Are you ever convinced that you have failed to meet a goal, and then you step back a little and realize that you've actually made a good bit of progress? Last year one of the things I wanted to move toward was shopping less often and in more concentrated chunks. In my head I'd done a crappy job with that, but looking at the actual data - i.e. my budget/items in file - I'm actually close. The last winter purchase I made was in mid-January, and all my spring purchases were 2/18 through this week (still waiting for the last of the online orders to arrive to decide k/r). And I'm done - assuming everything works out, I have no big holes and should be good with clothes until it starts getting properly hot, May-June-ish.

It's not literally in a day or a weekend, but then I wasn't aiming for that. I doubt I'd like that anyway, since that would eliminate online shopping and I couldn't take as much advantage of opportune sales.

The aha has been the timing - I didn't expect to start needing some spring things so early, planning to do my spring shopping in March-April. That's partially the weather here this year, and partially that I'm becoming more decisive. I know what I want and don't want, and when I see it at a reasonable price I want to snag it, rather than waiting until I absolutely need it.

I've still got my budget divided up seasonally, and in halves, so I allocate a certain amount for the first half of spring, say, and then once I spend it I'm done, and then there will be a new amount for the second half of spring. Originally this was tied to the 'proper' seasons (solstices and equinoxes etc.) but I've realized that as far as buying goes, you need to buy your wardrobe in advance of needing to wear it (duh) so really the second half of winter should be about buying for spring, second half of spring for summer, etc. (Obviously you'd have to adjust this for the weather wherever you live; those of you with snow still on the ground still have a bit of time before you have to worry about sandals and capris.)