Embracing the finite closet

My 2025 shopping resolution

My new year’s resolutions for 2024 mostly centered on replacing digital (or, as I think of it, infinite) for analog (finite) ways of living. Replacing streaming with a BluRay collection for the kids. (Accomplished, after many attempts, and very worth it!) Replacing Pinterest-based recipe planning with cookbooks I own or borrow from the library (not done perfectly, but successfully enough that I feel like the purpose was realized). I even decided I was going to read only books I found at the thrift store, in an attempt to let my reading life be governed by fate, which I was really jazzed about. However, I gave up on this almost immediately, after realizing every thrift store’s book selection is made of 99% legal thrillers, and I actually care too much about my reading to let it be governed by fate. I already know there are thousands of books out there I desperately do want to read and I won’t have enough life to read them. (This is also why I can’t join a book club.)

My biggest goal for 2025, it occurs to me now, is yet another way of embracing finitude, even if it isn’t an issue of digital vs. analog. It is, however, an attempt to close of 99% of the options available to me on the infinite internet and practice contentment with the physical objects that already exist in front of me. These physical objects being, primarily, my clothes.

Or maybe this is a digital vs. analog thing. I love shopping, and nearly all of the shopping I do is performed online, even if it is mostly secondhand. This means that a huge portion of my life is characterized by lusting after things I see on a screen, sometimes purchasing those things, then waiting for them to arrive in a package on my porch, at which point they become physical realities for me. This also happens to be the point at which they lose almost all of their allure. The cycle repeats. There is always something new to want. I’m at a point where that doesn’t feel good. I want to drastically limit the amount of new things I let into my life in 2025.

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A quick autobiography of myself as a shopper: I’ve been a longtime thrift addict. For most of my life, my thrifted wardrobe has been augmented by the occasional piece bought new from somewhere like Old Navy, Gap, or Asos. A few years ago, I discovered eBay and Poshmark. Hallelujah! It was like I could be browsing the thrift store all the time! I think I made my first online secondhand purchase in 2022, and an unstoppable tide of vintage goodness began to flow into my life. I could control my finds much more precisely than I could when relying on the thrift had to offer. My tastes refined; I found some extremely great stuff.

In just the last year, I’ve begun to feel able to spend more money on clothing from small, sustainable, more expensive brands that I love. Pieces from Damson Madder, Dancing Kind, The Amente, and Linenfox entered my wardrobe. I love and cherish each of these pieces and feel they are perfect representations of my own style. I purchased all of them after long deliberations. They also cost more than I would have felt comfortable spending on myself at any point before this year. I am certainly privileged to be able to do this. And I keep discovering (or should I say, the algorithms keep serving me me) new brands whose lovely unique pieces I want to spend money on.

However, I’m realizing that as my capacity to afford more expensive (and just more) things may increase, my capacity to enjoy these things does not. I have a finite amount of love to lavish on clothes and a finite number of days to wear what I accumulate. I now have a closet full of things I love—both new/trendy pieces and secondhand/vintage ones. Much trial and error has taught me what I’m likely to wear and what I’m not likely to wear, and the latter category has by now mostly filtered itself out of my closet. The collection I have now was built with years of searching and thousands of dollars. It feels like continuing to acquire more would be a project with significantly diminishing returns.

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I took to Instagram stories to ask my followers for advice. “If you have ever successfully stuck to a no-buy/low-buy goal for an extended period, or just drastically changed your shopping habits, what specific practices helped you stick to it??” I wrote. “I am pretty determined to stick to a specific low-buy goal in 2025, and while my motivation and excitement are high right now I know they won’t always be. Looking for strategies to help me when my willpower inevitably runs low.”

Many offered excellent budgeting and shopping tips. Common advice included:

• Deleting social media platforms or unfollowing influencers that encourage you to shop

• Unsubscribing from marketing emails

• Decluttering what you already have and reflecting on how short-lived the excitement of past purchases was

• Using buy-nothing groups when possible

• Learning to knit or sew for yourself (both as a hobby and as a way of learning what resources and labor actually go into clothing manufacture, thus heightening your suspicion of cheap clothing.)

