningless; pieces bought to fill a generic "this is what your wardrobe is missing" list - tailored black trousers, a classic beige trench coat in garbadine (never polyester; heaven forbid). But those things weren't me at all. 

One thing I was learning during the ban was how to tell what I actually liked - not what I thought I should wear, or what would improve me, or what I'd wear if I was a slightly different version of myself, or would have really loved five years ago. I must have read the advice to not buy anything you don't really love dozens and dozens of times, but it had never really sunk in - or else I was so overcome by the buying urge that "really love" was no longer objective. I could convince myself that I "really loved" pretty much anything, and come up with umpteen apparently sensible justifications for owning it, only to realise the truth of the matter once said item was hanging in the wardrobe emanating guilt and vague discomfort.

But now I really, genuinely had nothing to wear - and I couldn't shop. A dilemma, if ever there was one.

I was back where I had started. Stressed, anxious, and broke. I felt like I was treading water, gasping for breath. I was crippled with tension headaches and short-tempered with my son. I felt paralysed, unable to find and purchase the secret keys to my true self, the answer to the question that rattled around my head day and night: what kind of woman am I?

I had to take a breath. I had to find some air. I turned back to my journal, flipped through the pages, and remembered the sense of possibility and hope I had felt when I started to look at things through the lens of frugality and learn about sustainability. I had touched the edge of a new way of living, where how I might present myself was the least important thing about me. Where creativity and self-expression did not rely on what I chose to buy but who I chose to be. 

Slowly, I felt calmness returning. I pushed aside the endless questions and doubts about my appearance, the stream of comparisons and envy, and did my damnedest to focus on other things. 

 "When a woman says, 'I have nothing to wear!', what she really means is, 'There's nothing here for who I'm supposed to be today." - Caitlin Moran

January Accountability

So how have I been doing with my low-buy year so far? I've actually been finding it much easier - one "allowed" purchase this month seemed to function as a release valve, so that need to buy didn't feel so urgent. It also served to make me think really hard about that one purchase - I wanted something that would bring value for the whole month or even longer, and I didn't want to experience anticlimax or buyer's remorse.

I finished sorting through my clothes, as per my year of being myself, and although I donated a bag full to Re-Fashion, and a couple of bags of damaged and worn items were taken to the textile recycle bank, I still had a LOT of clothes and couldn't see that adding to the pile would bring me any real pleasure. Likewise, after Christmas and my birthday I was all set for books, cosmetics, and all my other usual 'go-to' categories for frivolous purchasing.

But there was one thing that came immediately to mind that I'd been contemplating for a while, and although it wasn't a necessary purchase in any sense, I felt strongly that it would bring me great value - I bought a year's subscription to my favourite magazine, Enchanted Living. 

What amazed me was that I then didn't feel tempted by other items! I could think of my subscription, look forward to it arriving, and I knew that it would give me more joy and entertainment than anything else on offer.

This month also marked a year since I last used Facebook! Amazingly, considering I once treated it as an essential part of modern life, I haven't missed it. Nor do I feel I've missed out on anything because of it. If anything, I feel my friendships have benefitted as I've actually had to take the time to message people - or even phone them - to stay in touch (under normal circumstances I'd say 'meet up', but COVID and lockdowns have been against me there). It's been a relief not to have Facebook - it's such a time eater, and for the one time you find something worthwhile in your first ten minutes of scrolling, there are dozens of occasions when the content is boring, annoying, infuriating or depressing. So no, I won't be going back.

It's also over 100 days since I last logged in to Instagram, AND I'm a couple of weeks clear of Pinterest and GoodReads as well. It's not that I think these platforms are bad in themselves, but they certainly don't do me any favours, and I wanted to have the chance to experience life without them and see if I found myself more present, calmer or more balanced, and so far that's a big fat yes on all counts.

Buying Magic, Borrowing Books, and Being Invisible in a Bikini

Buying Magic

On one family day out in the Year of the First Shopping Ban (or 2019, as some people call it), Dai, the Spud and I ended up in Burley, a small village in the New Forest which draws a substantial tourist crowd for its ties to Wicca and witchcraft, as the home of the famous witch Sybil Leek. Full of shops packed with incense, crystals, jewellery, witch figurines, spell components, hippie clothing and more, it's a lovely quirky place and has long been one of my favourite places to visit. But during the shopping ban, I'd had many of the shops there mentally earmarked as "shops I wouldn't be able to resist".

And yet, I did! We had a delicious dinner in the tea rooms and a walk around, but I didn't find myself tempted by a single thing. In fact, the phrase "New Age crap" drifted through my mind more than once. I wasn't getting caught up by the atmosphere, the vibe of the place. I just... wasn't buying it. 

