My 20 year old socks and other long-time-service clothing

Posted by louisa on Tuesday 15 February 2011 in anti-consumerism, frugal | 5 comments

Yesterday, Ilona on Life After Money was talking getting her money’s worth out of things – and referred to some really old underpants she owns. It got me thinking about my elderly underwear.

I have some knickers I bought when I first started going out with John. We’ve been together for nearly nine years. I bought a pair of knickers with a penguin on it and another pair with a cat – the penguin ones are a little scruffy but the cat ones are still almost my favourite pants and are still in regular circulation – worn probably about once a fortnight and still going strong.

Elsewhere in my underwear drawer, I’ve got some slipper socks from my mid-teens (about 15 years ago – someone dropped a BNWT pair in my mum’s shop and after sitting in their lost-and-found box for a while, I was the lucky recipient of them) and a pair of novelty socks that my childhood neighbour/friend Katie bought me one Christmas. I can’t remember what year it was exactly when she bought them for me but I suspect it was when we were about 11 or 12 (19/20 years ago). They’re getting a little bobbly and threadbare on the heel now but still wearable – and still worn regularly. I’ve never worked out what sort of animal is ice skating though – a brown penguin? a bear?

Most of my visible wardrobe is newer – because of changing styles (I’m not exactly a fashionista but my style has definitely evolved over the last couple of decades – shell suits were in style when Katie bought me those socks!) and because of changing body size – but I still wear a black wool cardigan I bought when I was 16 (and a UK size 8) even though I’m now 31 and … um, not a size 8 by any measure! I’ve also got a tiny sundress I bought the week of my 18th birthday which I still wear – it’s bias cut so stretchy so works as a long top for underneath a jumper.

All but three of John’s jumpers pre-date our relationship and he’s got some t-shirts from when he was about 14 or 15 – including one that feels like silk now, it’s been washed that much!

Do you have any clothes in regular circulation that are due a long-term service award?

’12 in 11′ Clothes challenge update

Posted by louisa on Monday 10 January 2011 in anti-consumerism, frugal, less than 12 clothes challenge, low spend 11 | 9 comments

So last week I announced my personal clothing challenge for 2011: buy no more than 12 items of clothing across the year.

Since then, a number of most excellent people have said they’ll join in the fun:

• Taphophile
• Lyns
• Alice (I think…)
• Deb/Urbanwide
• Aunty Rubbish
• digitigrade
• SBlove_crafts
• Jan
• UPDATE: Colleen
• UPDATE: Joris
• UPDATE: Maria
• UPDATE: Mel

A few other people have said they’re doing/will do something similar:

• Su is trying WW2-style rationing – she has an allowance of ration coupons which can be spent on different things throughout the year. The “social history of the Second World War” nut in me loves this idea!
• bookstorebabe can’t commit to the full challenge but will consciously recording all her purchases throughout the year, which I think is very useful in making consumption changes
• damigeron has said he’ll be more conscious about it, if he remembers to be ;)

It’s great to see so many people up for a bit of a challenge in 2011! I can’t wait to see how it goes!

(Apologies if I’ve missed anyone out! Do let me know and I’ll add you to the list!)

My low-spend ’11: buy less than 12 items of clothing in 2011

Posted by louisa on Tuesday 4 January 2011 in anti-consumerism, frugal | 37 comments

In my goals for 2011 list, I’ve mentioned that I’m going to limit the amount of clothes I buy in 2011. I’m not going to buy any more than 12 items of clothing in total over the year.

I could have gone for a complete ban – “no clothes in 2011” – and I know a number of people have done that, and succeeded. But my unexpected “emergency” spending (broken boiler, sick dog) during my recent no spend weeks proved something I already suspected: complete bans on spending or buying certain items are unsustainable for me.

In terms of clothes, I have a lot of them but they’re nearly all extremely casual day wear – jeans, cotton tops & hoodies. Even my idea of smart is smart-very-casual – slightly neater jeans and a nicer top. If something more formal came up – a job interview, a funeral, a wedding I couldn’t duck out of (and I duck out of most of them) – then I’d be stuck. I also teach teenagers one evening a week so have to have appropriate clothes for that (doesn’t have to be smart but has to be, you know, non-boob-flashing decent). And I probably didn’t buy more than 20 things in 2010 and I’ve got a cardigan in semi-regular circulation that I bought when I was 16 (big then, snug now) – so some things may need replacing. Having a ration of 12 allows me some flexibility when things are needed, or hell, just really, really wanted.

(The original goal (which I may have posted about the place and was in my goal list until last night) was that I could buy 12 new items of clothing AND 12 second-hand but I deleted the second bit because that doesn’t really matter – and 12 in total is much more of a challenge.)

My goal with this limit isn’t necessarily to save money – it may do but equally, I might decide to spend more on quality items than I would have done in the past – but to only spend it consciously and on things that I’ve properly considered. I want to have to ask myself “do I really want this? do I really need this? Is it better to buy this wear-all-the-time t-shirt or that wear-once ballgown?”. It’s about reducing consumption and breaking habits.

A couple of years ago, I wrote a confession on Recycle This about my almost-addiction to buying clothes. I had a bit of a hoarding tendency towards cheap clothes – if I saw something that I liked and it was officially a bargain (in a sale, charity shop or super-cheap to start with), I’d buy it because who knew when something like that would come up as cheap again? But in these days of practically-disposable clothes, something always comes along that cheap again, and again, and again. For example, I used to wear an all-black self-imposed sort-of uniform to work every day and whenever I passed a sale rack, I’d check it for black tops to add to my collection. By the time I finished working at the uni, I had about 30 black work tops, including some I’d never or rarely worn because there was a reason why they were on that sale rack.

