WHY You Have TOO MANY CLOTHES： 5 Mind-Blowing Reasons!

your closet filled with clothes but you've got nothing to wear, then this video might just be for you. So let's dive in. Hello my friend, I'm Nancy Queen and today we are talking about how many clothes is too many. And it's not just about having enough space in your closet or looking good, it's also about being eco-friendly, sticking to your values and feeling mentally okay. And excess clothing in our economy is a current huge problem today. There's a lot being produced in fashion and especially fast fashion. So I think this topic is worth discussing and looking into. And we have so many more clothes than people did 30, 40, 50 years ago. We just have so much because so many clothes are inexpensive, affordable and they've almost become throwaway items. Now I know the idea of excess is highly subjective and it varies quite a bit from person to person. But I do think there's a very practical way to gauge if you have too many clothes and it's by really assessing the frequency that you wear your clothes. In addition, I think it's important to think about the emotional value of your clothes. So for example, if you own clothes that have not seen the light of day in over a year or if you frequently struggle to close the drawers or fit items into your closet, these might be signs that you've crossed into the territory of excess. Why do we buy so many clothes to begin with? I think a lot of us women buy way more clothing than we actually need and it's not just one simple problem. There are many reasons. It could be how we feel inside, how we fit in with our friends and family and what our culture is like around us. And if we understand these reasons, we can be more mindful when we're shopping and managing our wardrobes better. So let's talk about this. First of all, there is a level of psychological appeal to buying clothes, shopping for clothes. There is the emotional satisfaction when you buy something new. It's shiny, it's crisp, it's beautiful, you haven't seen it before. It brings joy and it can really lift you up when you're feeling down and you want it. At the moment, it's a really great mood booster. And of course, we've all heard of retail therapy. I know I've been known to do quite a bit of retail therapy shopping. It helps us cope with stress and emotional turmoil. And I can tell you there's been some emotional stress that shopping has definitely gotten me through. And it provides that nice lift that you're looking for. It makes you feel better in the moment. But if you're not buying the right pieces, it can end up being a closet full of emotional buys that aren't really working together to help your wardrobe. We also have social and cultural influences weighing in when we're buying. You know, there's keeping up with the trends. It's actually proven that, you know, when you go into a store, if you notice, there's no clocks, it's bright lights, the music's playing, the newest things are front and forward. It is meant to make you buy. It is psychologically, they've done their homework, they put everything in the places to make you want to buy them. That's their job. That's why stores are there to do that. So it puts you in a trend to always want to buy the most current things, the most exciting things, you know, those shiny new objects that are there that are very enticing. So you definitely want to think about that. And then when you get home, you've got social media and influencer impact. You scroll Instagram or TikTok, you're seeing the newest trends, the shiniest, newest outfits, the newest fashion. And of course, it's like, oh wait, I need that. Oh, am I being left out? Nobody wants to have FOMO, fear of missing out. So do I need that? I'll just go buy that. Or now that you just have a button, you can click on it. You don't even have to go to another site. You can buy it right there in the app a lot of times. So it's another way that it makes it really easy to make these impulse buys without giving it a second thought. And then there's also our own personalities that weigh in on our purchasing because clothing is meant to be a form of self-exploration, identity. And when you're, a lot of times when you're in a change of life, like you might be going from college to a career or career to being a stay-at-home mom or career to retirement. When you have those fluctuations or those changes or even weight changes, that's when you can really get hooked into not knowing what to buy, when to buy it. You're not sure who you are anymore because you're going through these personal life changes. So you're much more susceptible to trying new things and making mistakes along the way. And then you end up buying pieces that you thought would work for you, but don't. And then next on the list, we have the lure of sales and marketing. And you might think, oh, I don't notice any of that. But you walk into pretty much any store, they always have a sale or a discount or a gift with purchase. And it makes it overwhelming. And then you think, okay, well, while I'm here, I might as well get all that. I got to get the deal. I want to get the deal. Of course, love getting the deal. So you want to get the deal and that leads you to buying more than what you needed. And even when you're online shopping, let's say you go to a website, your favorite online store, and then 10 minutes later you're on Facebook or you're on another web page and all of a sudden an ad comes up for that website that you were just, that store that you were just shopping at. I'm like, oh, maybe I do need that sweatshirt that I left, that I I had added a sweatshirt to my shopping cart, but then I left the site. And now it's kind of following me around everywhere I go on every site. There it is. Maybe I should go buy that. It's targeted marketing. That is what it is made to do to make you aware. And it's not evil. It's just, I want you to be aware of all the influences we have kind of bombarding us at every turn to purchase things. The last thing I want to address on this is just habit and convenience. I mean, if you take a look at Fast Fashion, they have made purchasing the latest trends, the newest items, easy, affordable. You get bombarded in your emails with whatever the newest styles is. Hey, these 20 new arrivals, this 200 new arrivals, you got to check these out before they're gone. It's always a lure to keep you coming back for more. So what do we do to address all of these outside influences and our own influences, our shopping issues? It's not just you. That's what I want you to realize is that there's just so much coming at you all the time from a retail standpoint that I want you to just keep these things in mind when you're making your buying decisions. First of all, let's think about being mindful when we're shopping. So before you're bringing a new item in, now I've talked about a rule that I always have. If I'm bringing a new item into my wardrobe, I like to think, can I wear this with at least three to five other items that I already have in my wardrobe so that, number one, it's already a piece that works with my current wardrobe, my lifestyle, suits my personality, not being pressured to buy it from anybody else, that it like just works with my style, that it feels like me. It feels like it would just go naturally with the other pieces that I already have. The second thing I want you to do is keep an inventory in your wardrobe. So you know when you're getting dressed and you put something on and you think, oh boy, I love wearing this shirt, but if I had a pair of