In some ways it was a little sad that the dazzle of the magic shops no longer had the power to instill such wonder, but at the end of the day, a shop is just a shop, whether it sells esoterica or groceries, and all else is glamour, an illusion designed to get you to part with some cash. 

Don't get me wrong... I strongly, firmly, utterly believe in magic! In many ways, I am the perfect victim - sorry, target audience, for the peddlers of smudge sticks, crystals, Himalayan singing bowls, Tarot cards and whathaveyou. Yes, all right, I own three decks of oracle cards and my favourite magazine is Enchanted Living. Guilty as charged, I am full woo-woo, I just keep it under wraps most of the time because I don't go in for tie dye skirts or crushed velvet (not right this minute, anyway). 

I am all for having a little enchantment in your life. It adds glamour to the humdrum, a bit of sparkle - even meaningfulness - to the everyday. It fuels creativity. I just don't believe that you can buy magic. 

Yes, there are shops in which you can buy ingredients for every spell and potion you can think of. Yes, I once had a heavy interest in Wicca and bulk-ordered candles, velvet altar cloths, pentacle jewellery, herbs and all kinds of other paraphernalia, but over time I realised, well, it's just not the same, is it? Like buying spellbooks and grimoires from Amazon (done that, too). Doesn't it then lose its charm? Its meaning? Maybe it doesn't matter if you buy your lavender or grow it in your own herb garden. But maybe it does? Not least in our modern era, when your healing crystals could have been sourced from an industrial mine using the labour of underage workers, and your cleansing herbs threatening the potential survival of a species. Nothing very magical about that.

Borrowed Books

Similarly, but in less of a space cadet vein, let's return to the topic of buying books on Amazon. What a soulless process that is, compared to the many happy hours of my youth spent in bookshops, charity shops, book fairs and the good old free library. Like many people, I have done it an awful lot, because it's convenient and cheap. But with reviews, GoodReads, book blogs and other such tools, I now know everything about a book before my fingers have even touched the cover. I enter the relationship already knowing that three other readers thought the ending was weak. During the shopping ban, I rediscovered the pleasure of borrowing books, from libraries and from friends, and thereby rediscovered the serendipity of finding a hidden gem, something which no "readers also bought" suggestion list can ever truly replicate.

An insidious tendency in our modern society is that we don't buy anything without reading reviews. Sometimes, this is a matter of common sense - electronics, car seats - sometimes you really do need an objective opinion. But sometimes, I have come to notice, I use other people's opinions to guide me instead of making my own choices. In today's world, we automatically make our choices based on other people's experiences, from GoodReads to TripAdvisor, to what we think will get the most likes on Instagram. I've never forgotten a friend mentioning on her blog that she ordered avocado toast in a cafe because "as we all know, avocado is having a moment right now."

Our First Family Holiday

In July 2019 we took our first holiday as a new family, to the Isle of Wight. In a rare moment of prescience, I had booked and paid for the short trip during the early months of my pregnancy, guessing correctly that by this stage of the game Dai and I would be tired, stressed and desperate for a change of scenery. I didn't expect that I would have blown my savings, although my reluctance to ever look at my bank statements should perhaps have clued me in. 

Previously, holidays had given me yet more opportunities to splurge. First of all, a new holiday wardrobe - sandals, shoes, floaty floral dresses, a floppy straw hat that would be annoying as heck to wear and never see the light of day again. Then I would buy the equivalent of another new wardrobe whilst ON holiday - I must admit to a fondness for certain overpriced surf clothing brands - not to mention all the books and souvenirs I would generally buy. At some point I'd stopped looking at holidays and day trips as breaks or adventures - they had just become an opportunity to do some more consumption in a different place. This had hit its peak some years previous when I went to Whitby Goth Weekend - I went with one suitcase and came back with five, which made the long train journey home nothing short of a misery.

This time, things would be different. Dai had suggested I set myself a £1 budget to buy what he called "a proper souvenir" like a pin badge or stick of rock, as would have been the case when we were kids. At first I resisted this idea, but eventually I realised I was looking for a loophole which would allow me to go and buy a new hoodie or whatever from Billabong or Rip Curl. So £1 it was.

As it turned out, I didn't even spend that much on myself. Though we stayed just moments away from Shanklin Old Town and all its quirky gift shops, nothing caught my eye or piqued my interest for more than a moment. I was able to put all of the holiday money I'd squirrelled away towards entry to attractions, food for our self-catering apartment, and some lovely evening meals out.

It wasn't the most restful holiday we'd ever had. Little Spud didn't want to sleep in an unfamiliar cot, and the one-room apartment grew hot and sticky at nights. Yet I had a good time, and it wasn't lost on me that the best day of the holiday involved no phones, cameras or even money - we took the Spud swimming for the first time at a hotel nearby. We had free access to their facilities as the same people owned the hotel and apartment building, but by good luck and happenstance we had the pool all to ourselves that afternoon. The Spud absolutely loved it, and I'll never forget the brilliance of his smile and his delighted squeals.

