Success: 1 Year No Spend Clothing Challenge Completed!

This past weekend marked the successful completion of my one-year no spend clothing challenge! Just in case I need to clarify, this challenge was only a ban on buying clothes, not wearing them.

Why challenge myself not to buy any clothes for a year?

I can tell you that it wasn’t because I love “no spend” challenges (I don’t) or because we needed to save more money (we’re doing just fine). Additionally, I’m not the first to person to complete such a challenge. I got the idea from the queen of frugality herself, Mrs. Frugalwoods.

I embarked on this challenge for the same reason one accepts most challenges: Just to see if I could do it.

Let the no spend clothing challenge begin…

The no spend clothing challenge started on June 12, 2020, which is the last date I purchased an article of clothing before deciding to commit to this.

The challenge? For me to not buy any clothes or accessories for myself for at least a year.

I did not include Mr. RFL or our daughter in this challenge, because I knew that we’d need to buy a couple things for them during the year. Mr. RFL’s wardrobe is very minimalistic, and since he still works a corporate job, we have to buy replacements as things wear out so he can continue to bring home the bacon. Additionally, as any parent would know, young children change sizes at a ridiculously fast pace. That said, I tried to keep spending low for both of them.

Since I already own way too many clothes, it seemed like this should be an easy feat. I just had to wear what I already own. The biggest challenge; however, was using my willpower and changing the engrained mindset that buying more clothes (or anything for that matter) equals more happiness.  

Buying new clothes, regardless of whether I needed them or not, is a bad habit that I developed when working long hours in corporate America. I bought nice things because I made good money, and it seemed like I should. Yay, consumerism! Never mind the fact that I would have rather worked less and had fewer things, which is what I realize now. 

Before I share more about the results and experience of the one-year clothing ban, let’s take a brief look at historical spending in this area.

How much we’ve historically spent on clothes

The table below includes clothes spending for Mr. RFL and myself for the last 5 years. Prior to this past year, I did not track separately who the clothes were for, but it’s safe to assume that 75% – 90% of the spending each year was for me.

Kid clothes are not included in the totals above. They were previously lumped in our budget with “kid supplies” for most of these years and I’m too lazy (nor do I have the receipts) to break it out. However, we average $100-$200 per year for Little A.

My Oops! year

Did you see how much we spent in 2017? I wish I could tell you that was a typo, but it’s not. I’m actually pretty embarrassed by this number now.

When my maternity leave ended in January 2017, I realized that I wasn’t cut out to be a stay-at-home parent, at least not to an infant. The FIRE movement wasn’t even on our radar at that point, so I assumed the alternative was to focus on my career and continue working.

After a couple months of 80+ hour work weeks in early 2018, Mr. RFL and I reassessed our financial position. We started seriously discussing me quitting my job to either consult part-time or start my own accounting business, which put my focus back on saving money.  A few months later, Mr. RFL got the offer to move out to Arizona for a great job opportunity and we discovered the FIRE movement. The rest is history.

I was already miserable in my job, so the thought of continuing to work triggered some unhealthy coping mechanisms. Some people deal with stress or unhappiness by abusing drugs or alcohol. I’ve historically dealt with it by abusing food or by shopping too much. Hence, how I ended up overweight with too many clothes that no longer fit.

When I returned to work, I noticed that most of the junior coworkers reporting to me wore Tori Burch clothes and Louis Vuitton bags. My pseudo-designer bags no longer seemed so nice. And so, I gave into lifestyle inflation… graduating from Banana Republic and Coach to Prada, Burberry, and Yves St. Laurent. It’s not hard to spend over $10,000 a year on these brands. Ironically, I’ve since sold several of these pieces (at a loss, of course).

Learning from my mistakes

If you were wondering about the significant drop off in spending for 2018, I think a big part of that was the shock of just how much I spent on clothing in 2017. Back then we only tracked spending and didn’t really adhere to a budget. We were saving way more than we spent, so it was easy to turn a blind eye until the end of the year.

Don’t get me wrong, there’s nothing wrong with spending money on designer things if that’s what you love and value. But it’s not okay if you’re just buying things to impress other people or prove something to yourself, like I was. Owning fancy things didn’t solve any of my problems.

If I had known then what I know now, I would have gladly sacrificed those purchases to reach financial independence earlier.

Winning the no spend clothing challenge

Nailed it!

I didn’t buy any clothes, shoes or accessories for myself this past year. Additionally, we managed to keep the amount spent on Mr. RFL lower than normal at only $81.

Although tracked separately, we were able to keep clothes spending for our daughter under $100 as well, thanks to a generous secondhand clothes donation from a neighbor. We just had to buy shoes and a couple other items to fill out her wardrobe for the year.

Takeaways

Completing the no spend clothing challenge reinforced what I already knew deep down: More clothes will not fulfill the voids in my life, nor will they make me happier.

We’re continuing to work on embracing minimalism and on prioritizing experiences over things.

Clothes shopping is just one of the many expenses that were a lot higher when I was working. It was a bad coping mechanism, and one of the reasons our savings rate barely decreased during my first year of early retirement, despite my job contributing almost half of our family’s annual income.

I still have too many clothes that I don’t regularly wear and have been working to pare down my wardrobe, donating or selling items on Poshmark to make a little extra money (referral link – use code RFL2024 to save $10).

What next?

I’m inspired, and am going to try and keep this clothing ban going for a bit longer.

Obviously, maintaining spending of zero is just not sustainable over time. Bodies change and clothes wear out. However, it’s a lot easier to spend less on clothes when you don’t have to build two wardrobes (home and work), and when you aren’t constantly trying to impress people.

We’ll see how it goes. But either way, I feel good about trying to minimize spending in this area going forward.

What about you? Have you ever tried a no spend clothing ban challenge?

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