Author: quirky_gal

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Buying Stuff

Here’s some stats on stuff I’ve bought over the last 3 years arranged in categories.
The biggest one, no surprise, is apparel which includes clothes, shoes, bags, jewelry, accessories, and so forth. Though, for me, it’s mostly clothes.

The rest of the categories seems small in comparison… But the next 2 biggest were personal care and home. I’ve defined personal care to include essentials such as toothpaste and soap but also non-essentials such as makeup. Home includes any home fixtures, home accessories, kitchen items, books, office supplies, garden items, and anything else related to the home aside from consumables, such as toilet paper, paper towels, and other household supplies. Somehow, I thought that home decor didn’t really belong in the same category as toilet scrubbers but I guess I could have combined everything and it wouldn’t have really made a difference.

Then, we have electronics. You’ll notice there are 2 numbers on the graph. This is because I didn’t buy that many electronic items but I bought a $530 laptop which skewed the results. So I wanted to show the difference. Every other category didn’t change the overall order of spend whether using item count or dollar spend but electronics were interestingly very different. Leisure includes hobbies, sports, and crafts. Other is everything else that didn’t fit nicely elsewhere.

I didn’t include food and gas here because that was a routine thing that didn’t seem interesting to track. It’s something I’m going to use up anyway and doesn’t really help me understand my journey to owning less. Did I mention I want to become a minimalist?
I also didn’t include anything that wasn’t a physical thing, such as experiences, services, or plane tickets. Come to think of it, I probably forgot a few travel souvenirs in this list as I’m not as diligent about tracking when I’m on vacation but I doubt that would change the results much.

Anyway… I can’t say I learned anything earth-shattering. I probably should spend less on clothes. But we knew that already, didn’t we?

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Comparing Wardrobes

What is an “average” wardrobe? And how do I compare?
This turned out to be a difficult question to answer because there are widely varying numbers out there.
The statistics I could find were individual people posting their numbers or asking friends and acquaintances (which is certainly not a statistical sample of the population).
After falling down the research rabbit hole, I also looked at existing studies but the results probably depend on the sample of people asked and method of measuring, and purposes of the study.
This is definitely not rigorous as some more comprehensively tracked statistics but it is a starting point…

One statistic that looks too low to me is the oft-quoted average number of items in an American woman’s wardrobe of 103 items. This was the result of surveying about 1,000 American women a few years ago.
The gals I talked to all said they had probably 150-200 pieces at the low end and some were sure they had 500+.
While the online wardrobe bloggers tracking this info generally either had teeny capsule wardrobes around 50 items (though many didn’t seem to be counting workout clothes and/or sleepwear) or 500+ items, they are probably not representative of the population.
I also suspect that the item count is probably grossly underreported because most people probably have clothes that we forgot about or “don’t count” for whatever reason. It also contradicts with the study that looked at the percentage of clothes worn in the last 12 months, finding 82% of clothes had not been worn. I highly doubt that the “average” woman only uses less than 20 of the 103 items she supposedly has.
It’s more likely that her active wardobe is 103 pieces and that if she were to count everything she doesn’t wear, she’d easily end up in the 200-500+ range.

One statistic that looks too low to me is the oft-quoted average number of items in an American woman’s wardrobe of 103 items. This was the result of surveying about 1,000 American women a few years ago.
The gals I talked to all said they had probably 150-200 pieces at the low end and some were sure they had 500+.
While the online wardrobe bloggers tracking this info generally either had teeny capsule wardrobes around 50 items (though many didn’t seem to be counting workout clothes and/or sleepwear) or 500+ items, they are probably not representative of the population.
I also suspect that the item count is probably grossly underreported because most people probably have clothes that we forgot about or “don’t count” for whatever reason. It also contradicts with the study that looked at the percentage of clothes worn in the last 12 months, finding 82% of clothes had not been worn. I highly doubt that the “average” woman only uses less than 20 of the 103 items she supposedly has.
It’s more likely that her active wardobe is 103 pieces and that if she were to count everything she doesn’t wear, she’d easily end up in the 200-500+ range.

So, why bother comparing anyway? I’m sure everyone has different reasoning for whatever amount of clothes they have based on factors such as personal preference, storage space, budget, attachment to clothes, and so on.
You might be a just-in-case type or you might need to keep several sizes because your body tends to fluctuate between sizes. Maybe you just really like clothes.
For me, as an ultralight traveler and a general environmentalist, the minimalist wardrobe sounds appealing in theory but for some reason, I seem to accumulate clothes like a packrat. So, I wanted to have a gauge as to what was “average”. I’m not sure that the studies I found were conclusive but it was fun to look around nonetheless.

Aside from the overall count, I’m doing pretty well in the other areas.
I probably buy less than the average, I keep my garments for longer, and while my disposal rate is close to average this is mainly because I did a large clear out in 2020, getting rid of things I’ve held on to way longer than I should have.
Without the clear out, I’d be averaging only about 22 garments that left my wardrobe per year.