It was also a turning point for me, as I hadn't worn a swimsuit of any kind in public since I was about fifteen years old. My body image is something that, like many women, I have wrestled with, and I'd simply stopped going swimming over a decade ago so that I didn't have to reveal my human, imperfect body. Bad skin and disordered eating had left me convinced that I would end up the butt of every joke if I ventured into the water. But I did it, once at the hotel pool, once at the beach, and absolutely nothing happened. No one looked twice at me. What a relief it was to discover that no one cared! Another blow against that carping inner voice.

Frugality and Motherhood

Back in those innocent days of 2019, the shopping ban was ticking on in the background. Some days I questioned whether it was even really a good idea - wasn't life going to be dismal and ascetic without a little treat from time to time?

But my definition of 'treat' needed some tweaking. During the ban I'd bought a £1 honey lip balm - that was a treat. Not the expensive shoes and perfumes I was looking for excuses to buy. Treats could be free, too, I was remembering, or at the very least take up no space - the library, a mocha dusted with nutmeg, a bowl of fresh strawberries and cream, a box of macarons, a walk by the river, a cuppa accompanied by a good sunrise. I hadn't exactly been living a life of deprivation without the occasional shopping spree.

In fact, I'd discovered the Frugalwoods blog, and I was starting to feel really grateful for all the things I now had, which before had been taken for granted, or which I'd planned to replace with 'something better'. Mrs Frugalwoods has documented her journey from budding frugalista to homesteader and mum of two, sharing all her money-saving tips and tricks along the way. A few years ago I would probably have scoffed at the idea of extreme frugality - why on earth would you deliberately spend less than you could?! - but now I was looking for ways to stretch our family budget. Early retirement was not going to be in the cards for me without a regular income, but I wasn't going to endure the shame of having to schlep down to the food bank because of my own irresponsible spending, either. 

Suddenly I was implementing all sorts of new (to me) strategies to try to keep money in the bank - going a few more days between shampoos; going through the Spud's next-size-up clothing stockpile so I could fill the gaps cheaply rather than panic-buying when he needed something.

The Spud's wardrobe was largely second-hand anyway, which I sometimes felt a bit guilty about, but now I was grateful that the generosity of friends and neighbours had saved me the need to find, choose and buy hundreds of baby items. I would have spent considerably more, and because of the cost I would probably have felt the need to have everything coordinated, which really isn't necessary for such a young baby. In fact, with a sinking feeling I came to realise that in the first few months of the Spud's life I had wildly overspent on him. 

It was easy to justify - I only want the best for my baby! - but I could see that as a new mum, I had really been floundering, and I had used numerous gifts and baby purchases to try to cover the fact that I didn't feel I was bonding with my son, I had no idea what I was doing, and frankly, I felt lost and terrified. Not to mention exhausted! The Spud breastfed round the clock, and there were nights I cried with sheer tiredness and thought about packing my bags.

New parenthood is rarely easy, despite the image perpetuated by social media yummy mummies. My birth experience had been - not to put too fine a point on it - a massacre, and the aftercare deeply lacking, so when I then found myself at home after a long, unexpected hospital stay with a newborn who wouldn't sleep unless he was held, and an impressive set of stitches, I felt nothing short of traumatised. For a while I became reclusive, and I was resentful - almost frightened - of this squeaking, squalling beetroot-faced tyrant in my arms. 

Christmas approached when the Spud was two months old, and I still didn't feel as adoring as I thought I should. Terrified someone might notice I was a weird, ungrateful, abnormal mother, I ordered a great raft of luxury gifts for him from Harrods, Hamleys and Selfridges (paying extra for the branded gift boxes in case anyone missed the point). I think this was when the overshopping really kicked up a notch, as after Christmas I decided to revamp my wardrobe... You know the rest. 

Suffice to say, my two month old bundle was not impressed by Selfridges, Steiff or anything else, although he quite liked the wrapping paper and the Christmas tree lights. I'd just used conspicuous consumption to hide my insecurity - it hadn't really been about the Spud at all.

Bonding was a long and arduous process - aided by Dai in the early days, who made a show of the Spud "giving me a kiss" and "bringing me a coffee" every morning. My son's baffled blue eyes as he was lowered to my face for this "kiss" never failed to make me giggle. (Nowadays he DOES give me a slobbery, slightly violent kiss when the mood takes him, but he's more likely to put a Duplo brick in my coffee than make it for me.) But we got there, and there was nothing I could have bought, no amount I could have spent, that would have made those early days any easier. Giving another being round-the-clock care was more taxing than I had been braced for, and I felt the lack of autonomy very keenly. 

