I discovered YLF early in 2014 when my wardrobe had been neglected for a long time, and as a result I ended up majorly re-hauling it. Counting
all new clothing or accessory purchases I bought or acquired 129 new pieces last year (wow). I also did some purging and ended up keeping 61 items of legacy clothing.

I also immediately started tracking all my wears and purchases in Excel with an overall goal of a finite budget for the year, and a CPW (cost per wear) goal for the year. I wanted to be able to look back and see my buying and wearing patterns and to be able to draw conclusions. I'll put these first followed by the number breakdowns in a comment if anyone is interested. Just a note this is a four season closet (I don’t do seasonal switch-outs, because few items need to be benched with our mild cool weather.)

My Discoveries:

-I bought the majority of items early 2014 when I first started reading YLF, and my buying tapered off significantly after the spring.

-The general result was that I was happiest with my later purchases and although I sometimes spent more per item, the wears were higher.

-I also overbought significantly in certain categories at first (tights, leggings, tops) when I first started. I had a vision of my style which leaned on one silhouette (tunic top over skinnies/leggings) and I didn't yet have a clear sense of what was current and how my style would crystallize and evolve.

- The areas with highest average wear numbers per item for 2014 were
bags, belts, jackets, shoes, and pants. These are fairly safe areas to purchase more, but I need to be very careful about further top purchases (or purge more)

- The main legacy items I held onto were scarves, tops, and shoes. There tend to be a fair number of 'just in case' items in those categories - mufflers for rare snowy weather, black tops that work with certain skirts, etc., so they could potentially be culled further.

- I met my budget goal for the year, and my CPW for all 2014 items averaged was $0.63, with all items except for a leather jacket falling below my $1 CPW goal.

- I used income from consigning some older clothes to reduce the out of pocket cost for a few higher priced items (mostly coats, bags, and shoes) to help me stick with my goals.

How CPW tracking altered my wearing habits:

- I used my tracking to set goals for what I wanted to wear more often, by color highlighting high CPW items and building outfits around them for the week ahead.

- This led to new items (once I was sure they wouldn't be returned) getting worn intensely at first. This seemed to work well as I really got comfortable with each new purchase and all the outfits I could make of it. This didn't work as well when I first started the year because I purchased so many clothes during Jan/Feb I couldn’t keep up with immediately wearing or integrating them. The result was that the earliest clothes purchased were often the ones worn least during the year.

- Focusing on CPW maximizing led to continuously cycling through my entire closet and made it really clear which items had issues or didn't remix in as many outfits. This made it possible for me to adjust new purchases as I went, by knowing what to avoid, and what the 'true' wardrobe holes were--the items that would suddenly make a number of earlier purchases work better, which could be as simple as a belt or camisole.

- I tended to wear fewer older (previous years) items, but some were essential workhorses. I also tried to highlight them seasonally so I wouldn't miss the appropriate window to wear them. Ones that didn't work as well with my newer clothes/style direction got culled or consigned.

- I didn't cull any 2014 purchases during 2014, if I bought them and didn't return them before wearing, I made them work during the year. There are some I want to cull now though.

- starting this year I want to highlight any items below a certain number of wears as well as continuing my CPW highlighting, because that seems useful for reclaiming neglected favorites and knowing what really no longer works or is surplus to requirements and needs to go.

- The CPW and wear averages for the year give me good ballpark ideas of the out of pocket amount that makes sense to spend on each new
purchase -- assuming the category sizes stay relatively constant.

-I also can pretty much tell at a glance at the spreadsheet what to keep or donate, if for example I needed to downsize my closet by half or something, and know what items are ‘on probation’ for culling as part of regular wardrobe maintenance.

The happiness factor:

- I logged and starred outfits (1-3 stars) according to my happiness factor so I knew what I wanted to repeat. Later in the year there were many more three star outfits than at the beginning. I started to give stars to clothing items as well, but then realized this was apparent to me already.

-I can search the log in Excel if I want to find combos for certain items, or read notes about what each item pairs well with, and feedback left after wearing an outfit for the day.

- In general I was happiest with items that were workhorses (high wears) and could be remixed in many different ways, and/or items that had some character due to their color (within a limited palette), pattern, texture and design.

-If I had a high number of items in a category (like tops) I was happiest with the most interesting and unusual ones rather than basics. Neutral black and gray tops in 'useful' cuts had the lowest wear numbers in my closet

Shopping/Going Forward:

- I enjoy it. My biggest issue was the time spent on the hunt.

- tracking where I bought the new 2014 clothes: 20% were thrifted, 14% were from fast fashion retailers, 13% were from department stores, 43% were from off-price retailers (Rack, Ross, TJ Maxx, etc.), and 10% were other.

-Ideally I'd like to lean toward shopping more thrift and less fast fashion for ethical reasons, but that doesn't always work with the items I'm looking for and the time I can spend hunting.

-My item happiness or unhappiness was across the board, there were no
particular correlations I could make between happiness and out of pocket price or where the item was bought, although happiness and quality of
construction/materials/design were linked.

-I'm setting my budget for the year at 1/2 or less of what I spent last year – having just replaced 2/3rds of my closet, I feel 90% set.

-I'd also like to remain static or somewhat reduce my closet size, so I will try for one in and one (or more) out with tops and other ‘overstocked’ categories in particular.

-I have a wardrobe wish list and my tracking lets me know how much to spend and which categories are okay to expand, and which I'd really better not.

If you read all this I'm amazed. All feedback welcome! If you track your wardrobe in any way what have you discovered? (Numbers below in first comment)