For me, I'm shopping for wants and not needs when there are items in my closet that I've purchased and haven't even worn yet. And yes, I have a few of those.

However, when you find something you truly TRULY love, that will work with your wardrobe and make you smile every time you wear it, and that can be afforded comfortably, then maybe that's ok.

I know that I am really trying to follow Angie's advice about wearing the heck out of my clothes. I don't want to become a "buyer" but not a "wearer", you know?

Sigh. I LOVE that jacket and had it in my cart for awhile hoping it would go on sale again. Alas, I finally decided that my shoulders are too narrow and my arms are way too short and fat for it to make it work for me so I took it out. Orange will actually go with most neutrals and many colors. I'm finding wants vs. needs difficult to assess, too.

Thanks for the tip on the purses at Penney's! I will definitely check them out..

Thanks for the kind words, Gaylene

Una, I believe in wardrobe discipline, so I really like what Shannon, Gaylene, Mary and Zap suggested here. Remember that you have to WEAR your clothes - and there are only so many times that you can wear something because of your lifestyle.

It's hard to cull the shopping habit when you have the budget and it's a fun hobby. The activity almost becomes like a coping mechanism, and crutch for something else. An escapism. Perhaps channel this shopping energy elsewhere?

I really like Angie's response because it resonates strongly with me. I have the budget after years of hard work (although DD foray to university next year will impact my clothing budget) but I have to step back and ask myself am I teaching my kids the right values, shopping as a hobby or when I am bored, fed up, etc. This is especially important as DD leaves the nest next year and has to manage her own tiny budget. We can't always have everything we want, even if we have the $$.

I'll get off my soap box now

Just thinking about this some more and wondering if this applies to every purchase - for example, I'm wanting a cream leather handbag for next spring/summer. It is obviously not a NEED now but if I were to see one on clearance from this past summer's stock that is classic enough to still be in style next summer, wouldn't it make sense to buy it now so as not to pay full price?

Are there times where the need doesn't apply?

All good thoughts and Angie, I appreciate the gentle admonishment! I do worry about whether shopping should be a hobby at all sometimes, at least for me. Perhaps it's time for me to back off here a bit? It would be really hard to channel my energy elsewhere and still be active on the forum (which for me triggers so many of my "wants") - but on the other hand, I feel very attached to people here and would miss my daily interaction, which is as much if not more of a pleasure and outlet than the actual shopping!

Pondering....

Shannon's question is a good one too - in fact, Shannon, I think I asked you the same question on your post about buying the cognac jacket!

Una, funny I was signing in to reply to this when I got a message from QM about my efforts to take a little step back lately.
I have been quite happy with coming in a bit less often, posting not quite as many WIW's etc. I still feel I can drop in, enjoy time, and contribute without having to be part of the acquiring and buying. There is plenty we can do with our wardrobes besides buy new things, right??
I bought and returned one thing in the last month. And it was not even influenced by YLF - I saw it in a magazine 3 months ago!! So, yes, you can come here and still enjoy YLF

I just have to live with the fact that there is always going to be something new that I "need." SYC is a total failure for me. If I keep it at 2-3 workhorses/mo (not counting replacements or undergarments), I think I will be in good shape.

i bought this jacket which i loved and my hubs also liked. great perforated detail. sporty trend but also classic cut in an amazing color that fit me like a glove.

i returned it because i knew i wanted it but couldn't come up with three occasions that i would choose this jacket over any of the other i have in my closet.

I was lying in bed two nights ago, looking into my closet, and thinking about how I was feeling... amazingly... pretty satisfied with the ol' wardrobe. I feel it's really working for me.

Oh, there's a ton of room for improvement and plenty of work left: I could use a boat load of tailoring. There's a lot of giveaways to sort out. There are also some "nice to haves" that would be... nice to have. But no gaping holes eating away at me.

Not sure how I got here or how long it will last. Maybe it's because I feel the holidays coming on and the need to spend on others. Or the pain of two moves with the amount of stuff I had and trying to stuff all that into the tiniest of closets. Or fashion evolution having slowed down IMO. Or my really needing the time to do other things.

But I think it has more to do with having my bases covered... more specifically knowing exactly what I do with my life and how often. I think maybe I could even move back to the 'burbs and make this wardrobe work for me. I probably never made an honest, holistic assessment of these things until arriving on Angie's YLF.

Ok. That's a lot about me. Where am I going with this? Well, it makes me think... I think you've hit your style stride in a major, killer - yes KILLER - way, but I have questions:

1) You've hit your style stride, but is your wardrobe the well-oiled machine that it could be?

2) Do you have the big picture of your personal wardrobe still in mind? There's having a serious interest in general fashion, there's looking good, there's dressing your style, and then there's the closet you want to keep.

3) Why do you buy when you shop? What are you primed for? A thing I learned being a tech writer - those airplane safety cards. You ever consider the fact that they provide little to no useful information? What's important about them is not the info they do or don't give, but rather by reading them, you prime yourself to act and think in what would otherwise be a paralysing situation. If your wardrobe is good now, you may need to prime yourself for a different kind of shopping and buying.

It's interesting - that's a whole other set of fashion question to tackle. After putting a good wardrobe together once, how do you move forward? What rate of replacement? When to do a bigger style reassessment as time goes on? How not to get stuck (again?) in a certain decade...

Una, I don't think you need to drop off the forum. To me the interaction and friendship is the core of the forum and it's why I choose to be a part of the group. To me fashion is a much bigger (and more interesting topic) than shopping.