As an introvert with many hobbies, I found it difficult to put a huge chunk of my inner life on hold. Only seeing how quickly the Spud grew made that any easier - soon I was able to see how fleeting all-consuming babyhood is, and realise that whilst he won't want me to cuddle him for hours forever, my books and crafts will still be there. I have to lean into this now, and make the most of this now, because we won't get this time again.

P.S. I came across a post on the Frugalwoods blog that has echoes of this post and my previous post. It's a long read but it covers body image and body positivity, motherhood, and trying to balance a love of clothes with frugality, and new-mum-appearance-neglect. It really resonated with how I feel at the moment and I was so glad to have stumbled across it.

The Year of Being Myself

Welcome back! I hope you had a lovely Christmas and ate your body weight in roast potatoes. So this is 2021... After the Shitshow Formerly Known As 2020, I'll admit I'm reluctant to get too excited about what might be in store. 

However, this year, I've decided to change tactics a little with my shopping ban. I'd basically done a Mrs. Frugalwoods and stopped doing anything that cost money (make-up, nail varnish, professional haircuts), generally citing environmental worries. I did eventually realise that one person not dyeing their hair was not going to change the world, and actually I am allowed to look nice and enjoy myself a bit. Instead of being a bit of a martyr.

I had hoped that, like Mrs F., cutting back my beauty routines would help me feel more confident and comfortable in my skin, and in some ways it has - I have come to like my own face without make-up, for example. But frankly I'd still like a hairstyle that suits me, and to paint my nails without feeling as if I'm being frivolous (yes, I have beaten myself up over some weird things during the last year or so).

So in the last weeks of December I bought a fair amount of stuff - some pretty nail varnishes, sandals made from recycled sailboat rope (I didn't have any attractive summer shoes, only a single pair of Very Practical ones), tartan trousers from London brand Love Too True to replace my old, beloved pair that sadly ripped up the bum cheek some years ago, a couple of Spirited Away t-shirts (bless Truffle Shuffle for providing ethically made nerdery) and some nice PJs so I can stop wearing my old, holey leggings to bed. And quite a lot of mochi, because, hooray food. I'm not sure when being slightly more environmentally conscious tipped over in my head into complete self-denial, sackcloth and ashes, but I'm definitely ready to move on from that now and find a balance between frugality, sustainability and actually being myself. Which leads me to the meat of this post.

Style Guides and Self-Expression

Recently, I read a book called The Curated Closet. I'd been watching a makeover show called Misfits Salon, which I would have loved as a teen. Unlike Snog, Marry, Avoid, which took outlandish dressers and toned their looks down (with a good helping of snark), Misfits Salon takes people who feel that for whatever reason their wardrobes aren't adequately expressing their personality, and turns up the dial. After happy-crying my way through a whole season, I leaped on Pinterest, seeking new ways I could express myself with fashion.

But I find Pinterest absolutely horrible to use - unless you know the exact words to describe what you're looking for it's hard to find anything useful, and I always seem to end up sucked into an oddly depressing vortex of girls much younger than me wearing Topshop's latest (or whoever is producing jeans with no thighs this season), accessorised with improbable waists and huge lips. And then I realise I've lost four hours.

So I turned to The Curated Closet. Early on in the shopping ban, I got rid of all my style guides and similar books, and found it a relief to no longer worry about someone else's arbitrary rules and opinions, so I approached the book with more than a little trepidation. 

If you know me, you might be surprised to hear that I have read and collected books about style and fashion. Because my current personal style is perhaps best described as 'practical middle aged mum and angry nineties kid go shopping, drunk, in Camden Market', I think the general assumption is that I don't care much. But I actually love clothes! I love to see how people, particularly women, choose to present themselves - not in a "Fashion Week street style" sense, but everyday people. Put me somewhere like Waterloo Station and I will happily sit and look at people's outfits for hours.

Yet I couldn't get on with The Curated Closet. I found myself thinking, this makes it all seem like such hard work. So much effort to put in, just for the negligible reward of feeling well-dressed. My current approach to the matter of dressing myself is to open my wardrobe, take out some clothes that coordinate in some vague way (or clash on purpose. Love me some revolting print mixes and colour combos) and put them on. If I'm given an item that I wouldn't define as being 'my style', I like to try it on anyway and see if I can make it work. 

Re-Learning How To Dress For Myself

After I'd mentioned on this blog once or twice that I have the occasional wobble about being the "worst dressed friend" or similar, I received such a sweet text from a dear friend, who has known me since nursery (!). She said, "Going back decades, I've always loved your sense of style and general randomosity of your clothes! We all get the little voice in the head telling us all the bad stuff, but tell your one that makes you worry about being the worst dressed where to go."

