Thriftyness and my new Minimalist Vendetta

I am very cheap. I pretend to say that I am thrifty, or that I like to save money, but the truth of the matter is that I am cheap. I don't like to spend any more than I absolutely have to on anything. Sometimes this is a good thing. For example, about a month ago I saved over a hundred dollars by doing an at-home perm instead of going to a salon and paying for a professional to do it. And it turned out great! Yesterday I saved about $30 by doing my own acrylic manicure, which also turned out great! Sometimes it doesn't matter if you do things the cheaper way, as long as you do them the right way and don't cut corners.

Sometimes it does matter. Our house is filled with a lot of stuff that we don't really need or want anymore. Maybe because when I got it I thought to myself, "This is such a good deal, you can't pass it up!" However, for most things we use and reuse, cheaper isn't usually better. A good example of this is in clothes. I usually shop the clearance section of the store, which makes sense in my thrifty mind. For a while I could never quite realize why my clothes were never exactly in style and I never had the right seasonal clothing at the right time, but just the other day it hit me while combing through rack after rack of 90% off clothing: these clothes are already out of style and out of season... so don't buy them!!!

Recently I have started going on an all-out minimalist vendetta. We are moving in about a month, so I have come to realize that only the stuff we really need is worth keeping around and taking with us, and only the stuff we really need is worth having at all. I no longer care if it's cheaper or even free. I'm getting rid of box after box of clothes, purses, books, toys... and realizing that once it's gone none of it was really important anyways. Now I'm trying to get my wardrobe down to only the few clothes that I actually wear. One idea I had was to wait about a week and let the laundry pile up. After a week I went through my closet while the clothes I had worn were in the washer and actually asked myself why I hadn't needed each item in the past week. Turns out, I really only use about one pair of slacks, work shirts, one pair of jeans, three or four T-shirts, and a dress each week. So why do I have so many clothes I will never use? (Don't even get me started on Aaron's side of the closet - he has so many T-shirts he doesn't even know which is which.)

Anyways, so now I've become less thrifty but more choosy. Probably in the long run I will spend about the same amount of money on stuff, just buy less and have less and be a lot more happy. We'll see. For now, I'm going back to cleaning out closets and boxing up books to take to Texas. Even with all the stuff we've gotten rid of, it's going to be a real miracle if we can get everything into the back of our car. Wish me luck!