Too Many Clothes?

In our society of “more is better” it is very east to get caught in the trap of having too many clothes.

Too many?  Yes, I know it sounds like a foreign concept, especially if you are anything like me and love to buy new clothes!

But the reality is aside from the obvious outlay of money to buy clothes in the first place, there are many other drawbacks of having too many clothes.

First of all you have to store all these clothes.  Having to shove clothing into wardrobes and drawers filled to capacity is frustrating.  More clothes equates to more time dealing with them.

Too many clothes also creates too many choices, especially if you are a bit of a procrastinator.  Think about how much time you waste trying to decide what to wear everyday.  Less clothes equals less choices equals less time deciding what to wear.

Another very common problem that having too many clothes creates is not keeping up with the laundry.  I have seen this in several clients homes.  They are busy people, trying to prioritise what needs to be done everyday, and since they still have clothes to wear they put off doing the laundry.  This leads to what I like to call “Chinese Laundry Syndrome”.  The clothes line is full, the airers are full, the dirty washing hampers are full, there are laundry baskets sitting around full of clean clothes waiting to be folded and the ironing basket is overflowing!

Once you get to this situation it takes several days of concerted effort to sort it out and unfortunately the dirty washing keeps building up while you are messing around with all the clean stuff.  It is very difficult situation to resolve.

So how many clothes are enough?  I like to begin with a weeks’s worth of clothes and work from there as everyone’s situation is different.  If you are a stay at home mum you will generally need less clothes that someone who works.  People who exercise frequently will need more clothes, as do people who participate in activities that require a certain type of outfit (ie karate, surfing, diving etc).

Children of school- going age need often need school uniform as well as enough casual clothes to get through school holidays. Toddlers who are toilet training need more clothes due to frequent accidents and refluxing babies need an amazing amount of clothing (I know, I had three!).

Consideration also has to be given to your laundry habits.  If you tend to wash most days you will need less clothes than someone who washes once a week.

The easiest way to figure it out is to firstly separate your clothes into what you think you will need.  If the clothes are hanging, turn the hangers around the wrong way on the clothes you don’t think you will need.  Separate folded clothes into different drawers or shelves.  For a month try to wear only the clothes you have allocated to keep, only adding extra clothes if you need them, this should be long enough to figure out your requirements, but if in doubt do it for longer.

After this time you can assume that the clothes on the hangers the wrong way aren’t needed, and neither are the clothes still in the drawers or shelves you haven’t touched.  If you are still not convinced, continue until the end of the season and see what has not been touched then.

Just a note, teenage children, especially girls in their mid-late teens will probably be very oppositional when you propose this idea to them!  You could possible say to them that you are going to provide them with a certain amount of clothes and anything above and beyond that is their responsibility to purchase.  It is a great time in their lives to be learning that more is not better.  Also have them involved in the laundering of clothes, all the way from dirty washing hamper , through the machine, drying, ironing and finally putting away so they can appreciate the effort taking care of their clothing requires.

Once you have sorted your family’s clothing down to a much more manageable level you can keep it there by enforcing the“one in, one out” rule. This applies to any clothing that comes into your home, including hand me downs.  That way you should keep your clothing at the manageable level you worked hard to get it to.