This gave me such a lift, and reminded me of the first clothing purchase I saved up for and bought myself - a pair of rainbow striped corduroy flares! I thought they were just the most beautiful, joyful things ever, and I loved them to pieces. No, they weren't tasteful, or "cool", or even terribly flattering, but they make me smile even now when I think about them. 

I am often teased by loved ones for some of my more appalling clothes purchases or combinations. This, I do not mind. I'm not totally oblivious - I know I'm prone to looking like I ran through a charity shop covered in glue. No, I'm not "well-dressed", or cool (good taste and coolness both being tedious and arbitrary ideas based on shifting goalposts and elitism, e.g. for there to be an in-crowd, there by definition has to be an out-crowd - oh, hello again high school), but I am warm when it's cold, dry when it's raining, my feet don't hurt, and I can handle getting muddy with my two-year-old. And I didn't have to spend precious life hours making a moodboard, a lifestyle pie chart or a style profile. Which is exactly what I want from my wardrobe.

Except for one tiny problem, which is this: when I look in the mirror lately, I don't like what I see. I don't feel like myself. 

After some thought, I realised that for the last two years, I've really thought only of my wardrobe in terms of quantity, cost, and wastage. I wear clothes I don't like, or that are physically uncomfortable, in order to get use out of them. I've been trying to save the world single-handedly by never throwing anything away, horrified by the thought of being wasteful. After a couple of ill-fated, badly-managed clearouts in the last couple of years, I have a lot of clothes that I wouldn't have chosen for myself but which I wear anyway. At the expense of chunks of self-esteem, on occasion.

So this year, I want to relearn how to enjoy clothes and dress for myself again. This is not carte blanche for a big shopping spree! As with books, I've discovered that there is a point for me where enough is enough - the unread pile becomes an obligation rather than a pleasure. Same with clothes - more choice equals more stress. Enjoying clothes is more about feeling right in what I have, not forever craving more and more. However, I do want to filter out the items that don't fit or that I feel frumpy, less-than-confident or downright godawful in. I feel like I'm kind of chiselling my true self out of a big block of stuff that isn't "me" any more, it's just obscuring the view.

My goal this year is to really tune in to my gut feelings, as they are the only yardstick I have - and stop feeling guilty for wanting to enjoy clothes and have some fun with the way I look. Embrace the part of me that says rainbow trousers are a good idea (she's still in there, which is why I own purple tie dye dungarees). This will also give me the tools to make better choices when I do make purchases - I certainly don't want thoughts of stuff and money to be always at the forefront of my mind, but that has been an unfortunate but necessary side effect of the ban. Going forward, I want to be able to make decisions based on joy, from a place of contentment and confidence. No more scarcity mindset - or guilt. And I can't wait!

January Accountability

I must be honest, I considered not doing a shopping ban at all this year. It frustrates me that I've not yet managed to complete my goal of 365 days without an unnecessary purchase, but I don't like the way my brain turned 'not buying things I don't need' into 'wanting to wear clothes I actually like is consumerist'. So after my last post, I stopped my day count and waited until the new year to decide what I was going to do (hence those guilt-free December purchases). My finances are currently pretty stable, so I don't have to pinch pennies quite as much as I have been, but I don't want to end up right back where I started either!

Firstly, I want to focus less on the not-shopping and more on what comes after - e.g , if I'm not shopping, thinking about shopping, or planning my next purchase, where am I going to put all that creative energy? Shopping, for me, has definitely been about expressing myself, via clothing, home decor, and other trinkets, so as well as learning to do that without a constant influx of the new, I also want to put the focus back on what I can produce instead of what I can consume. I don't know in what way yet, I just know that I don't want my life to be forever revolving around stuff, whether buying it or not buying it. I want a creative project to tackle, and possibly a class or a course of some kind. The most inspiring book I read in 2020 was The Enchanted Life by Sharon Blackie, and it reminded me what a big part creativity used to play in my life, before Facebook and email and 24/7 online shopping filled up all the empty spaces.

I've also decided to make this a "low-buy" rather than a no-shop year. I want to stop overshopping, but I do want to be able to purchase things relevant to my interests, or that otherwise bring value to my life, without it being a huge deal, or a source of guilt and stress. And I want to get out of the deprive-splurge cycle I seem to have ended up in. So I'm aiming for a monthly "allowed" purchase - we'll see how that goes.

Merry Christmas! Some Ideas for the New Year

My dear readers - friends, family, and the one or two strangers who have found this little corner of the net - thank you for checking in on my weekly ramblings this last couple of months. I have enjoyed sharing with you some of my thoughts and lessons from my previous shopping ban attempt, as well as staying accountable in my current attempt. I'm intending to take a couple of weeks' break from blogging for the festive season, but before I go I want to give you a few tips that I have gleaned from this process.

