Spring Cleaning: Clothes Closet Economics
Too many clothes, not enough closet space?
Where to put your heaps (upon heaps) of clothes can be a problem, especially if you’re planning to buy an older home or a smaller home. In those types of listings, closet space is at a premium. What can you do?
A. Buy a bigger home, with a bigger closet
B. Call a reality TV show for help with a closet makeover
C. Store your extra stuff in an off-site storage building
D. Throw away or donate stuff you don’t need
Plenty of people pick option A. And they have the oversized utility bills to prove it. However, we hope you picked option D.
The True Cost to Own That Dress
You just bought a summer frock for $200. Summer is three months long. You’ll wear the dress exactly 12 times this year. Next summer, will you bring the dress out? Yes, but it’s likely you’ll wear it half as many times, if at all. The third summer? It will hang in your closet and you’ll never pull it out.
Each wearing cost you $11.11. Was it worth it? Maybe, until you do the math.
Now add in the underclothes ($8), shoes ($10), belts ($4), jewelry ($30), and handbag ($20) and you’ll see that every time you get dressed, you’re amortizing about $2,500 a month, enough to make a monthly payment on a $400,000 home.
If you really want to make yourself sick, go through each item in your closet and write down what you paid for it. If it adds up to a decent down payment on a house, you’re beginning to get the picture.
Take charge because there’s no such thing as investment dressing, because clothes don’t build equity. For every new garment you buy, another becomes obsolete, because you stop wearing it.
Ideas That Can Help
- Create a keep, donate, and throw away pile. If you haven’t had a garment on in two years, donate it. If you find stained, out-of-shape, or otherwise nonwearable clothes, throw them out. If this is too hard, weed your closet alone, and then once again with a sensible friend.
- Keepers should be clothes you love, not sizes you can’t wear.
- Keepers are multi-purpose. They can be dressed up or down, or transition into the next season with a sweater or jacket. They can go over or under other clothes.
- Keepers are classic. They don’t scream last year or fashion victim.
- Try this…Hang all of the clothes in your closet with the hook facing you. Each time you wear something, hang it back with the hook facing away from you. This will tell you how often you wear your clothes, so you can discard items not worn in the last year.
- Go back over your receipts for the past year and add up what you spent on clothing. Vow that at least 75% of that amount this year will go toward a down payment on a home or toward paying your new mortgage down.
- Make a clothing budget for new purchases and stick to it. If you choose 10% of your income, go back and read this article over again.
- Make a new game – how long can you make a good piece of clothing last? How many ways can you wear it?
- Find other ways to get euphoric – like shopping for houses instead of blouses online.
- And when you buy your dream home, treat yourself to a closet organizing system, so you can see what you own – all at one time.
Share your tips for cleaning out your closet below. How long does it normally take you to do this?
by Tisha Gay