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Hey there, you're listening to the Simple Home, a podcast for the modern mom looking for a slower pace, a life with less stuff, less to do and more time for what really matters. Let me simply is more than just getting rid of clutter. It's about letting go of expectations to create a life of intention. Motherhood is the ultimate ground hog day experience, where much of every day is spent on the logistical stuff necessary to keep everyone alive so you can wake up and do it again the next day. You don't need just one more thing. You need easier ways to manage the constant cleaning and feeding the overwhelming clatter, the never ending to do list. I wish I could hire you a personal chef, a nanny, housekeeper and a personal finance guru. But I can't. But I can do is support you in your journey of letting go of all expectations and taking life at a slower pace. So sit back, relax and enjoy the podcast today. Hey there. Welcome to another episode of the simple home podcast. I'm your host, Jenna. In today we're gonna be talking all about clothes and creating a wardrobe that helps us in the morning rather than takes up a lot of our energy and mind power. So I'm sure you've heard of a capsule wardrobe before. Maybe you've heard of the 3 33 challenge, which was started by Courtney Carver. Or maybe you know, someone who wears a uniform every day as part of their everyday attire. Not necessarily just for work, but just to make things easier. Whatever way you go about your wardrobe, the purpose of this episode is really just to help you simplify it and make it what will work best for you in your life right now, whatever situation that is, whether you're a working parent or you stay home with your kids or you like to do certain hobbies, whatever that looks like for you, hopefully by the end of this episode you will have some great ideas of how to simplify your wardrobe so that you can get dressed easier. So wardrobes and close in general can be a major stress and unnecessary stress for your life. It takes up a lot of time in your day, can also take up a lot of your space like closets, either in your room or elsewhere in your house, and it also can be a huge drain financially. So that's why I think it's important that you take a look at your wardrobe and the decisions that you make. If you are trying to live a simpler life, I think this is one of the areas. Sometimes we skip over or we wait until last toe looked through a closet because we don't really want to. But I think you'll find a huge difference in your life if this is one of the places that you start. So first, let's talk about some of the reasons we buy clothes and why we hold on to them, because clothing can be a hard thing to get rid of. We kind of get emotionally attached to clothing, just like we do other items in our house. So you might buy clothes because it makes you feel something. Maybe it makes you feel like you did in previous years of your life, or it makes you feel like you are part of another group or part of something. It might connect you to others or make you feel like you're kind of part of them. and so the the stores that you choose to shop at or the clothing that you choose to wear. Sometimes we do that just so that we could be a part of something else. Clothes also kind of show who we are or who we want to be. So it's a not just for fashion, but also just a very individualized thing. And so we get attached to clothing because it makes us feel like we are a certain person or it makes us feel like we arm or of that person or that other people are gonna recognize who we want to be based on what we wear. Another reason we buy clothes is maybe you just feel like you have nothing to wear and this can be due to a new job that you kids or a new responsibility that you have. Or maybe you are spending a lot of time with friends who buy clothes often and seeing their styles and new things that they're wearing and feel like that you no longer have anything in your closet. It also is very, very apparent that styles change very quickly and sometimes we feel like we have to keep up, so that can make you feel like you just don't have anything to wear because the things in your closet no longer look or feel like they are in style for what other people are wearing. And this can cause us to want to go out and buy more clothes without getting rid of the ones in our closet, because who knows when we'll still want toe wear those. So rather than paring down or creating the wardrobe that we want for that time, we often just continue to bring things in without letting go of things. And first, I want to say that you don't have to stay with the current trend. These air kind of falsified things that we put on ourselves that fashion companies and retailers put on us because they, of course, want to sell more clothes. So we see all these new designs coming out. We see the new fall line or spring line or summer line and feel like we need to go out and get new clothes when we already have a closet full of perfectly good clothes. Now, one of the areas I really want to talk about is how to choose the right amount of clothes and the right clothes for you because I came talking about when we think about why we buy clothes in the first place. There's a lot of different reasons we might go out and purchase clothes, and that really can. Philip our closet