Also, I’m pretty diligent about decanting clothes that don’t fit or are falling apart so I have no unwearable pieces.
There are a few that are old and aren’t in the best shape but they are still technically wearable.
Also, I tend to end up buying roomier clothes rather than skin-tight things and have fortuantely been about the same size so I still fit into most of my old clothes.
As I said, I do wear a lot of my wardrobe and while I could do a lot better than the 43%, at least it’s better than the women in one study.

Am I a minimalist? Of course not.
Am I going to be more conscientious about what I buy in the future? Maybe… I always feel like I should be after looking at things like this but realistically, it doesn’t stick and I end up buying whatever I’m going to buy anyway.
Am I going to feel bad about my wardrobe? Nope. Not losing any sleep over it.

Sources I looked:
https://blog.closetmaid.com/2016/05/full-to-the-brim
https://allongeorgia.com/national-news/wasteful-world-study-reveals-we-dont-wear-82-of-closet-contents/
https://www.wsj.com/articles/fashion-brands-message-for-fall-shoppers-buy-less-spend-more-1409786240
https://www.plateconference.org/age-active-life-clothing/

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Wardrobe By The Numbers

I have 460 items of things I can wear! I’ve shared percentages before but I’ve never shared actual numbers. This has been a deliberate choice and I’ve been reluctant to share the count for a long time though I started to examine why this was the case.

Why did I feel the need to hide the facts about my wardrobe?
Well, I guess I was a little afraid of what people think. There are a lot judgy peeps on the interwebs out there. Some of you probably think that I’m frivolous having wasted my money on so many clothes. Although I’ve always been responsible about my purchases and I’ve never bought anything I couldn’t afford or prioritized fashion over paying bills or necessary expenses, I can think of other better uses for that money. I think I’m also being wasteful and damaging the environment by overconsuming clothes that I don’t absolutely need.

But the truth is that people are going to think whatever they’re going to think anyway.
One of the whole points of this blog is to shed light on the data in the ordinary things and how can I do that if I don’t put any information out there? Sure, there are a few studies of people’s wardrobes over the years but it’s not really a serious research topic and the numbers can be wildly inaccurate if people are just guessing… I never would have thought I had this many clothes until I did a precise count and started tracking this info.

So, in the spirit of transparency and to give other people concrete numbers to react to…I’ve put up my info.

My initial reaction is that I have way too many clothes. Now, some of it is rather old (75% was purchased over 5 years ago) and I do still wear most of it. Still, I’m not a fashion blogger or a fashionista though I do like clothes. I also have a hard time letting go of things. They say you should get rid of things you haven’t worn in 6 months but I’ve found that I’ve taken a hiatus from wearing a piece for several years, then come back to it and started wearing it again.

What am I counting as a wardrobe item?

  • I counted tops, bottoms such as pants and skirts, dresses, and outer layers such as coats, jackets, & cardigans
  • Some people don’t count these but I included my pajamas and sleepwear, lounge clothes, and workout gear (I don’t distinguish between “home” and “going out” clothes because it’s not that much different and I’m not one those formal dressers that would be embarrassed to be caught the grocery store wearing sweats and yoga pants. Besides, it leaves a lot of room for cheating if you don’t count piece just because you typically wouldn’t wear them outside the house).
  • I didn’t count accessories such as scarves, hats, sunglasses, or jewelry
  • I didn’t count shoes or purses (hard goods as the donation store calls it)
  • I also don’t count underwear… (so thongs not counted, whether you’re thinking of flipflops or underwear)
  • Grey area: I counted camisoles, which could be lumped with undergarments though it could be worn as on it’s own like a tank top. I also count crop tops but not sports bras.
  • Also, is it a scarf or a shawl? I don’t really wear shawls as outwear and mostly just use scarves as accessories so those aren’t counted.
  • I also have a few multi-functional pieces that don’t fall nicely into a category. For example, I have cardigans that I can button up and wear like a top or wear unbuttoned on top of another shirt. So, should they be tops or outerwear? I also have a convertible skirt dress.
    (My rule is that if I generally wear it like a top, bottom, dress, or outwear then that’s what I count it as.)
  • Count sets or items? Do a set of pajamas count as 1 or 2? What about suit sets? What about socks?
  • I counted items separately if they can be worn separately without requiring the other garment. So, if I can wear the pajama top with other pajama bottoms and so forth, the set will count as 2 pieces. If the set is attached and can’t be physically separated, it counts as 1 item. As discussed above, I don’t count socks in the wardrobe as they are part of my undergarments (though I think a separate count on those is warranted.) However, if I were counting socks, I would count each pair as 1 (rather than each item) since I’m probably never going to wander around with just 1 sock.

This seems like a lot of extra work to define the count but also necessary, I think.

So, how many pieces do you have in your wardrobe, according to whatever definition makes sense for you?

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Where Does My Time Go?