Tried and Tested Tips

If you have read this far and relate to much of what I have said, I strongly feel you should consider doing a shopping ban of your own - it's a challenge everyone can learn something from. If, however, you really can't face that, another experiment you could try, perhaps in the New Year, is to pick a category of your belongings - books, clothing or make-up, for example - and try not to buy any more until something in that category actually needs replacing. You may be surprised by how much more you have than you actually need. For example, I was amazed to discover at the end of my first year that I had only worn out a single pair of socks, and still had more than ten remaining bottles of body lotion! (It's now a year and seven months since I last bought: socks (or any kind of hosiery), handbags, scarves,  knickers, perfume, eyeshadow, nail varnish, stationery, furniture, DVDs, CDs, collectable figurines of any kind, yarn, jewellery or tech. Have I run out of any of these things? Not even close.)

Here are a few of the most important things I have learned in the year-and-a-bit since I started trying to quit shopping:

1. Browsing leads to spending. 

Don't make it easy for them to keep you hooked. Put down your phone. My life became so much better when I stopped feeling obligated to compare EVERY dress on ASOS.

2. You don't lose anything by not buying something.

3. There isn't One True Garment that will reveal and encapsulate your identity.

4. You can't shop your way to a sense of self.

In fact, overshopping was part of what eroded my sense of self in the first place. 

5. Use and value what you already have.

6. At the end of your life, you won't wish you'd spent more time shopping.

7. Express yourself through your actions, not your purchases.

8. Take inventory.

Counting your stuff is not the most fun way to spend time, but it's harder to convince yourself you really need another t-shirt if you know you already have 63 t-shirts. (Yes, actual number. Have I not mentioned I have an overshopping problem?)

9. Consider your priorities.

What are you giving up if you keep spending your money on unnecessary trinkets? A house deposit? That trip you've always wanted to take? Your security or peace of mind? What if you saved that money instead?

10. Don't broadcast everything.

A private life is a happy life. I used to pour myself into social media in the name of authenticity and then always felt I had to live up to the image I was creating. Your choices become limited when you feel you should be promoting or explaining them to an audience. Deciding to be more mysterious was one of my best decisions to date.

11. Let go of perfect.

I learned during wedding planning that perfection is a tyrant. Embrace 'good enough' and be liberated. My hair, my skin, my smile, my wardrobe - not perfect, but good enough, and that makes me happy every day. If you let go of perfect, you only have to meet your own standards - not society's, not Instagram's. (If your own standards still feel too high, can you try to see yourself how your friends and loved ones see you? Beyond facial features and body shape, true beauty is in the way you light up, the way you talk, smile, laugh, move.)

And Lastly

This week's accountability - well, a mixed bag to report. I did have to shell out on a new pair of shoes - as I've mentioned before, I often suffer with plantar fasciitis, and this week it's flared up badly. After watching me hobble around in agony for a few days, Dai insisted it was time to replace the battered pink Reeboks I've been wearing for the last two and a half years. So I've ordered these amazing cork shoes with a "foot mattress" insole from sustainable, ethical company Po-Zu. I hadn't actually bought shoes in over two years (!) which I guess is pretty good going. I did resent replacing the Reeboks as they haven't actually disintegrated yet, but they have seen better days, and I can't keep up with my toddler when every step feels like walking on needles!

Unfortunately, I had a weird few days over the weekend when I didn't like what I saw in the mirror, and by Tuesday I was once again convinced I needed a total change of wardrobe. I felt sick of budgeting and thinking about money and 'stuff' all the time. I bought the Spud some lovely pyjamas, dressing gown, dinosaur t-shirt and a toy car (no regrets there, also not a ban break) and then I bought myself a cardigan from The Ragged Priest (in the sale) and a new book (Embrace Your Weird by my woman crush Felicia Day, can't imagine why that spoke to me at the time). So that's a third strike - time to start my day count from the beginning, I guess!

I should note that my little spree coincided with a) a heavy bout of Pinterest use - must quit, it clearly is the devil, and b) menstruation. I suspect a few of my shopping binges have coincided with that particular joyful time of the month - not sure yet how to guard against Shark Week Brain and its demand for extreme makeovers. Anyone have any suggestions? I must admit, I do sometimes let eco-guilt (or mum guilt) get in the way of actually taking the time to enjoy my clothes and appearance and then I end up feeling rough and frumpy... Perhaps this is something I can work on. I struggle to convince myself that it isn't selfish (or a sign of sinister corporate/patriarchal brainwashing) to want to feel good about the way I present myself. 

Have a wonderful, imperfect, being-"safe"-in-weird-pandemic-times Christmas, and I'll see you in the New Year.

How Extinction Rebellion Stole Christmas

As Christmas approached in the first year of the shopping ban, my newfound frugality and burgeoning environmental awareness were twisting me in knots as I tried to think of ways to participate in this orgy of gift-giving without decimating my savings or trashing the planet more than I could help.