quickly, especially afford not also getting rid of them. So a few questions you can ask yourself if you're gonna go through this process of simplifying your wardrobe are what do you like toe wear and what do you feel comfortable in? Because my guess is that you have a closet full of clothes that you don't really enjoy wearing. And that's why it takes so long to get dressed in the morning because we look at clothes that don't fit us right or we don't like the way we look in them or we don't really feel comfortable in them. They're not our style or colors that we like. They're just clothes that we have accumulated over the years, but we don't wear them because we don't necessarily like to wear them. Another question you could ask yourself is, what kind of clothes do you need? So we all have different needs when it comes to clothing. Some of us need more clothing than others based on the season that we are in in life. So if you work at a place where you need to dress really, really nice, you're gonna need close to fulfill that for you. You can't just go to work in sweat pants just because that's what you like to lounge around in at home. You might have a more casual job, or you might have a job where you're outside a lot and you get dirty easy or you need clothing that can get wrecked. Um, you might have a job that a little bit more lenient, and maybe you wear jeans every day and a nice top. You might also stay home with your kids, and you find yourself not very often needing to dress up for much, Um, and so you can have a different wardrobe. Maybe you're a person that works out every morning, and you need to make sure that you have some workout clothes in your wardrobe. There's all kinds of variations of what you're going to need, and this is going to change throughout your life, so for instance, I was a teacher before I started staying home. When we found out we were having our third baby, we decided that I would stay home and be with the kids. And my wardrobe has very much changed. I don't need the clothing to get dressed every morning to go to work. I still need nice outfits for photo shoots that I do or interviews that I do. But I don't need that every day where so I can have much fewer items that look nice. Um, I do need close to just wear around the house and clothes to go out and still look decent with my Children. But it's a much different wardrobe that I would need if I was getting up to go to work every single day, especially as a teacher and the clothes that I would wear to that job. So you gotta think about where you are right now and what clothes you need for your life right now. Another question to ask yourself is, How often do you want to do laundry Now? I always suggest doing it daily. I'm sure if you've listened to this podcast at all before, you've heard me say that over and over that if you do a load every single day, then you're not gonna get that big pile that is dreaded and causes extra stress that we do not need. But you really have to think about how many times do you want to do laundry Now, of course, even with a small wardrobe, the everyday laundry works great. I just do smaller loads, and my kids still have the clothes that they need for school. My husband still has his work clothes and that sort of thing. If there are tons and tons of clothes, the laundry is probably going to pile up in your kid's bedrooms or elsewhere in a laundry basket. And it will just make the laundry process, in my opinion, a little bit trickier. So think about the laundry situation. You also might want to think about how often you want to get shirts pressed or dry cleaned or clothing dry cleaned, depending on if those kinds of items are in your wardrobe or not if they're needed for your job. Luckily, we don't have, um, my husband nor I really need clothing that needs that extra special care as faras laundering. But you may, so you have to kind of think about that as well. When it comes to, maybe your husband shirts need to be dry cleaned and pressed for his job. And so if you don't want to be doing that every third day, he might need a few extra shirts so that you can do that once a week or once every other week. Or however, that works for for your family. Now, of course, I am not suggesting that you go in your husband's closet and make him a capsule wardrobe and cause he will probably be very upset about that. I am suggesting you do this in your closet before you do it in anybody else's closet in your house, including your kids, so that you can show them the benefits of it first and then allow them to do it with you, especially your Children. And then your spouse gets to choose if this is something they want to do, or if they love their cause, it the way it is. My husband is pretty much capsule, everything without even needing to try, so I don't have to worry about that, too. much he can. He can be such a minimal person in every area of his life, so it makes things so much easier. It's my kid's clothes that I struggle with keeping up with because they grow so quickly. People give us things, and maintaining a smaller wardrobe with them seems a bit trickier. Okay, now that you've thought a little bit about what you might need in your closet, we went through a few of those questions. And of course, you'll wanna. You want to spend some time with that? But once you do that, it's also a good idea to think about your mind set when it comes