Jennifer Mackey-Mary:  In my many years of dressing women, I’ve been able to observe the wardrobe habits and behaviors of women in their natural environment. It’s turned me into a style sociologist, if you will. Some habits are good, and helpful–like putting a bra fitting on your calendar every year around your birthday, or editing your closet at the end of every season. On the other hand, some habits hurt your style, and make it harder to get dressed and look good, and today, I’m talking about what I think is the one of the worst style habits you can have. This habit wastes your money, confuses your style, and leaves you with nothing to wear. Can you guess the habit I’m referring to? Today I’m sharing what it is, why it’s so harmful, how to stop, and what to do instead.  Let’s get started

Hello gorgeous, welcome back to the Everyday Style School, the podcast that gives real life style advice to real-life women. 

I’m your host, Jennifer Mackey Mary, I’m a wardrobe stylist who’s been dressing everyday women for over 25 years, and the founder of Everyday Style, where we’re on a mission to inspire women to love the way they look and give you the tools to make getting dressed easy.

If you’ve been around for a while, when i asked if you could guess the style habit I think is more harmful than just about any other, maybe you thought–buying things in multiple colors, or buying for an aspirational life–or describing your style as comfortable. Those are all great answers, so give yourself a virtual high five, and we’re actually going to touch on most of those today. But there’s one that’s often responsible for all the other bad habits. The original style sin, if you will. And that, dear listener, is recreational shopping. If you guessed that one, give your self a pat on the back, you’ve been paying attention.

Over the years, I’ve talked about recreational shopping a lot in different contexts, but considering how detrimental to your wardrobe and your style I think it is, I thought it was time to dedicate a whole episode to it, and hopefully convince you to stop doing it. Or at least cut it way way back.

Because Recreational shopping probably doesn’t look like you think it looks, I’m going to share my definition so that we’re on the same page, and you can be more aware of times you’re doing it. 

Then I’m going to share a few ways that recreational shopping hurts your wallet, your wardrobe, and your style. You might feel like I’ve got a hidden camera in your closet, but I can assure you I don’t. I’m not a stalker or a creep, I’ve just seen the effects of too much recreational shopping hundreds of times over the years

Finally, because recreational shopping is a habit, and habits are hard to break, I’m going to give you some tips on how to stop, and what to do instead if you feel like I’m a killjoy who wants to take all the fun out of style. I promise I’m not. I want you to have fun, but I also want you to have something to show for it at the end of the day. 

Before I talk about what recreational shopping is, I want to really clarify what I mean when I say it hurts your wardrobe and your style. You might think, aren’t they kind of the same thing? And no, they’re not. They’re connected, in that it’s really hard to have great style without a great wardrobe, but you CAN have a great wardrobe and still not have great style. This is something I saw so many times over the years.

Think of it this way–your wardrobe is what you put into your closet, and your style is what you can pull out of your closet. So if you want to pull great outfits out of your closet–your style…you have to have the right things in your closet to do that…that’s your wardrobe.

So often, I saw women with closets full of great stuff, who struggled to get dressed or have good style. The biggest reason for that was that none of the pieces inside the closet talked to each other–so I’d see wardrobes full of gorgeous jackets and pretty cardigans, but nothing to wear under them. Those pieces couldn’t get out of the closet to become part of my client’s style. They were stuck in clothing purgatory. 

The other thing I saw was that while the clothes themselves were fantastic, they weren’t fantastic for the wearer. I don’t care how fabulous your dresses are–if you don’t like to wear dresses, they’re not helping your style. Point being, if you want to be able to pull great outfits out of your closet easily and have great style, you have to be thoughtful about what you’re putting into your wardrobe.

The truth is, your shopping habits determine the quality of your wardrobe. When I say quality, I’m not talking about a well made pair of pants that will last you forever. My definition of a quality wardrobe is one that allows you to get dressed easily for 90% of your real life without stress or struggle, and like the results. If you can get dressed in 2 minutes, but you don’t like the results, that’s not a quality wardrobe. If you like the end results, but it takes a shopping trip, or an hour of trying on outfit after outfit to get there, to me, that’s not a quality wardrobe either. 

Today’s conversation is about changing a shopping habit to improve the quality of your wardrobe, so that you can have better style. 

So let’s talk about what recreational shopping is. For this conversation, recreational shopping is anytime you shop for fun, shop without a plan,  or buy clothes you weren’t expecting to. 
We tend to have this idea that recreational shopping just looks like a fun girl’s day out with mimosas, cute outfits, and arms laden with shopping bags. That’s just the movies, and most of us can honestly say we don’t do that. But most of us do more recreational shopping than we realize.