Not too long before, I'd heard some rumblings about this radical environmentalist group called Extinction Rebellion who were protesting in London, bringing city streets to a standstill, arguing against Fashion Week, and otherwise generally making a nuisance of themselves. I was intrigued. All this passion, chaos and rage seemed to have boiled up very suddenly out of nowhere - what was going on?

I'd had vague positive feelings about Greenpeace for a long time, but by and large was convinced that all that environmental stuff was pretty radical and woo-woo, the province of earnest, slightly scary hemp-smelling people with hairy armpits. But XR was not only huge but encompassing all kinds of people, grandmothers and businessmen and schoolchildren. I decided to look them up.

Game changer.

With my sleeping child in my arms, I watched an XR video entitled The Truth. At first I was just interested. Then I was shocked. Then I felt the bottom drop out of my stomach. As the girl with the punky haircut explained feedback loops and melting permafrost and food shortages and rising sea levels, I gripped my tablet in numb hands.

Does everyone know about this? Why isn't everyone panicking? What have we done? Oh, holy shit...

The full scale of the climate emergency caught me off guard and unsuspecting, a sucker punch to my sense of security and stability. I'm not ashamed to say, I wept. I'd brought a child into a world with a very uncertain future, and I felt powerless to protect him.

Let me loop back from existential dread to Christmas shopping (two things that go nicely hand in hand, I often find). After learning about the climate emergency, I found I had no more urge to buy joke presents, or anything really that people might not want or wouldn't use. The first year of the ban I was just a ball of stress - eco anxiety plus wanting to find the best possible gifts plus money being a little tight equalled worry from October onwards.

Some of my friends arranged a Secret Santa using a wishlist app. Enthusiastically, I filled my list with books, bath bombs and charity gifts - only to discover that the theme for the event was "dirty/inappropriate". I felt deeply humourless and a bit of a wally but just could not bring myself to buy a plastic penis of any description having just watched XR's video about, basically, the end being nigh (in the end I plumped for a book of howlingly bad self-published erotica and, okay, a penis-shaped lipstick. Apparently there's a gap in the market for sustainable or zero-waste erotic gifts...). I kept picturing every hen party inflatable penis sticking up from landfill - outliving us. What a legacy for the human race! (Told you - humourless.)

For everyone else, I considered crafting gifts, and whilst this is something I've got more confident about recently (this year I've given a knitted hat, handmade candles, body scrubs, elderflower cordial and blackberry liqueur), in 2019 I was still wrapped up (pun intended) in consumer culture and I was worried I would seem stingy or thoughtless.

Instead I decided I would support small local businesses. This turned out to be a bit of a bust - in my small town I only knew of a few local craftspeople, and I quickly discovered that doing my entire Christmas shop with them would leave me all but bankrupt. Eventually, cross and frustrated, I did my shopping exactly as I normally would, except I shopped in my hometown instead of travelling to a big city mall or market (and minus the "one for you, one for me" mathematics I have been known to apply in years previous!).

This year I was better prepared. I shopped mostly online (pandemic!), but I chose items from small businesses in the UK and favoured companies using sustainable materials and processes. It all sounds a bit "worthy", I know, but I don't in good faith want to keep pouring my family's resources into environmental destruction. To me, it's been worth a little more thought and a little more time. 

I also bit the bullet in the first year of the ban and had a chat with friends about setting a budget for our gifts, as in our mutual affection and enjoyment of gift-giving it was all getting a bit out of hand. One or two friends suggested that we no longer buy gifts for each other but focus on the littles instead. The rest of us agreed a £5 budget, which chafed at first but came to remind me of childhood Christmases, when we were given "token" gifts (often practical or edible) which were given with great love but caused the giver little stress, financially or otherwise. I also have one friend with whom I tend to exchange secondhand books - it works for us.

I realised that my personal Christmases had been overshadowed by worry. I was overthinking it, competing against the imaginary Joneses and their perfect Christmas gifts, frightened of appearing cheap (when money's tight for pretty much everyone right now anyway) and it was leeching all the enjoyment out of the process.

So please know, friends and family, that I may not have got you much this year, but I chose as carefully as I could, with the best of intentions! 

This Week's Accountability

Happily, I can report that I am now over fifty days into my current ban and doing well. Admittedly I have spent more this week than I normally do, but within shopping ban parameters - I have finished my Christmas shopping, posted the majority of my cards, and bought some local cheeses, chutneys and other nibbles (and driven Dai mad by pronouncing 'chutney' like Schmidt from New Girl), and some mulled cider and mead - I'm really looking forward to tucking in with the family over Christmas.