to clothing. And when it comes to other items you have in your house so often we have a mindset where Maura's better or the latest newest things are better. And I want you to really give that some thought. One of the things that we tell our kids is use it up and wear it out, and we think that's a pretty good mindset for almost anything that we come across as physical possessions in our home. And so when I look at my kid's clothing or my own clothing. I really want them to learn that you can wear it out, and now I'm not talking about like until there's holes and shreds in their clothes, and I'm sending them to school that way. Of course, those can become play clothes at home. But what I do mean is I don't want them trying to change their fashions, to impress people at school or anything like that. I want them to own quality clothes that take a while toe wear out that they can continue wearing because there's still good clothing and they're not thinking so much about what other people are going to think of their clothes. Clothes are really at more of Ah, you tallit terry type of purpose. We don't need to use them to express ourselves in quite the level that we often feel like we d'oh! So wearing it out is a really good mindset to have around close, and you can of course, you know if you start out with something for work and it starts to get a little bit worn, used that for clothes just at home, and you can get something new for work. If you need that another mindset that we've got to try to think about is that styles don't have to change so often. You can continue wearing what you like and let go of the comparisons. When you're out with friends, I have some very fashionable friends into them. They love that, and it's not putting ah burden on their financial situation, and it's just part of them and that's okay. But it's hard not to compare when you're out with other people that do want to be more fashionable. It's hard not to compare your wardrobe to theirs, but just remember that you don't have to be in style all the Titan. You could wear clothes that you like fine clothes that kind of are more classic and stay in style a little bit longer. And that way you won't have to do this comparison game all the time. Now when it comes to mind set, we also really have to think about the reasons that we go shopping in the first place, so one thing that you can ask yourself is when do I go shopping? Do I go shopping when I'm bored and don't have anything else to do? So I find myself in the target clearance rack looking through clothes. So I go shopping when I'm not feeling very good about myself and want to buy clothing to, hopefully help me feel better. Although that's probably a very temporary thing and doesn't cause lasting emotions to change. Do you go shopping when you're feeling stressed out? It's similar to like eating. If you're feeling like you're overweight, a lot of times you could ask yourself, What am I eating? And why am I eating these foods? Ah, lot of the same things they're gonna come up for, why you might go shopping and here's a really, really tough question, but I'm gonna put it out there anyways because I feel like this is a big part of the whole shopping and wardrobe mindset is Do you spend money that you have, or are you overspending? So when you go shopping for these clothes, is it because you have the money to do so? And this is something that you really like to d'oh? Or are you over spending the money that you'd rather be spending on something else? I think that's a really important thing to be totally honest with yourself. about, and if it comes down to that, you are enjoying shopping. But the money really isn't there or that you're overspending or should be allocating that money to something else. Then really figure out how much you're spending on clothes and what you would rather put that money towards and work towards spending less. Give yourself a budget, whether it's monthly or yearly or every six months or whatever. You might be able to d'oh or go on a spending freeze, meaning I'm not going to spend any money on clothing for the next, however long three months or whatever it is and be proud of yourself. When you make that goal and see that you still have the clothes that you need, you still have a wardrobe that's just fine. You'll really, really grow if you are able to do that. And spending freezes can be very tricky, especially if you're used to spending money when you want to. But this might be a very beneficial thing. If you find yourself spending more money, then you would like to or than you actually have. So how can you change your mind set today around clothing if you really think about where you're coming from, where the shopping's coming from. If you like to buy things that are in style so that you could be in style all the time, is there a way to help change your mindset and let yourself know that it's okay not to buy the newest and latest styles and rather look for clothing that's gonna last? That has a classic style that won't go out of style really quickly. And these are things that we can help teacher kids at an early age, too, so that when they grow up, they're not going through the same process that we're going through trying to get rid of the clothes or the excess clothes in our closet. So once you kind of battled through those questions, and I know some of them might take some time, it's time to