buy more clothes

I bought this in orange, on sale for half off. This will be the first clothing purchase (other than a bra I needed to replace) I’ve made in months. Since October maybe? It still felt pretty extravagant, considering we have no income right now.

I went shopping just the other day, and bought a couple rather cute items. Apparently, green, yellow, brown, and purple are quite popular right now. How fortuitous—they’re my best colors, and also my favorite. I found a replacement for my beloved green t-shirt, which is beginning to fall apart.

None of the clothes in the stores really fit me, but they were all very cute, hanging there on their hangers, all coy. I have something of an unusual shape: big-busted, hourglass, and thick in the thighs, and a size 12. Too big for trendy, cute, or formal clothes. Too small for plus size. Guess it’s men’s jeans and t-shirts for me. :( I’m very comfortable at 150 pounds, but I suppose losing ten or fifteen (at the most!) wouldn’t hurt.

This must seem like a terribly shallow pursuit. But despite my nearly year-old resolution, I’ve only bought clothes for myself maybe… twice since then? With such a tight budget, it always seems like there’s something more important to do with my money. But wearing the same ratty clothes day after day makes me feel drab, grubby, and it brings down my mood just that little bit. It’s so insidious, I don’t even notice it until it’s gone. Just buying myself a little something every month – a pair of socks, a t-shirt – I think will go a long way to brightening my mood.

I’ve started budgeting myself $100 a month, just for me, to do whatever I like with, no questions asked. It’s so much fun to just walk into a store [okay, yes, a big-box budget store, but still] and know that I could actually buy that little thing that before, I would have wistfully passed by.

That must sound so strange to the average person! But I’ve always been very careful, with impulse and comfort buying. And I suspect I’ve never really felt like I deserved anything special, when there were always other, “legitimate” purchases to be made. Sometimes I still feel a little twinge of guilt about it. Like the other day, I “splurged” on a dollar bottle of lotion, just because I wanted to. Just because I felt like it. How decadent! But when I got it home, I realized I’d picked up the wrong one. The one I bought smelled awful, and I had to throw it out. I felt so bad about that for days! Even though I kept telling myself, it was just a dollar, it didn’t make any difference. I felt like I’d wasted money, for no good reason.

So. There’s more at work here than just, “Buy more clothes wheee!” I think, at root, there are deeper problems to be addressed.

But buying clothes for myself is a start. And it’s fun. :)