I’m back… After a long hiatus from the blog, I’ve decided to start posting things again. I meant to keep posting and had a few ideas in the pipeline but then 2020 happened and all such plans went out the window. It didn’t seem relevant to post anymore. Still, I think I’m finally getting back to equilibrium here so let’s just pick up where we left off.

Over a year ago, I started tracking how I spent my time. Have you ever found yourself complaining that you just don’t have enough hours in the day to get everything done? Haven’t we all? Sure, everybody is busy but I wanted to see where it was going and how I could be more efficient. Someone once told me that saying, “I’m too busy to do XYZ” is just another way of saying “It’s not a priority.” Was I spending time on the things that I wanted to?

I learned that I do have a decent amount of downtime especially on the weekends (though it never feels like it). I get a decent amount of sleep (or at least, time trying to go to sleep), and have cut down on the boring must-do’s as much as I can though I think there’s always room to improve. It also made me rethink one item (rolled up under projects) that I realized wasn’t worth 3-4 hours of my time each week. Sure, it only seemed like an hour here or there a few days a week but it added up and I wasn’t even really enjoying it anymore. Seeing the data just gave me the validation I needed to let it go and free up my time toward other things I actually want to do.

Now, how did I track my time? For 2 weeks, I used the app Now Then to track my every move. This was a pretty typical 2 weeks for me. I admit it was tedious but worth it to see how I usually spend my weeks. Of course, this is all pre-pandemic life, so I maybe it’s worth repeating for new data…. We’ll see.

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How often am I talking to a robot?

In theory, talking to robots sounds super cool. In practice, not so much.

Between increased robo-calls and the increased preference for texting among my friends over the last few years, it occurred to me that the number of useful calls has plummeted. But how bad is it? I sorted through my call history one boring day and categorized my incoming and outgoing calls to find out just how many of my calls were adding value.

The results are pretty dismal… Over the 9 months period that I tracked, only 7% of the calls were from friends, family, or people I knew IRL and to be honest, I really only wanted to talk to the person on the other end about half the time or 3% of all calls. Over 80% was spam or wrong numbers or telemarketers. The remaining 12% was for non-personal reasons, such as reminders for appointments with the dentist, calling about my car repair, and buzzing in someone at my door. Now you know why I never answer the phone.

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The Mega Wardrobe Post

I’ve been wanting to write about more things in my wardrobe but it took me a while to get everything compiled. Still have a lot more stats I could explore but here are some highlights. Enjoy!
1) I seem to have a wardrobe consisting mostly of blue, black, gray, and white items. They make up a whole 75% of my clothes! I do like those colors and they are basic colors so I guess that’s a good thing? Or maybe that just makes me boring…
2) I have a lot of old stuff… Only about a quarter of my wardrobe was bought within the last 5 years. A little less than half is over 10 years old. There are also a few really old items—mostly swiped from family members. Maybe I should do another post on how my clothes have managed to stick around so long. Note: I tried my best to figure out how old the clothes were but some of them are so old that I really had to guess the ages and could only narrow down whether they were bought before a certain year (for example: if I found a photo of me from a certain year wearing that item then I know it’s at least as old as the photo). Thus, if its says ‘2009 bf’, it was bought in 2009 or before then.
3) Lastly, if I trend the purchases by year and function, I can see that it lines up pretty well with things happening in my life. It’s no surprise that my purchases of work-related clothes goes up around the time I started working full-time. It’s also no surprise that I’ve ramped up my travel wardrobe in the last few years though it feels a little overboard too. There’s also weird spike around 2009 in several of the categories. That could be around when I went back to school but could also be due to the fact that I did a wardrobe project back in 2009 to document my work wardrobe at the time so I have a better record than for other years.

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Wardrobe Percentages

I have twice as many shirts as I do pants… That’s probably a good thing because I can wear my pants more than once whereas I usually don’t repeat wearing my shirt more than once unless I’m on a trip with a limited number of clothes. I have almost as many outer-layer pieces – coats, jackets, sweaters cardigans, and such – as I do pants. I get cold easily so I usually don’t go without an outer layer but I’m not sure if I have too many. I feel like I do have too many since outer layer pieces can be repeated multiple times and no one expects you to have a different jacket every day (unless you’re super into fashion, which I’m not). Lastly, I don’t have many dresses and I don’t wear them too often anyway.

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Well-Traveled Wardrobe

I like to travel. Also apparently, I have a lot of clothes. It turns out my clothes are from more places than I’ve been to. Interestingly, my clothes come from over 40 countries while I’ve only visited 24. The map shows in yellow all the countries I’ve traveled to, in blue all the countries where my clothes were made (at least according to the tag), and in green all the countries where both apply. Pretty neat to see it all on a map.

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Numbers!

Okay… who else get’s a kick out of staring at spreadsheets? I know, I know… not everyone. Still, it’s interesting to see what data I can gather from everyday life and turn it into fun graphs and infographics. Stay tuned for more posts.