Enough is enough when you've either:

a) run through your budget
b) run out of storage space
c) have too many clothes you aren't wearing
d) have so many clothes it's overwhelming you mentally

Usually we can stop ourselves before we get to this point. I'm at the point where I have enough clothes to get dressed every day. The budget helps every potential purchase has to battle it out against the others. Would I rather buy another blouse/sleeveless top, or would I rather save that money towards a pair of boots or a purse that I've been wanting? Or I evaluate - do I love this item as much as my previous favorite purchases?

So in your case would you rather have the orange jacket or would you rather have your OC purchases? You aren't going to return your OC purchases but maybe the exercise will help you figure out how much you love the jacket.

Rachylou, I think your questions should be a whole separate post - I'd love to hear all the answers and will have to think about my own!

I see you as still being in the middle of a style revolution, and for your life, a jacket is key to your professional outfits. The question isn't whether you need **another jacket** the question is, are the "outfit maker" jackets you have and that you wear to work, working for you? Would this replace something that isn't working? How many "really working" jackets do you need to be appropriate and feel fab in your workplace? Is this a "work jacket" that would also come out to play on weekends? (I would think, yes.)

I shall have to think more on it myself (!), Una.

I was just considering... you saw a jacket you liked and had an impulse to buy and then another impulse contradicting the first. I was wondering what your inner self was telling you.

Not to totally hijack the thread, but it just sort of occurred to me that only one month of my 2+ years on YLF have I been back working, in uniform. So . . . if I've had enough to wear for 2 years off, certainly I will have MORE than enough with only a couple of days off a week again. (smacks forehead with the obviousness of it - duh)

I notice a trend with myself: if the item is just so perfect I do not hesitate and it comes right home with me. I do not think to poll YLF. I do not question if I can afford it. Heck, I may not even look at the price tag (assuming it's a brand that is within my budget). I certainly do not wait for a sale.

If I hesitate, if I leave to go home and "think about it"... more often than not, I cool on it after a few days, and I never go back to purchase it.

So......... based on that, if it were me, I'd say this jacket isn't meant to be. But you are not me. So I will watch and see whether it winds up in your closet.

That's a hard question! I love the orange jacket for you, but it's easy to spend someone else's money! lol

I have been following this thread with great interest and just wanted to say Una, that if you are thinking the the forum is tempting you too much, and yet you don't want to disengage from the lovely commmunity, that maybe you could restrict your reading to the less tempting tabs - perhaps just read the general and off topic forums, say.

I tend to be like shiny. I often will see see something that is just "right" for me, and if it fits great do not even question it. It comes home with me. If I have to hem haww about it or figure out how I would use it I often regret it if I purchase it. The only time this doesn't work for me is with shoes. My feet can be very fussy

I'm really bad about shopping because I want, instead of shopping because I need. In fact it's one of the reasons I started to blog about it. Maybe blogging will give me an outlet for my shopping habit.

For myself part of the problem is shopping for boredom, and part is shopping because I like something new. I have found over time, the bulk of my donations are always the impulse purchases. Once in a while they work out but more often than not, they end up orphans. Changing the behavior, is a challenge. I do find as others have said, when it's an item that just screams "me" I don't post for a poll on YLF and I don't wait to wear it either. I need to pay closer attention to my own behavior.

I'm really enjoying this thread.

When you feel overwhelmed and/or guilty, too much.

When you see a beautiful, perfect item that hits you square in the head, go for it. If you only wear it a few times but every time you do you feel like the most gorgeous creature in your hemisphere, then IMO it is worth it.

How nice to see this thread come back to life... especially since I have spent some time really thinking about these issues since I first posted it. Thank you all so much for continuing to hash this out with me!

I am a lot like Lisa in that shopping is partly to fulfill my love for new things. And YLF has really helped me figure out what I can wear well - unfortunately there is so much of it out there right now, and I have been in stock-up mode far too long! As I've said, I really need the trends to switch to girly pastels and boho silhouettes. I spent my first year here copying a lot of styles (PB blouse?!) that turned out to be mistakes, and that's been a lot of my purging. Recent purchases have tended NOT to be orphans as I've gotten much better at knowing what works. The problem now is ignoring those items!

I have started my PPW notebook to track how many times I wear new purchases, and several life issues are taking financial priority right now (kitchen remodel, saving to pay for a surprise 50th anniversary party for my parents next summer), which I think will help keep me on the right track. I think the key for me is not to make rules that make me feel guilty or deprived, which tend to backfire, but rather to focus on what I do have and adding more judiciously, if it all.

I don't want or plan to leave the forum altogether! I'd miss you all too much.

What are your strategies for staying under control, if you have a budget that allows you room to play?

You know, this is making me realize that in my case there are probably several external factors that make this easier for me. My budget is pretty tight in a year and it has to be respected, so only so much can go to "frivolous" things. I have a set amount that I am able to spend each month. I share my office with 6 people, and besides that my boss loves to walk by and check what I am doing, so I never surf/shop at work, even on break. Stores are closed on Sundays, so all errands for the week have to be accomplished on Saturday, meaning weeks can go by with no time for browsing. I live in a small apartment with limited storage space and am not willing to stumble over my stuff, so if there is no more space for clothes or shoes, that's another limit. I have moved every few years for the last eon, which introduces a natural purge cycle. Yup, turns out I am not as virtuous as I thought, just externally limited.

alaskagirl, i also don't believe in syc. there is just no point for me and i never, never go over-budget when making my purchases. to me, if you like it, want it, and it fits in your closet then get it. for me, if i don't need it but i want it, if it's over a certain price that will cause me to hesitate. i am also more often in professional clothes than casual clothes so trendy casual clothes just don't have a place in my closet.