If you have any spendthrift tendencies that you want to straighten out, I have a great suggestion for you. If you “shop in your closet” before you shop in a store, you will buy far less. Or, maybe nothing at all.
I have known about this technique for awhile, but hadn’t been practicing it. This became obvious to me when I tackled a pile that had accumulated on a storage cart in my home office.
There were several notebooks, an unopened package of file folders (obviously, if I had opened them I would have done more filing), three-ring binders, filler paper…truly, it was ridiculous. I do love stationary and stationary stores, but I wasn’t planning to open one.
Where was I going to put this stuff? Later, when I was upstairs in the room we call “the library,” I realized that a storage unit I had up there still had a large shelf available. It was perfect for these items.
I went back down with a wine box I had used to cart home groceries from Trader Joe’s. I filled it up, brought half the goods upstairs, came down and filled it again. Yes. I had bought too much stuff.
This could have been worse, however. These are consumable products. I will use them someday. If I live long enough.
The bright side was that I did this cleanup in early August, just when school supplies started to show up in stores. I’m not only a lover of paper, pens, staplers, rulers and every office supply item ever invented—I’m a school librarian. I believe that when a whiff of the school year can be detected in the late summer air, some educators get an intuitive urge to buy crayons, pencils and oddly shaped erasers. It’s akin to the pregnant woman’s urge to “nest.”
But even I couldn’t justify buying a single box of paper clips. I had all I needed and more. It was easy to resist temptation. All I had to do was visualize my stack of stuff.
There’s another factor at work here, too. Since the pile had accumulated over several months, the items in it were like new to me. It truly felt like I had shopped in my closet.
A few weeks later, I was ecstatic to learn I had dropped eight pounds over the course of the summer. I still have a way to go but this was encouraging news. I decided to celebrate by going into our loft and looking through my boxes of clothes.
I’d gone up there in the spring to bring down short-sleeved shirts and capris. But I hadn’t taken several favorite dresses because I felt they had been a tad snug on me last summer. Now I brought them into the bedroom and tried them on. Yes! They fit!
This discovery came at the precise moment when I was getting sick of my summer clothes. This is when I am tempted to buy a little something to brighten up my wardrobe, or to wear the first day of school.
Now, not only did I have those pick-me-ups, I also had a dress that I looked forward to wearing on day one. I hadn’t worn it all summer.
I knew I had struck the right note with my revived look when I went into the eye doctor’s office after school one day, wearing an almond-colored shift dress. “That looks so cool and comfortable for such a hot day,” the receptionist told me.
That was nice of her. I know she wouldn’t have said it if the dress was clinging to me or made me look like a tub of peanut butter.
The one area where I have found this method does not work is with books. I know I have too many books. My husband, Paul, has too many books. Three years ago, we tore down an old shed, replaced it with a family room and added four bookcases. We still have too many books. We tore down our ancient garage, built a new room with a “bonus” room upstairs, brought in a couple of bookcases. Right, still too many books.
I occasionally purge my collection and donate the books to Goodwill. Sometimes I can find homes for them in my school library. But, like all bibliophiles, I feel attached to my volumes. I don’t hang on to old, decrepit copies like some people; in fact, I have sometimes replaced greasy, falling-apart editions of classics like “The Joy of Cooking,” with nary a twinge of conscience.
Since I am a librarian, with access to a wide array of books, I don’t have to buy every book I want to read. But Paul and I do enjoy roaming around bookstores, and I invariably find something that I really must have for my personal library.
I have begun to temper my purchases with the thought of my poor, burdened bookshelves. But so far, I am still finding it easier to say no to a box of uniquely designed pencils or a new pencil skirt than I am to rejecting a new mystery by just about anybody.
Wait a minute—did I just say I can turn down a box of uniquely designed pencils? Hmm. I’m not quite sure I’m quite there yet.
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