leggings or these jeans, I would wear this shirt so much more, but I'm missing those pieces. So what I'm going to do is not just think about that and let it go. I'm going to make like a little grocery list for my closet and a little shopping list so that when I go shopping, I'm going to have the list of the things that I need. And just like when you're going shopping at a grocery store, you're not aimlessly wandering around thinking, what am I going to pick up? You always know what you're headed there for. Sometimes you have a list. Sometimes you just know exactly what you need. You go in, you get it, you get out. You're not spending hours mindlessly going up and down the aisles wondering what you're going to eat. You know you go in with intention and that's the same thing I want you to do when you are shopping for clothing. Have a list, know what you're looking for, whether it's online or in a store, and just go in and say this is the only thing I'm looking for. I'm not going to leave until I find it. If I can't find it here, I'm out of here and I'm going to go on to the next store and look for that same item. And you just keep looking for it until you found it and that you're not going to be distracted by anything else. You're just going to focus on that one item that you need or that list of items that you need. So this way you are shopping with intention and it helps avoid that retail therapy feel, that emotional feel that you're buying. Impulse items really gets rid of that because all the items you're buying are really the items that you need. The next thing I want you to do is think about your spending limits and your budget. I remember when I got out of and my friends and I lived with two roommates after college and my one roommate had an envelope system and her mom helped her set up all these envelopes and it would have each envelope had that amount of money in her budget. Well now we're digital so we don't have that envelope system. So it's a lot easier to not pay attention to how much we're actually spending when we're buying clothes and you want to go ahead and set a budget. Maybe even keep a list of what you've bought so that you know how much you're spending each month and you can help stay on track with your budget for your clothing spending. And the final thought on habits and convenience is thinking about our emotional needs and how we've attached them to shopping and shopping for clothing because man I used to love going to the mall but I found that I actually was going so often especially when my daughter was little was like what what should we do okay I'll take her to I knew all the stores what people what they were getting in on certain days it was out of control so I decided that I would stop doing that going to the mall and we'd started going to different places so we'd go to the zoo or we'd go to a park so that I wasn't there with the temptation of shopping and just being there mindlessly shopping. So what else can we do or think about your day if you're finding yourself shopping emotionally or scrolling websites just for fun to shop for clothes what else can you do that would occupy your time get you either out of the house maybe you're not at a mall but you're going for a walk or maybe instead of scrolling maybe you get a game on your phone or a reading app something else that you can do to take your mind off of that emotional buying. The next thing I want to talk about with having so much excess clothing is our emotional attachment to clothes there's so many people that say I have so many clothes but I love them all and a lot of times this is an emotional attachment that we've formed with clothes where you think oh I wore this to a really beautiful date or I wore this when we went to the movies or I wore this when we went on our trip to Hawaii you know all these events that you you might not have worn the outfit in five years but it's in there because you want to remember that trip to Hawaii so you still have that outfit hanging in the closet and if that's the case maybe you're holding on to too many clothes for emotional reasons so if you could take pictures of them get them out of your closet it will really free up space for the clothes that you're actually wearing and fit your lifestyle today because you may not realize this but if you have a closet that is packed full of clothing it's a lot of visual clutter that is taking up space and it keeps you from seeing all the good things that are in your closet because every time you open your closet you're overwhelmed by just way too much visual clutter way too many pieces that either you don't wear or they don't fit or there's something wrong with it there you know it could be broken a zipper broken or stained or it needs to be ironed or needs to be hemmed get all those pieces out where you think oh these are my work suits from five years ago but what if I go back into a career again I may need those they're not you're not going to get them out of your closet that's not your lifestyle anymore those things can get packed up either put them under your bed in a packing case in one of those vacuum sealed bags or put them in your garage or your basement or your attic get them out of your eyesight so that when you open your closet you're only seeing the clothes you love that you love to wear that fit your lifestyle so you may be saying okay now I realize I have too much I have access what do I do Nancy okay let's talk about it the first thing you want to talk about is just decluttering your closet and you want to make it a habit whether it's quarterly or every six months or even once a year you do want to make a habit of going through things getting rid of anything you haven't worn in a year pack it up put it away and even if you feel like you can't part with it yet put it somewhere away from you for six months if you have not thought of that outfit or that garment you can get rid of it you're not going to need it so that's what you want to do get those clothes out of there so that when you open your closet you're only seeing the clothes that you need and the next thing you're going to do is like we talked about before is mindful shopping mindful purpose purchasing you're only going to bring in the clothes that suit your lifestyle today that you look and feel good in and that work with other clothes that are already in your wardrobe those are the only pieces you're going to bring in and by being more intentional about the clothing that you're purchasing it's going to drastically reduce the number of unwanted pieces in your wardrobe and the number of pieces that you're like no i don't know why i bought that i don't know why i never wear it it's going to get rid of all that and the third thing i want you to do is buy basics and essential pieces it's so easy to get pulled in by the novelty pieces that are the current trends or the current colors but bring in those kind of boring basic pieces and build a wardrobe full of quality staples that can mix and match if you worn a variety of ways for multiple years and they will and that you look and feel good in and lastly when you realize once you've cleaned out your closet go ahead and donate recycle or sell those old clothes they give them a new life don't just throw them in the trash but give them a new life they will be passed on and somebody else will get to enjoy those clothes what do you think do you feel like you have too many clothes i'd love to hear put that in the comments below as well as any other tips you have on this topic and i'll see you in the next video