A New Day

One of my favourite blogs is A Slob Comes Clean. I first found it shortly after getting married four years ago and I think it was a couple of years old then. I still check in every few months. I love a lot of things about it. I love the honesty and the humour. I love the practical advice and the motivation. But what I love most is that she isn’t afraid to acknowledge that she’s on a journey and share when she slips up and be honest about it. It wasn’t a simple quick fix but a lifestyle change that needs work.

I’m am telling you this as I’m feeling a bit ashamed that we’re in a worse financial situation then when I last gave you numbers. I’m not ready to give you our new credit card number debt but they’re a bit more than they were. But life happened. More importantly a beautiful little baby happened.

Our gorgeous daughter Zoe was born on the 2nd of July. Some money was spent on her, some was spent as we were too tired and overwhelmed to be careful with money.

Whatever the excuse, it happened and here we are. And we’re ready to take it seriously now.

We have short term goals and long term goals but more importantly we know that actions we need to put them into practice.

I’m going to aim to be much more deliberate with my blogging. I intend to post our monthly goals and budget at the start of the month and a review at the end, and then maybe a blog in between with things I’m learning or challenges we’re experiencing.

But the point of this blog is that even though we’re not in a great position we’re determined to get back on track.

My Wardrobe

I’ve mentioned before that I have way too many clothes, scarves and accessories. I wasn’t sure where to start in de-cluttering. I didn’t want to just get rid of everything and have nothing left, I didn’t want to be too rash and get rid of things that I’d later regret but I definitely needed to start somewhere – also, as I cant really fit into my cloths now that I am four months pregnant, it seems like a good time to do it.

So I turned to Google. To start with I couldn’t really find anything helpful or relevant to me. My main issue was that I’m never happy with what I had and constantly shopped for the perfect piece to finish my wardrobe. I finally came across a blog and one little tip was to look at the outfits you’ve pinned on pintrest to get idea of what you liked. That seemed like a really good idea as I do have outfits pinned on pintrest. I was really shocked with what I saw.

The first reason was because there was a definite trend. In fact the they were all basically the same kind of outfits. For winter it was blue jeans – skinny and regular, with boots or sandals, all with white and shirts: some plain, some fancier, with fitted coats and jumpers and over sized totes. For summer it was generally long skirts with sses demin jackets or fitted pinafore’.

The second reason I was shocked was because I own basically nothing that was repeated. Not even a white shirt, no demon jacket, no boots, no pinafore dresses.

My aim – long term is a 30 piece clothing wardrobe. Because I’m four months pregnant, I won’t be adding piece until after the birth of the baby. I’ve began removing clothes and one thing I’ve found is a lot of the stuff I don’t wear has really lovely fabric. I obviously bought them because I feel in love with the material but didn’t like the style, the fit or the colors washed me out. Instead of donating those pieces, I’ve put them in a basket and I intend to sew with the material. 1. So I don’t just throw out fabric I love and 2. Because fabric is soooo expensive so this saves money in that regard.

I’ll keep you updated 🙂

Consumerism by a 23 year old female.

This past weekend I was at a Christian music and arts festival.  I went to a talk on consumerism. I don’t remember exactly what the talk said, but it’s kept my internal monologue alive.

I am left observing the shallowness of consumerism – especially blatant extravagant consumerism. I feel quite morbid about it and my view of it. We turn to things to make us cooler, happier and more fulfilled. We rely on wasting our money in hopes that having a wardrobe full of clothes is going to change our lives.

I’ve done that though,  I’ve been there. Like I’ve previously mentioned I own 40 pairs of shoes and 15 scarves and I rarely wear shoes nor scarves. I’m in a position to say this- a full wardrobe gives you one thing, a full wardrobe.

Does this revelation mean my love for clothes has diminished? No, not at all! Simply, I have accepted that I only wear a few things so why am I trying to turn everything into a collection?

My past insistence of constantly purchasing new things is confronting and the roots run deep. Whenever I’m out now I find myself holding something pretty while repeating ‘I have enough dresses! I have enough dresses!’

For myself anyway, my consumerism is a mask and a blanket to cover a multitude of insecurities and consumer driven notions that are going to take a lot to remove, however,  my busting at the seams closet and bank accounts are begging for me to try.

Tackling the kitchen

 

This is what my cupboards look like now.

Stupidly, I didn’t take a before photo. However it was choca-block full and entirely unorganized. The only thing I kept that were in there was my slow cooker and that baking tray. Everything else you see had another place… on counters, on another shelf, on the floor.

I think I’m planning to have a garage sale for the rest. I have a waffle maker, an electric juicer, a little blender, a hand blender mixer,  a whole lot of there good quality clutter. If I have the garage sale I’ll upload photos.

I hate our kitchen and one reason was because it was so cluttered. It was easy to make the cull as I went in knowing that I never go into through the cupboards. Because of this, my husband feels inspired to paint it so I might stop hating it so much.

I’ve accepted two things-

1. This is going to be a super long process. Both from the point of view of getting rid of stuff and from changing my mindset

2. I’m probably never going to only have100-200 things. At moment  I have 15 scarves. I probably wear scarves 5 days out of the year.

 

I’m currently getting through our washing – we have about 6 loads to go- and then I’m going to do an inventory of what I have and then make big decisions for there.

When enough is enough

For a little while now I’ve been concerned about what my life says about me.  Am I really living? When will I know when I am really living? Am I being the person I want to be? Am I spending my time wisely? When will fulfillment come? What changes can I make?

In the last 3 months I’ve made changes. I’ve started singing lessons, learnt how to mosaic, started a book club (two actually).

And I am happier- however actually achieving responsibilities is harder.

However, I still had this tugging feeling that other things in my life needed work. One of those things is all my excess stuff.

This was really brought out the other night.  I was on Facebook and a fond (who’s pregnant) mentioned she was finally convinced to buy maternity clothes. She stated the amount as if it was astronomical. It was less than I had spent earlier that week without even batting an eyelid. I felt such a strong conviction that I got out of bed and counted how many shoes I owned.

42 pairs, 42 pairs of shoes.

Most days I don’t even wear shoes.

The next day I did some googling and found a shop near buy that’s sells y your high end fashion items and gives you half the money. I rounded up some dresses, shoes and bags and headed over. She doesn’t take everything, just what she thinks she can sell. She took one dress, both pairs of shoes and all three bags. Once everything sells, I’ll make $111…. off things that literally just sat in my room and we’re rarely (if ever) used.

It was liberating and something I want to pursue further.

Because until I learn that I already have more than enough, I’m going to keep looking for what I have already achieved.