I used to speak to a lot of women’s groups–especially moms’ groups, and I’d talk about recreational shopping–and they’d all say, “oh, I don’t do that anymore. I don’t have time to just walk around the mall and browse like I used to”. And I’d say, ok, but have you ever gone to target intending to get paper towels, cleaning supplies, and make up remover and come home with t-shirts, and everyone would laugh because of course they had. That’s recreational shopping. 

Have you ever been NOT thinking about buying a new sweatshirt, or shorts, but then you got an email announcing 50% off on sweatshirts or shorts, and before you know it, you have a cart full of them? That’s recreational shopping. 

Have you ever been on vacation, just browsing through cute little shops full of things you’re unlikely to wear in your non-vacation life, and left with a pair of shell sandals, or a sunhat that says “do not disturb” on it? That’s recreational shopping. If that last one sounded a little too specific, it’s because there’s a sunhat that says “do not disturb” in my closet as we speak. 

When you’re scrolling instagram or tiktok and you see someone’s cute outfit, so you just hop over to LTK, or the little shopping cart icon, that’s recreational shopping. When you’re standing in line to return something, and while you’re waiting, you’re looking at the little sale bins of accessories by the register, its recreational shopping. 

You can see that even though most of us aren’t calling our moms or girlfriends saying, let’s go shopping, there are plenty of ways we engage in recreational shopping. And the first step to stopping, or at least cutting back, is to recognize all the ways, and all the times we end up with clothes we weren’t planning on. 

Let’s move on to how it hurts your wardrobe–and by extension, your style. I’ve got five ways.

First, when we shop recreationally, we tend to buy things we already have. Without a plan or awareness, I would buy nothing other than sweatshirts, wide leg athleisure pants, and sneakers. When I do engage in recreational shopping–like if I’m taking my girls shopping for school clothes and I end up with things for myself, that tends to be what I come home with. That’s what my natural style gravitates to. It’s practical for working from home, it fits my casual lifestyle. But you know what I really don’t need anymore of? Sweatshirts, wide leg athleisure pants, and sneakers. I'm good. When I do this, I’m spending my wardrobe dollars on an area that doesn’t need it, while completely ignoring categories of my wardrobe that do need some filling out, which makes it harder to get dressed for things that require something besides sweatshirts, wide leg athleisure pants, and sneakers. See what I mean?

Those of you who love to buy things in multiple colors really get into trouble here. You’re overfilling one category of your wardrobe-which can lead to a style rut, and making it worse by creating a style rut within that style rut. If you’re one of those people who gets frustrated because you always feel like you look the same no matter what you buy or how much you buy, this is something to look into. 

By the way, if you don’t know what your inner recreational shopper would buy if left to her own devices, pay attention to the sections of a website you go to first, and which ones you don’t visit at all when you’re shopping. That will tell you a lot

The second way recreational shopping hurts your wardrobe is the complete opposite of number one, and that is you tend to buy for a life you don’t really live, or a person you really aren’t. This happens more often when you’re on vacation or “fun shopping” in a different area. If you’ve ever bought jewelry on vacation and gotten home to your real life and thought–where the heck am I going to wear this, you know what I’m talking about. Vacation you buys for a life of tropical prints and shell motifs, and suburban you is like yeah, this doesn’t work with my life, or my clothes. We just get caught up in the moment, and starry eyed by the pretty things, and we think we’re buying a memory. But here’s the thing, you can admire pretty things and not bring them home. Clothes really don’t make great souvenirs. 

I told you about my do not disturb hat already–that was a vacation purchase. It’s one of those floppy straw hats with a large brim and a clever saying on it. I bought it ages ago before they were in places like target..But I was having a vacation moment. Hanging on the beach everyday, it seemed like something I just had to have. After purchasing it, I remembered I hate hats. My curly girls know what I’m talking about. They wreck my hair and make my head hot. No thank you. I brought it back to real life and wore it exactly once. Also “do not disturb” seemed really cute for the ocean, or a resort pool, but it felt weird and off putting when I wore it to a local community pool with my kids–like who does she think she is? We weren’t planning on disturbing you lady, get over yourself. Vacation me didn’t translate to real life me. 

The third problem I have with recreational shopping is that you’re at the mercy of your moods. When you buy clothes unexpectedly, you’re going to be influenced by however you’re feeling at that moment. Shop on a warm sunny day and you’ll end up with things you wouldn’t if you shop on a cold rainy day. Shopping when you’re happy gives you a different wardrobe than shopping when you’re sad. The clothes you buy when you’re not feeling great about your body or the way you look are different than the clothes you buy when you’re feeling more confident. 