really start getting rid of some things. It's time to let go of the things that don't make you feel good anymore. If you have a closet full of clothes that you hate wearing than likely, you hate getting dressed in the morning. It takes you too long. You're spending more money on clothes trying to find things that will work, so it's time to just let go of some of those things. So my suggestion is that you take everything out of your closet. I mean, every single thing out of drawers, out of extra closets that you might have in your house, whatever it is. And if you've watched tidying up on Netflix or read any of, um, Marie Condos books, then you know that she suggests this, too. When you're going through, any item in your house is to get everything out. That is a similar items. So for clothing, especially, I really agree with her in this. I think you get everything out because you don't really know how much you have until you see it all in a giant pile. So I do this with my kids, too, as I see that they're growing out of things or that their closet or drawer is getting too full. We'll take everything out and they see how much they have. And then we just keep a few of each item that are their favorites, that they're really wearing all the time. Once you take everything out, start with the easiest stuff to get rid of this stuff that no longer fits the stuff that has a stain on it or a hole on it or a hole in it. Excuse me. Um, get rid of the easy stuff first. Now, I also say get rid of the stuff that doesn't make you feel good right now. Ah, lot of people might have a hard time getting rid of this. So if that's you, that's okay. You may be holding onto items because you really want to lose weight and you know, you're gonna be £10 lighter and you have these clothes that you really want to fit back into. Two things on this one is those clothes don't make you feel good. Don't keep them in your closet and look at them every day and realize that you haven't met that goal. If you really can't get rid of it, what I say is box it up, put it in the garage or storage shed or whatever you have and get it out of your closet. If you lose that weight and you remember that it's there, then pull it back out and enjoy it. If it's still sitting there a year from now and you haven't done anything about it. It's probably time just to let it go. Another thing I want to say about that is, if you really are trying to lose weight, then let yourself by a few new items When you lose that weight, celebrate by going shopping and finding things that are gonna fit you well, chances are whatever you're holding onto isn't gonna fit your body the same as it used to anyway. And you might not feel is good in it. So instead, get rid of those clothes now if you can, and buy a few new things when you finally meet your goal weight. Now, another thing, when you're going through your clothing and trying to get rid of things is remember the types of clothes you said that you like to wear, the types of clothes that you said you needed for your current life situation and the amount of clothes that you might need for those situations. If you find yourself keeping almost everything as you go through this process, you might want to go back and remind yourself of what you said you actually needed during this time. You're probably just keeping ahold of excess things because you like them and you're not really sure what to do with them. If there are sentimental items and your clothing, maybe a shirt you got in high school or at a concert you went to or something that somebody gave you, you may want to try just snapping a picture of it or cutting a piece of it out and framing it, or putting it somewhere that you can look at rather than just having it shoved in a drawer shoved in your closet. So, for example, maybe you have a T shirt and it has a band on it that you went to see several times with your husband, and it's very sentimental to you, and you never wear the shirt. So that's the kicker. If it's a short that you love and you wear it all the time, keep the shirt. But if not, if it's just taking up space in your drawer and you never get to appreciate it, cut the logo off, putting on a little frame and set it up on your nightstand or on your wall or something like that, or if you're really, really crafty and you actually have the time to do it. Not if this is gonna add stress to your life, and you're gonna wonder when am I going to get this done? But if it's something that you enjoy doing and really do have the time for right now you can use those T shirts to make a quilt, or there's lots of people on etc. And elsewhere that will do this for you. You send them a bag of some fabric that you want to use either from clothing or other sentimental items, and they will make the quote for you. So that's always an option. But you can also just snap a picture. Put it on one last time, take a picture of yourself in it, or you likely have a picture from that event already, and maybe that will do the trick. So that's just a tip if you're having trouble getting rid of some things, but they truly are just taking up space, you may want to use a picture or keep it in some way where you'll get to appreciate it. Also, as you're going through your things, don't second guess yourself. So if you already put an item in the donate pile or give to a friend pile. Don't go back through that pile because chances