I thought Canadians just gutted a moose and climbed inside like the Tauntaun scene in Empire Strikes Back !

Looks very cohesive TG!
I am intrigued about all the things you bought because you “should” have them and then donated them again. Could you elaborate what sort of thing?
To this day I have never owned a denim jacket, or a leather jacket, and I only bought my first ever puffer jacket last year at the age of 58. On this forum it feels like those things are almost “shoulds” as so many Fabbers have them, but maybe you mean more of “the perfect white shirt” sort of thing- which I also don’t own! Essentially I don’t feel those things are me.

Jenni, that's a great question/comment ... for me I think there are two pitfalls I've fallen into, and it's actually a push-pull between the two as I write it - one is the "I need to be more interesting trap" in which I buy items to "mix things up" (gray and colourful jeans spring to mind) and "I need to be the perfect minimalist" trap in which I over-cull things that I still like to try to attain some sort of black and white capsule nirvana. So I'm happy with this capsule because I feel like balances to pursue one at the expense of the other (and I think if I stay in this mind-set I'll purchase more mindfully going forward and cull less aggressively - which will hopefully let me avoid ruts and evolve my style, while still maintaining a reasonably small closet, which I value).

Excellent reply thank you. I am not sure that being the perfect minimalist is likely to work when a person has a family. Also I very much worry about sustainability of buying and then donating clothing! Presumably without 30 + wears? I see the push-pull you are talking about though. As you probably know I have had the opposite issue to minimalism, buying too much and not donating enough to counter what I was buying. This year I have been much, much better, purchasing only 9 items and being gifted one item. I have also donated 16 items with another 5 ready to go. Of those 21 only 5 have had under 30 wears, mostly past mistakes like high heeled shoes. What I would like to get to is only donating for wear rather than for either discomfort or change of mind. However I am aware that could also become a trap similar to your traps! It also leaves the donated clothing looking worn- which makes the end status of it more likely to be landfill, although I do use a system where it can go to rag recycling. Difficult to make right decisions... I do feel much more in control now though and that I am not wasting resource as I once did.