Already when I wrote that confessional, I had improved my ways a lot and I’ve cut back a whole lot more since then. But I still think it would be useful to consider it more consciously – as I said above, I probably didn’t buy more than 20 things in total in 2010, but that’s off the top of my head now, thinking about the purchases I can remember, stuff that’s now in regular circulation – who knows how many things I’ve forgotten because they were mistakes and got buried at the back of the wardrobe? I want to know exactly what I’ve bought in 2011. I want to break these habits once and for all.

As with my no spend week last month, I’m giving myself a few exceptions though:

• Essential footwear – to me, some footwear is less a fashion choice and more essential health & safety gear – eg wellies, supportive trainers/boots, work boots. I think I’m all set in this department but I won’t need to buy anything but I’d like it as an exception just in case. (However, if I buy non-essential footwear – like the leather boots I’ve been looking out for – then that’ll be counted in the 12).
• Essential underwear – ditto to large degree – with my gargantuan sweater cows, I need good bras for scaffolding purposes. As for knickers & socks, I tend to buy multi packs for value – that would wipe out half my allowance in one pack! Again, I think I’ve got enough to last out the year anyway and this exception only covers essentials – “because they’re pretty” pants don’t count.
• Presents and other freebies – people don’t tend to buy me clothes but I’ve had the odd geeky tshirt as a gift – seems unfair to have to include stuff in my limit if it’s “forced” upon me. (I *won’t* use this as a get-around – “Philip Green gave me this as a present in exchange my gift to his shop of £30” or even “John bought this for me because I wanted it” – just to cover genuine gifts.)
• Stuff I make myself – another of my 11 goals for 2011 is to make my own clothes – I’m hope not having a steady stream of shop-bought items pouring in will encourage me to take to my sewing machine. I’d love it if it got to the end of the year and my wardrobe was jam-packed with new items – I’d only bought 12 things but made 20. That would be ace.

So that’s it – no more than 12 items of clothing in 2011. Let’s see how it goes!

Have you tried a clothes ban/strict ration before? Any hints/tips?

Anyone want to join me in this one?

Bad buys: nearly all the clothes I’ve ever bought off eBay

Posted by louisa on Friday 26 November 2010 in bad buys | 4 comments

Another in my occasional series of laments about bad buys I’ve made.

I love eBay. We call our house “the house that eBay built” because we bought so much stuff – appliances, furniture, accessories – off eBay in the first few months after we moved in. I use it as a find-anything bazaar and a virtual charity shop. But I’ve had failure after failure when it comes to buying clothes off there.

From seeing just one or two deliberately flattering pictures of the item, I create a best-possible-case 3D animation in my head: me wearing the item, it fitting perfectly and looking great. Surely that’s worth £1.50 plus p&p! Unless it’s something that really excites me, I won’t get caught up in eBay drama or bidding wars – my bids stay charity-shop-price low and if I get outbid then nevermind. But often enough, I do win and my “fits perfectly, looks great” fantasy continues for a few days until it arrives.

It’s happened with the weirdly (deliberately) patchwork leather jacket, the far too boxy polyester Hawaiian shirt, the strappy tops which were apparently made for someone with a half-sized torso, the “I could fit three of us in there and we’d all look like weird scientists” dressing gown, the shoes in the picture are nice but super narrow (and clearly very cheap quality to start with)… I could go on and on. None of these items have cost more than a few quid all in, but those few quids do add up.

Charity shop bargains from Shipley

Posted by louisa on Monday 12 July 2010 in charity shopping | 0 comments

I did a little impromptu charity shop-shopping in Shipley on Saturday.

For the size of the town centre, Shipley has a good number of charity shops but I didn’t make a mammoth haul because like in most poor-er areas, the general stock tends to be lower quality – discount shop/supermarket clothes, and trashy books I’ve either read, got or wouldn’t touch with a second-hand bargepole. That’s not to say that bargains and/or super-cheap expensive goods aren’t ever spotted, it’s just less likely. In my experience in Shipley, the BHF has slightly better quality items than the others, while the Age Concern Community Action shop & JOY have the most random stuff. (JOY, the only shop away from the main market square, on the other side of the market itself, is stuffed full of stuff and definitely one for rummagers.)

Anyway, on Saturday I bought:

• a 100% cotton stripey cardigan. It’s a man’s one but fits me. It cost £3.45 (it should have been £3.50 but the woman was really low on change – I could offer a £10 note or £3.45 in change, using every last penny in my purse – she accepted the latter.)
• a basket for £3. I’ve wanted a few baskets for a while – for foraging, for craft stuff, for kindling. This one, which only arrived in the shop while I was in there, is more of a traditional shopper type — I used it for my shopping while I was in Shipley and it was great — and will be perfect for kindling as it is, or I can line it with pretty fabric if I want to use it for yarn. Or I could keep it as a shopping basket. Decisions, decisions.
• A giant measuring jug for 50p (not pictured), which was a great spot as I was on my way to buy a normal sized one for using as a chicken food scoop. (Up until now, we’ve just been using an old plastic tub but I thought we’d get a measuring jug to keep a better eye on how much food we’re putting in every day.) This bigger one means less trips between the feeder and the foodstore – great for lazy people like us.

Not a huge haul but the basket was a bargain – cheaper than the ones I’d seen on eBay and without having to pay for p&p, the cardigan will be useful for layering in the autumn and the jug is already in use.