are you're gonna be like, Well, I might still want this in the future. Or I might get to wear this again if you don't need it right now or you've decided it's not your favorite pieces or you have 20 different shirts and you don't need that many. Go ahead and give it to somebody else. That's gonna get a lot of use from it. Just keep your favorites that you wear all the time, not the things that barely ever get out of your closet. And also be careful not to hold on to things because of an image you used to think of yourself. So, for example, maybe you used to run marathons and you had a little windbreaker that you love that you wore to every race. And now it doesn't fit you, or you never wear it because you no longer run very often or something. If you're holding on to that just because of the image of the person you used tohave of yourself, you're really holding yourself back, so you really only wanna have clothes in your closet that make you feel good about who you are right now. If it's giving you negative thoughts because you're no longer that person, get rid of it. You don't need it in there. You don't need that added stress. So just go ahead and get rid of it. All right? Now you've got to kind of create the perfect wardrobe. So you know what? You're down two after you've gotten rid of things and I know you're not doing this as we were listening to those podcasts and it's gonna take you some time. But as soon as you are able to get rid of all the excess in your closet, you're gonna start to create your perfect wardrobe and organize your closet. Now, some people will tell you in a capsule wardrobe you have to have a certain number of items or be under a certain number of items. But in my opinion, what you're doing is getting down to the exact clothes you love. You're gonna wear all the time and make you feel good. And it doesn't matter what the number is. That number is going to be different for every person. Now, if it helps you to give yourself a number, a restriction or a boundary of some kind than do that. But if it's not helpful and it's more stressful than don't worry about the number of items I can't tell you right now the exact number of items I have in my closet now, if we broke it down, I could tell you the number of pants I have in shirts and all of that. Um, but right off the top of my head, I have no idea the number. I don't give myself that restriction, but it can be helpful for some people. So you're welcome to do that. And this really is the fun part. Creating the wardrobe that you're gonna love and then getting your cause it organized is the fun part of this, because then you won't mind getting dressed anymore. It'll actually actually be exciting to get dressed in the morning. So you're going to choose how you want your closet toe. Look, there's lots of different ways to organize your closet. You can organize it by colors. You could organize it by types of clothing. You would organize it from big to small. It's totally up to you. But I would choose a strategy. Choose the way you want your clothes to be hung. Whether you know I like my hangers all to go in a certain way and be all the shirts to be facing one direction. Just choose how you want it, toe look and then set it up that way, because it will be easier to put it back that way. Um, also talking about colors When you're thinking about creating the perfect wardrobe, I suggest having some kind of color scheme, meaning what colors do you like to wear all the time in my closet? I have blacks, whites and grays and then blues and pinks, and that's pretty much it. If if something else comes in, that's not kind of part of that color scheme I already have. I often don't keep it because I noticed that I don't wear It is often. This also helps you be able to mix and match your outfits much easier with fewer amounts of clothes. So almost every pair of pants that I have and shirt that I have and skirt can be mixed and matched, so I have a lot more outfits with fewer clothes. So think about that. As you're developing this perfect wardrobe, What colors do you naturally? Are you naturally drawn to? And how can you incorporate that into your wardrobe? And then when you do go shopping, it makes life a lot easier because you're only looking for certain items in certain colors and you don't have thio just wander through. It also doesn't give you such a huge variety of things to want to buy, so that might be helpful for some of you trying to do this. Another tip is that white space in your closet is actually a good thing. It's okay toe have shelves and aren't being used for anything. Or, you know, hanging bars that only have one or two things on them. Depending on the size of your closet, you may have more or less white space, but it's not about being to have some space in your closet. You don't have to decide how many clothes you have based on the size of your closet. Instead, decide how many clothes you have based on your lifestyle in the clothing that you need for it. If there's gaps in your wardrobe, which there likely will be. Now that you've gone through and gotten rid of things, you may need to go out and buy a few things. And what I say for this is to make a list. That way, you don't just go toe to a store and start purchasing things because they're on sale or clearance or they look good. You actually know what pieces you want. Maybe you need a pair of leggings. Um, maybe