Comparison, the Gremlin On My Shoulder

The Comparison Trap

By July '19, two months into my first attempt at a year's shopping ban, I was becoming irritated by my inability to stop thinking about clothes. On days out, I found myself constantly playing the comparison game against other women, and I'd noticed the snarky voice of my inner critic carping at me: "This isn't cool, that isn't cool, it doesn't look right, your shoes are wrong, you haven't got the figure for that, who do you think you're kidding?" It was the inner voice of my younger self, who had enough self-awareness to want to try to be cool, but was never quite able to manage it. As an adult, I wasn't concerned with being cool - far better to be happy, or enthusiastic, then to keep chasing an ever-changing target (also I basically live by this page of the Incomplete Manifesto for Change) - but apparently no one had told the gremlin on my shoulder.

When friends visited, I felt sloppy, awkward and underdressed. If I put on make-up and made effort, I felt overdone and vapid. Whatever I did, I perceived myself as somehow wrong and out of place. I felt deflated every time I saw someone with what I perceived to be a better outfit, and became envious of women who didn't seem to care what they wore and were still at ease with themselves. I was getting increasingly frustrated, and wanted to just forget about how I looked. When had my appearance taken over my life to this extent? Was I completely vain, brainwashed by a misogynistic culture, or both?

It was as though the disordered eating behaviours I had overcome had simply been replaced by other damaging behaviours. I had read so much about body acceptance and self-love, but I had to face the facts - if I really loved myself, I wouldn't be spending my hard-earned money to fix imaginary problems, or constantly comparing myself to strangers.

I wanted to try to find an identity beyond clothes (and shut up that stupid little voice for good), and I decided that the best way to do that was to stop thinking about clothes:

- No Pinterest

- No style blogs or style guide books. The latter were consigned to the charity shop with a glad heart 

- No Instagram

- No browsing shopping sites, street style sites or Googling "fashion icons" , in fact no clothes-related Googling at all

- No fashion magazines

- No browsing the high street

- No mentally cataloguing other women's outfits

Just wearing the clothes I had. 

I'm not sure if this is a personal quirk or a common side effect of using these platforms, but when I have occasionally used Instagram or Pinterest in the year following, I have noticed a corresponding drop in mood, and more likelihood that I will make an unnecessary purchase (usually make-up or clothing) in the days after. So for myself, I have decided that these platforms are not healthy and don't contribute anything to my life except feeling vaguely low and crappy. That doesn't mean it's always been easy not to use them! Instagram, in particular, has a tendency to draw me back in. But I'm working towards a complete break.

Comparison was an extremely difficult habit to escape. There was a point when I thought I might never free myself from it, and was doomed to spend the rest of my life measuring myself against every woman (and occasionally a man with an outfit I particularly liked) that I encountered, and finding myself lacking. It took about ten months (ten months!!!) of avoiding fashion content and trying to notice and disrupt my negative thought patterns (I named the gremlin on my shoulder Keith; for anyone else who has a similar gremlin, I highly recommend Anuschka Rees's book Beyond Beautiful) before I suddenly noticed that the urge to compare had just... fallen away. Shrugged off, like an old coat. I cannot overstate how liberating this felt. 

On the Bright Side

Happily, a couple of months in, I was beginning to really enjoy the shopping ban. The stress and anxiety I had felt back in May were replaced by a newfound pleasure and satisfaction in removing myself from the consumer rat race. I had taken myself away from a source of guilt, envy, frustration and confusion, and I was achieving a simple joy from using what I already had. After trying for several years to catch up with myself, I was finally down to just fourteen unread books, and in the hotter weather I'd discovered that a handful of tops I'd thought weren't right on me actually looked just fine with skirts or culottes. 

It was frightening to think what I could have spent in the two and a half months since starting the ban if I had continued unchecked. Worse, there was nothing at all I really needed, so I would have just found things I quite liked and convinced myself that they were necessities. It's amazing how brainwashed we are into consuming as a way of life, and it was a relief to take a step back and look critically at the mechanisms at work. 

Accountability Corner

One benefit of giving up shopping that I noted this week was that, as a direct side effect of giving up the preoccupation with my appearance that constant shopping had contributed to, I find my range of interests expanding. I am more likely - and able - to pay attention to a passing whim (say, to plant vegetables, practise my guitar, or seek out a book about prehistoric matrifocal cultures or Japanese folklore), instead of reserving my time and attention for the constant tweaking of my physical appearance and planning what clothes I'm going to buy next. I hadn't realised to what extent I was stifling any interests that didn't relate in one way or another to my personal presentation. (Bet my mother noticed, though - she's disturbingly acute about things like that.)

Right, enough musing - on to the nitty gritty! I am delighted to report no ban breaks this week. I have purchased nothing but groceries and some cream for the baby's bottom. I can also see a notable change in my savings rate since reading Your Money Or Your Life, which is really exciting to me!