• Keeping a specific list of wants (a spreadsheet or Notion list, for example) and revisiting it after a certain amount of time has passed to see if the desire is still there

• Writing down everything you purchased in the last month, reflecting on what was unnecessary, and being forced to look at how much you spent

• Challenging yourself to periodic no-buy months, then seeing how long you can keep the streak going

• Keeping yourself accountable to a partner

• Writing down the why behind your goal, reminding yourself there is something more important to you than the dopamine hit that comes from a fun purchase

• Finding something to replace the shopping habit with; filling time with activities that have nothing to do with buying stuff

I intend to implement several of these in the new year. (Currently writing this whole post mostly in the interest of accountability.) However, sourcing these ideas helped me realize that my “why” actually isn’t mostly budget related (though my family and I would certainly benefit from me spending less on clothes). It’s spiritual. What I want, mostly, is to practice contentment and creativity within constraints.

Shopping and outfit planning are a major source of enjoyment and a creative outlet for me. I don’t think that wanting to spend a lot of your discretionary income on clothing is stupid or vain! I think it’s really fun! Contrary to what minimalists or no-buy enthusiasts seem to want you to believe, I think an unnecessary, even expensive purchase can add real joy to your life if you really love it. I’m just at a point where the thrill of purchasing things is ever-weakening. The satisfaction I’m craving can no longer come from acquisition, but from being forced to actually just enjoy the items I already own and love. To create from the finite palate I’ve spent so much time and thought curating.

Been really having fun with my closet lately! All these outfits increase my motivation to love and cherish and rewear all of these pieces in the year to come.

Some of the advice my followers offered was more along the lines of “things I tell myself when I feel compelled to shop”—mantras such as: You can always get it later if you really want it. (Even if the website tells you it’s low in stock?? Yes! It will come up secondhand somewhere!) I don’t know about you, but sometimes when something in my cart sells out, my reaction is relief, not disappointment. (Now I don’t have to wonder if I should buy it anymore! A revealing thought.)

But the self-talk I most needed to overhear came from the very stylish and creative Elise Apffel (@eliseapffel), who said she tries to remind herself of two things: First, “nothing I buy will make me cuter or cooler, period. There is no magic item out there that will suddenly make me feel like I’ve found my personal style.” And second, “personal style is not about being uniquely different, it’s about being yourself (which ultimately makes you unique). This helps [keep] me from searching endlessly for that new item/something original that no one else has. I can wear a ‘basic’ outfit and still have personal style if it reflects me.”

This thought relates closely to something else I’ve been thinking about a lot: the most stylish people I know of are not the ones who are styling a constant inflow of new items (and definitely not the ones who look like every part of their outfit was manufactured and purchased in the last twelve months). They are the ones who have signature pieces or looks associated with them. Something becomes your signature when you wear it over and over again.

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Ok. My why is clear to me. Time to make a plan.

First, acknowledging where I get into trouble:

• Secondhand marketplaces. I love scrolling eBay. I love Etsy and Poshmark and Mercari. I buy from these marketplaces fairly often, but because I rarely spend more than $30 on a single item, it doesn’t really feel like a problematic expense, even though it adds up to an amount I am probably truly ignorant of and would not be proud to admit.