you need a pair of capri pans or a work outfit, whatever it might be right down specifically what you're looking for. And then as you go to stores, you can fulfill those gaps really easily without buying extra things. Another tip in your closet Andrew drawers is to make sure you can see everything if you can't see everything. If you don't have enough room for things to be spread out, enough hanging up in your closet or sitting in your drawers, then you may need to downsize a little bit more because you may not have the space. But if you can't see everything, it makes getting dressed way harder. It also makes putting your laundry away way harder and hopefully, by decreasing the amount of things you have in your closet, folding and putting away your laundry is going to be a much easier job. So we want to think about making sure that we can see everything and there's enough space for everything in the space that we already have. As you get dressed over the next few weeks after you've done this activity and gone through each of these steps, as you start to get dressed, you might notice that some of the things that you thought you would wear you don't actually wear, and it's okay to just go ahead and get rid of those right. Then everything should feel easy and take little thought when you're getting dressed in the morning. If you truly love everything that's in your closet, you'll grab a pair of pants and a shirt and be on your way. If it's for work, you can look at the work clothes that you have in there and quickly just grabbed two things that go together and fit and you'll be just fine. It's when we have so many extra things in her closet that we kind of get decision fatigue or we can't find what we are looking for or we feel like we don't have enough clothing because we actually have too much. So the less you can have in your closet the better. Just make sure you have what you need for your lifestyle right now and do remember you don't have to get down to a certain number. You do what feels right for you. If that number or the boundary helps you, then go ahead and do that. Now I know I went through this really quickly, and it's not as easy as I'm making it sound, because you do have to think about your mindset. You have to go through and actually get rid of your clothes. So schedule some time that you can do that, and you also have to be careful not to let all the stuff creep back in. So once you have your perfect wardrobe, then keep a running list. If something wears out or you need to replace something or something's come up or changed in your life and you need to add something, keep a little bit of a running list so that you know what you're going to need rather than just going shopping for clothes, go shopping for exactly what you want to replace in your closet. Some people will also do a one in one out rule. So if you do find something else that you would like to purchase and you come home with it, then you take something else out of your closet to make space for it. Sometimes that works really well. Sometimes it doesn't. It's kind of up to you and your personality. This works well for me, for my kids, for their toys and stuff. But it doesn't work as well for me, for clothing. It works much better for me just to know what I have and what I need and have a little list going if there's things that I need to add to my closet. So, for example, last winter I wear a vest very often. I always buy just a plain colored one black or white or blue because it goes with everything that I have. And last winter my vest completely fell apart because I had worn it so much. I didn't need to buy one then, but I had it on a little list so I could be looking for it throughout the year so that I could replace it for this year. So if you have a little list going in your head or on paper or wherever you need it, then it's easier for you to find the things that you want in your closet without over shopping. All right, I hope that's helpful for you today. I hope that you are able to minimize your closet in a way that makes getting dressed easier, because this really shouldn't be something that you have to think about. I hope it makes your laundry easier. I hope it takes the burden of putting the laundry away because, let's face it, that is the hardest part of laundry. It's easy to throw it in the machine and dry it, but getting it folded and put away is quite the task. So I hope it makes that part of your life easier as well. And I'd love to hear your thoughts on this. Whether you have gone through this process before or what hurdles you have or what success is you have, you can leave those in the comments at at home with kids dot com forward slash episode 22 you can also find that links and other resource is from this in the show notes there. So make sure that you visit that as well. All right, I look forward to talking with you next week. You just listen to an episode of the simple Home. Thank you so much for spending your time with me today. I feel truly honored to be a small part of your life. Please take a moment to give a rating and right quick review on iTunes that will help this podcast reach more people. And I appreciate the feedback we meet here every week. So hit. Subscribe. So you know, in the newest episode goes live. And for more practical tips on simplifying motherhood, visit at home with kids dot com. I can't wait to talk to you next time.