That’s not to say that any of those purchases are inherently bad or wrong, but if you only shop when you’re sad, feeling down, on rainy days your wardrobe is going to reflect that. When you want something that isn’t cozy and oversized, you may not have it in your closet.

When we shop out of boredom, we tend to want to buy things to shake things up a little, which often leads to those “what was I thinking” moments? And the truth is, you weren’t thinking. You were just feeling…and as well all know, feelings are temporary.
The fourth issue I have with recreational shopping, and this is specifically about the recreational shopping we do with people, is that you’re influenced by other opinions and voices that probably don’t have your style and wardrobe goals in mind. 

When I was working with clients one-on-one, I had a very strict rule, and that was no guests. You were not allowed to bring your mom, your sister, or your bestie on our shopping trip, and if you were set on doing that, I was going to charge you a pretty hefty fee.

I charged that fee for two reasons. 1-no matter how much the client and guest said “Oh, I’ll just watch or you won’t even know she’s here”, in the end, I had two women in fitting rooms, giving two women advice, dressing two women, and that doubled my work, so yeah, I think it was fair. But the bigger reason was that I wanted to do everything in my power to keep the guest from tagging along. It was supposed to be a deterrent.

When I shopped with clients, it wasn’t two fun ladies, having a girls day out at the mall. We were on a mission. It was work. I had a plan, I didn’t bring things to the fitting room my client didn’t need, I was there to solve a problem in a very short amount of time. Without fail, the guest would start bringing things to the fitting room and being my co-stylist, “Linda, I found this and thought it was so you, you have to try it on” Even though my linda had a million blazers and didn’t need another “Oh linda, that dress is so cute. Sure, its a little tight in the tummy but if you lost a little weight you could wear it, and it’s such a great price”. Even though i would NEVER encourage my clients to buy things that required them to change in order to wear it. The shopping session would always go off the rails and devolve into a free for all rather than a problem solving trip, and in the end, didn’t serve my client best

A weird thing happens when women shop together. And I compare it to a shark feeding frenzy–I don’t know if it’s pheremones, or what, but women shopping together get excited and tend to egg each other on, encouraging each other to buy and spend more. I’ve seen that a million times. One woman will be on the fence about something because of the price, and 100% of the time, the friend, or whoever will say, “Oh go on, you deserve it”. I’ve never not once seen a friend say, you know what, that’s a lot of money, you should put it back. 

And not only do you have this heightened state happening, you get advice from people who probably don’t know what they’re talking about style wise. There’s a big difference between, this is a nice top, and this is a nice top for you. When we’re running on the feel good chemicals that shopping naturally gives us, logic takes a back seat. I’ve seen it happen hundreds of times, both as an observer and a participant. If you’ve ever experienced a shopping hangover after a day with your girls, you know what I’m talking about. I’d be willing to bet the things you bought on that trip didn’t become wardrobe favorites that got worn a lot. 


Finally, the last, and biggest issue I have is that recreational shopping tends to focus more on price than value. Understanding the difference between price and value is so important when it comes to building a quality wardrobe, so let’s talk about it, because they are not the same. 

Price is the relationship between the item and the store. How much will it cost me to get these jeans out of this store. That’s price. Beyond whether you can afford it or not, price has little to do with you. 

Value, on the other hand, is the relationship between you and the item. How often will you wear those jeans? How good do you feel in those jeans? How important to you are they in your wardrobe. If you have a pair of $50 jeans that you wear a few times a week, make you feel like a million bucks, and look great with everything, those are valuable jeans. If you have a pair of $150 jeans that you hardly ever wear because the fit is just a little off, and you can’t find the right shoes for them, and they don’t make you feel good, even though they cost 3x as much, they’re not as valuable. 

When we recreationally shop, we tend to look for “good deals”, which in our minds is about price. But, a good deal is only a good deal when the value is higher and the price is lower. The $150 jeans I just mentioned? They wouldn’t be a good deal even if they were $50. Price doesn’t make anything fit you better, flatter you more, or make you want to wear it. 

In recreational shopping, this often tends to play out in the clearance section. From my years of working in stores, the women who were truly “just browsing” made a beeline to the clearance section. And if there’s one thing I hope you take from this show, it’s that wardrobe problems are created, not solved, in clearance sections. 