• Thrifting. I would say I used to have a thrifting problem, but—perhaps ironically—due to the obscene amount of thrifting I’ve participated in in my lifetime, I am extremely well acquainted at this point with things I will and will not wear. No matter how much I love an item under the romantic glow of Goodwill’s fluorescent bulbs, I know I simply will not wear it if it is: polyester. Pants without pockets. A dress without pockets. A polo shirt. An acrylic knit. Shoes that I have to sit down to put on. Pants with a tight waistband. Really anything very form fitting. A romantic white blouse (I have about 25 thrifted romantic white blouses.) So, an item has to pass a pretty high bar to make it home with me at this point—and if I get it home and decide I don’t love it after one wear, I resell it at a modest profit pretty quick. I’m not too worried about this. Also, thrifting to me feels like a concrete expression of my desire to open myself to what the universe has to offer; cutting thrifting from my life would certainly decrease the pleasure I take from existence. I’m not about to try that! I still would like to place some limits around it, however. Ideas: Focus on thrifting clothes for kids and husband rather than myself. Focus on thrifting home decor and furniture over clothes. Thrift from a specific wish list. Everything I thrift for myself must replace something already in my closet (one in, one out rule).

• New/advertised stuff. Buying newly manufactured clothing is pretty rare for me. If I do buy something new, it’s usually after sitting on it for months, so I can be reasonably sure it’s something I’ll really cherish and wear. In this category, more problematic than what I actually buy, is the amount of time I spend thinking about what I could buy. I’m currently breastfeeding six or seven times a day, which means I spend a lot of time on my phone. Almost all of that time I spend at least *kind of* shopping. It feels fun, it feels like turning my brain off. I feel like I deserve it. But it’s so much time wasted. I don’t like the amount of space in my brain that’s dedicated to acquisition of new clothes.

I want to cut my purchases in all of these categories, as well as the time I spend thinking about purchases.

Mantras to remind myself of in vulnerable moments:

• Nothing I want is cooler or better than anything I already have.

• You can love, admire, and appreciate something without needing to own it.

• Personal style means rewearing the clothes you love, not acquiring new things that you imagine will henceforth define your style.

• Clothes are for living in, living isn’t for clothes. (Even if you are a person who really, really likes clothes, like way more than most people, i.e., me!)

• You only wear one outfit per day (unless, say, an infant occasionally barfs all over you). Each week only has seven days. Each season only has ninety-ish. You can only wear so many clothes.

• You will feel the need to buy new a new wardrobe when a new season begins. Anticipate this, and remember it’s not true.

• Your style is only one aspect of who you are. You have tastes and skills and interests in other areas. You can assert your identity to yourself in other ways that don’t cost anything.

• Clothes cost you money but also cost you time and space (shopping, storing, cleaning, repairing, eventually reselling or donating). I would rather spend these in other ways.

• Shopping is alluring because it often feels like accomplishing something (I really need to find my perfect summer sandal this week!). But this accomplishment, like most of our to-do items, is kind of fake. I’m not actually attracted to the achievement of this goal, I’m attracted to the pursuit. Purchasing does not end the desire for pursuit. There will always be something else to pursue.

• In other words: I may always feel a bit unsatisfied. Accept this. Know the next purchase will not solve this any more than the last one did. It’s okay to want things; the wanting may in fact be the most pleasurable part.

Those got a progressively less mantra-like as they went. . . oh well.

My rules:

At first, my idea was to allow myself six new purchases for the year, with a responsible amount of secondhand shopping thrown in as desired. I initially got excited about the idea of limiting my purchases and putting more of my money toward a small number of extra-special items from super-cool brands that I usually consider out of my budget. I still plan to focus on this. However, as I’ve considered my goals and consumed content from other low-buyers (Michaela Dickson’s YouTube series on her 2024 attempt at “the rule of five” really talked some sense into me), I’ve decided my goals will be best served by being as draconian as possible. I’ve decided I will aim to make six new clothing purchases total.

What counts as a purchase: Clothing, jewelry, shoes, accessories, workout clothes.

What doesn’t count: Bras, underwear, socks. A purchase made to replace something that no longer fits or gets destroyed beyond repair. Gifted items from brands (I usually get just a handful of these in a year.)

I’m ready! I have high hopes for myself.

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Coming next time: a list of replacement ideas—things to do instead of shopping. Of course there are a million things you could do instead of shopping; this is a list of things you can do instead of shopping that specifically scratch the I-want-new-clothes itch. I’ve got a good list going, but please comment if you’ve got one for me!