How To Frugalize Your Closet
As I shared last week, April is the NINTH anniversary of Frugalwoods! To celebrate, I’m typing down memory lane with reflections on some of my most influential old posts. Nine years is a long time to do anything and I’m curious to see if I agree with my old self or if my thoughts have changed in the intervening years. Old Me vs. Current Me: A Showdown The first post I want to reflect on...
I started a clothing-focused mini-series over the summer wherein I managed to devote two ENTIRE posts to the topic of just me and my clothing alone: My Ever-Evolving Relationship With My Clothes The Clothes I Wear For Comfort and Confidence Riveting as that was, a number of you requested I write about the clothing of the other people in my house. In response, today I bring you a deep dive into the closets of my...
Last month I shared a journey through the recesses of my brain, or at least, the clothing and appearance-related recesses of my brain. If you haven’t read that post yet, I recommend you go there first since today’s article is the second in this mini-series. Today I’ll take you on a journey through my closet, with far less emotional toil and far more practical lists. Now that you all know how I FEEL about my...
I have a hectic relationship with clothing. In my 20s and early 30s, I worshipped it. I stuffed the closets of our various rental apartments with beaded slip-on loafers I bought at an outdoor market in Strasbourg, France; a vintage bubblegum-pink stewardess dress I liberated from a Goodwill in rural Kansas; a red Banana Republic raincoat I found (with tags on) at a consignment store in Boston. Recently, a number of readers–mostly also young (am...
I’m a known thrifter. Unlike known grifters, this is a good thing. Since becoming Mrs. Frugalwoods, I’ve tried to buy everything second-hand. This doesn’t always work out and sometimes I choose to buy things new (such as my mattress), but on the whole, my household is awash in used goods. Today, I want to talk about three aspects of my buying used strategy (oh yes, it’s a strategy): Focus on things that make the most sense to...
I was pregnant or breastfeeding for four years. Starting in March 2015, when I got pregnant with Kidwoods, straight through to April 2019, when I weaned a 14-month-old Littlewoods. There was a one-month hiatus in 2017 after I weaned Kidwoods and before I got pregnant with Littlewoods. Other than that, my body’s been in full-time mama territory. Today is an exploration of how my relationship with my body–and by extension, with clothes–evolved as a result...
Today I mark a frugal milestone: my clothing ban is over! Well, it’s not actually over, it was simply suspended a tad. On January 1, 2014, I decided to stop buying clothes. And I mean fully stop. I didn’t have a list of items I was allowed to purchase and I didn’t make exceptions for anything–not even during my nine months of pregnancy. The rules of my self-imposed ban were as follows: no buying any clothing, which includes...
When people ask why we moved to Vermont, I always answer “the woods!” And it’s true, we love our woods. We love looking at them, thinking about them, discussing them, photographing them and, most of all, being in them. However, as you might’ve noticed from my recent photos on Facebook and Instagram, we are currently in the depths of a typical Vermont winter–in other words, we won’t see our grass again until sometime in late...
We begin today with a satirical rant, which will, I promise, eventually wend its way around to some possibly useful advice. Used stuff is gross. I mean think about it, someone else sat on my couch before I owned it. Someone else petted my dog before I adopted her. Someone else WORE my clothes. My cars were driven by another. Even my cloth napkin was pre-dabbed. Therein lurks a very real threat to many a would-be frugal person: the...
Amid all the massive life changes Mr. Frugalwoods and I have going on right now–from moving to our Vermont homestead to buying two cars to becoming first-time parents–I want to pause today and reflect on something that has continued on in the background for the past 2 years and 5 months. I’m speaking, of course, about my clothes-buying ban! In January 2014, I set forth a self-imposed and self-created goal of not buying clothes for one full year. I was...