This is where you find those one-off pieces that don’t go with anything else you own. This is where you find those sale pants that are going to FINALLY motivate you to go to the gym. Spoiler alert, no they won’t. The clearance section is where you lower your standards, or believe that you’ll become a different person just because the number on a price tag has changed. Remember, price has nothing to do with you. If you didn’t love that dress at full price, you won’t love it any more just because the price was lower. 

When you shop like this, two things happen–first, you’re adding chaos and confusion to your wardrobe which will make it harder to get your style out of the closet, but at the same time, you’re not adding the things that WILL make getting dressed easier and more successful. No one buys the perfect pair of pants when they’re recreationally shopping..The pair that fit like a glove, make you look amazing, go with everything, and probably cost more than you wanted to spend. That’s just not what we end up with during unplanned buying sessions. And if that’s the only way you shop, it makes sense that your wardrobe is missing the pieces that would make it easier to get dressed and pull your style together. 

Now this isn’t to say that you shouldn’t be smart with your money, or buy things on sale. Not at all, you’d be silly to pay full price at stores that are always having a sale. But if the price is the BEST thing about the item, walk away. That’s not a good deal. 

The ironic thing is that price-based wardrobes often end up wasting the most money. I had a client who was obsessed with those buy nothing facebook groups. She would take any clothes people offered. What she ended up with was a “free” wardrobe that required hiring a professional stylist to make sense of it, alterations to make things fit her, and adding quite a few pieces to make it wearable. That’s a lot of money for free clothes that weren’t even what she would have chosen. 

Price based decisions often waste money in the long run, value based ones almost never do.

 Now that you know how too much recreational shopping can affect your wardrobe, let’s talk about how to stop doing it.

The truth is, you probably won’t stop doing it 100%. Shopping is just too prevalent in our culture, and if you’re a person who likes style, it happens. So maybe the goal is to cut it down instead of totally cutting it out.

The first thing is simply to be aware. Pay attention to when you’re looking at, or buying things you didn’t wake up intending to buy. I think most of us do it more than we think, and just recognizing it will help cut it down. 

Next, unsubscribe from store emails. It used to be that we had to go to the mall to shop recreationally. If the stores were closed, too bad for you. But now, it comes to us, 24/7 and the best way to not be sucked in is to get them out of your inbox. Out of sight, out of mind. Unsubscribing fills people with a lot of FOMO–fear of missing out. Like what if Loft has a sale and I miss it? It’s ok, they’ll have another, including the times that you go to their site with purpose and intention. Sales are not a rare thing any more. 

Another thing you can do is run through my little checklist. When you find yourself about to buy things you weren’t planning on, ask yourself–is this something I already have enough of? Is this something that fits who I really am, in my real life? What about my mood is influencing my decision? Am I listening to voices and opinions that aren’t serving me well? And finally, am I buying this because of price or value?

When you’re in stores, commit to trying everything on. One thing about recreational shopping is that it’s often a low commitment, throw away activity. Make it a little harder on yourself. If you don’t want it bad enough to go in a fitting room and try it on, you don’t want it bad enough. As a bonus, this will ensure your wardrobe fits well and looks good. 

If you’re shopping online, fill your cart and close the tab. Go back in a few days and see if you’re still as excited about those clothes as you were when you added them. Chances are no, the moment will have passed, and you’ll have saved yourself a lot of money and hassle.
Finally, if you’re someone who does their recreational shopping with other people, find something else to do. The money I spent shopping with my mom and sisters over the years probably added up to the vacation of a lifetime. Take a painting class, visit a winery, go for a walk, try a new restaurant. Take a jewelry making class if you’re all about style.

Invest in experiences instead of clothes you won’t wear in a few years. I guarantee those memories will be so much more valuable in the long run. 

Now, if this all sounds like I’m saying you should NEVER shop recreationally, and only buy what’s on your list, I’m not. That would be hypocritical because as a person who likes clothes and loves to shop, recreational shopping happens. But there are a few things I do to make sure that impromptu purchases aren’t wasting money and cluttering my wardrobe. If they work for you, great!

First, trying things on in stores is key. I prefer shopping in stores. I love to actually touch the fabrics, and I look at stores as free style labs–you can try things on and experiment without spending any money, but I don’t allow myself to buy anything in store that I haven’t tried on. I’ve got a pretty good eye for how things will work for me, but you just never know about things like fit. I tried on a shirt that looked perfect on the hanger, but the armholes were oddly huge, which I didn’t notice. If I just brought it home, it probably wouldn’t have bothered me enough to warrant a trip back to the store, but it would have bothered me enough to keep from wearing it often. It took 2 minutes to keep myself from wasting money and cluttering my closet. 

Next, I always know what I’m looking for. This allows me the freedom of not having a regimented list, but gives me some direction so that I don’t just buy sweatshirts, wide leg athleisure pants, and sneakers. Because I am a vampire who is allergic to the sun, I use a lot of sunscreen and self tanner in the warmer months–both of which wreak havoc on my light colored tees and tanks. So right now, i’m working on replacing those. This weekend my daughter wanted to go to the new Nordstrom Rack that just opened minutes from our house, and I knew what to shop for. I’m always on the hunt for casual, comfortable tops that look nice on camera for doing videos, and also for things I can wear on date nights, or times when I want to feel a little more fun, and not so basic. 

You don’t have to be super specific, but knowing the general categories you need to fill will keep you from overloading one area of your closet and neglecting another.


Along with that, I always allow myself to look for, and buy, my bests. Here’s what I mean. There is a shade of blue that I am convinced God made just for me. Not to brag, but I look dang good in this shade of blue. When I find it, which is not often, I buy it. Don’t care if its a swimsuit or another sweatshirt. As long as it looks nice, I’m buying it. Our little nordstrom rack excursion ended with me buying a tank and athletic shorts in my beloved blue. My eyes are trained to find my bests–and while I wasn’t focused on summer atheisure quite yet, I don’t regret buying them at all–they’ll be super valuable pieces in my wardrobe in just a few weeks. 

Of course, this requires knowing your bests but once you do, narrowing your search to just those things weeds out a lot of bad choices and wasted money. 

The last thing I do to make recreational shopping more successful, and I’m sure it doesn’t come as a shock, but I stay out of clearance areas. This morning, as I was getting dressed, and had this topic on my mind, I was flipping through my closet, looking for my wardrobe hits and misses. I am a regular person, which means I make mistakes too, I am not perfect. 

I was looking for pieces I bought on clearance, not sale, clearance–and I wanted to see if they were valuable pieces in my wardrobe.  Here’s what I found. In my closet currently, there are 4 things I know I bought on clearance. Two pairs of jeans from upwest when they were going out of business, an adorable tweed cardigan I found a boutique this winter, and a gauze shirt I bought when it was discounted to $6 at costco–because I’m fancy like that. Three of the 4 things still have the tags on them–and they’re the only things in my closet that still have tags on them. One of the jeans was just an awkward fit, the costco shirt is too big and a color that washes me out, and my adorable cardigan is too big, too dark, too chunky to be flattering, has a drop shoulder which I hate, and the sleeves are too long. Nothing about it is good for me. So why did I buy it? Because it was marked down from $140 to $25…who could pass up a deal like that? I remember being in the store, and not loving it, but the sales person was like “Oh that’s so cute”--you have to have that. My daughter was like “Get it mom”, and I was convinced that somehow, I could make it work. Nope, the laws of everything I know about myself weren’t suspended because a sweater was marked down. Out of the 4 things I bought on clearance, only one wasn’t a complete waste of money, and that’s because the jeans were the same as another pair I already loved, just a different wash. They’re a high value item at a lower price, making them an actual good deal.

In the grand scheme of things, having 4 clearance items in your closet isn’t a huge fail, and having 4 items that collectively cost less than $50 isn’t going to cause me to lose sleep at night, but its a good reminder that price based purchases are rarely worth it.

You’re better off saving those dollars for clothes that will help you get dressed easily and love the way you look every day.

I hope this episode has increased your awareness of what recreational shopping is and how often you might be doing it–even if you’re not hitting the mall with your friends any more. If you’ve got a closet full of clothes, but still struggle to get dressed, ask yourself if a lack of stopping strategy might be partly to blame. Don’t forget that your shopping habits determine the quality of your wardrobe, so if you want something different, you might have to do something different.

That’s all I’ve got for you today.  I’ll see you next time–and until then, remember that your everyday matters, so get dressed for it!

Jennifer Mackey-Mary [outro]: And that's a wrap. Thank you for listening today. If you're loving the Everyday Style School podcast, I'd like to invite you to become a member of the Style Circle. It's our monthly all-access membership that gives you everything we create to make style easy, so you can save time and money, have easier mornings, and more confidence all day long. You get our seasonal capsule wardrobe guides, all of the masterclasses we offer, and our exclusive members-only podcast, The Everyday Style School Extra Credit. Plus, you're invited to the Facebook community, where you can get even more style support and inspiration. I would love to get to know you and support your style journey. It's just $19 a month, less than the cost of a clearance shirt you're never gonna wear. Come join me and make your everyday style easier.