How I Went From Thrift Shop Junkie to Having a Minimalist Wardrobe

I think a lot of times people who see blogs that talk about organizing, decluttering, and having a minimalist wardrobe believe they’re written by some alien race of humans who don’t have messy lives. (I.e. perfectionists with a touch of OCD).

Meanwhile, you’re opening your closet every morning to enough stuff that you could probably open your own resale store and have a reasonable inventory. The idea of picking 50 of these items to wear...like, for the whole year?! Absurd.

And, truthfully, there is absolutely not a magic number of clothes that you should be parsing down to. That is definitely not the message here. But it’s irrefutable that our environments (especially our own home spaces) impact our lives. They affect our mind, our health, and our energy levels every single day.

The grand majority of people would prefer to see a nice streamlined row of comfortably spaced perfectly curated clothes. People want it. They drool over magazines and TV shows that show these simple, chic wardrobes. So, if you’re one of these people who loves the “idea” of a streamlined wardrobe but you’re pity-smiling at me (via your computer) in disbelief- I totally get it.

I used to be a thrift shop junkie.

I grew up in a pretty small town. No theater, mall, or anything else that would be remotely entertaining to a young person--besides Walmart. My favorite place to go was my local resale store. I kept this place in business!

Hours of my youth were spent carefully sifting through the racks. If it was super cheap I would take it home whether I liked it or not. I mean, it had to be worth something, right?  So, at least once a month I would come home proudly toting my giant black garbage bag (Hefty) full of thrift finds. Then, of course, I would pull out each individual item and present it to my family (who hated this whole process) and beam with pride that I got the whole bag for like 40 bucks!

This was my jam. No problem, I would fill up my big dresser, jam pack my closet (no scroll space needed), and could fold things to set on the top shelf or floor of the closet.

Now, my mom didn’t come from a lot of money. So, she hated the idea of me selling any of her old beaded 80’s shirts that were hand-me-downs from her own mom.

I don’t recall her buying more than a few outfits for herself when I was a kid. She wasn’t the only hand-me-down queen. Her sister, my aunt, wore the same size as me and knew how much I loved garbage bags of clothes.

So, once or twice a year, we would bag up all of the clothes we weren’t wearing -for whatever reason- and would march them up to the attic. Have you ever seen a spider web full of giant egg sacks? Well, that’s what our attic looked like at any given time only with giant black garbage bags.

What made me want to change?

Most of us decide to really make a change when we get tired of putting up with our own B.S. I’ve told my story many times but about 6 years ago I started this whole search for something “different”. I’ll give you the short version.

At that time, I was a single mom of 2 really young little girls and was working my butt off at work and then coming home and trying to keep up with the house and my kids. It was really a life of constant exhaustion. I started thinking that something was medically wrong with me. I thought I MUST have had some kind of autoimmune disorder or psychological malfunction.

Constantly teetering from anxiety to depression, I just couldn’t seem to get things under control in my life. Looking back I can easily point out that I identified myself as a hot mess and felt like I wouldn’t be me without that identity.

So, I never even tried to make a change...until I did. After eventually breaking down and having to start over, I understood on a visceral level that I needed to restructure my life. What I found in my quest for happiness is that our environments (and belongings) greatly impact our lives and level of happiness.

There are multiple studies and more detailed articles I’ve written on the research of our environment and belongings. What you need to know for the purposes of this article is that my minimalist wardrobe was just a byproduct of the path I ended up following.

But it was still a JOURNEY.

Having a minimalist wardrobe became a new challenge.

It took me years to get to the point I’m at now where I have a very small and streamlined closet of clothes. It doesn’t matter, but just for comparison to where I was earlier in this post with my garbage bags of clothes, I now have around 40-50 items for the year.

This isn’t a competition or a brag and the number truly doesn’t matter. This is just what works for me because it’s one more thing that keeps the stress down and makes me feel energized and put together. Also, my style of dressing is super low-key. I’m not a fancy or highly professional dresser. Jeans are my jam.

Now again, I didn’t read a book or flip a switch and throw out all of my clothes. I allowed myself space and time to evaluate my needs and my style. I would parse down to a level that felt comfortable for me and I would sit with that for a while. Because I was paying attention to what I was using I couldn’t help but continue to let go of things that weren’t right for me.

Here’s the trick.

It became a new challenge in my mind. Letting go of unused clothes fulfilled the same reward center tick as scavenging for those hot thrift deals. It challenged me and felt fun and intriguing. Kind of like problem-solving to see the minimum number of clothes for the maximum return. (I.e. min-maxing). I have a step-by-step guide to decluttering your closet.

What worked for me.

There are some key things that I did and learned along the way that really helped me through the stages of hoarder closet to minimalist closet.

I pulled out all of the hell-no items.

The first step is to go through and pull out all of the hell-no items. The things that you know you don’t like and you just haven’t gone through kicking yet. Or the hand-me-downs that you’re politely storing in your closet out of guilt or obligation.

Fill up those bags and haul them off to donate. (Remember, don’t underestimate the value of giving. It isn’t wasteful if someone else is getting the use out of it when you weren’t. You have made another human’s life a little better. There is value in that.)

You can do this in a few different steps over months. For example, go back through all of your stuff again a few months later and fill up another bag. Your perspective might have changed on how valuable some of those items are. You can run your clothes through these 10 questions to see if they make the cut.

I increased awareness of my wardrobe.

Now you can add in some awareness techniques to help you take it to the next level. Do a ‘wear it challenge’ and try to wear all of your clothes in a few weeks (or however long you want to give yourself). As you wear something, turn the hanger around to indicate to yourself that you’ve worn it.

You’ll find that this increases your awareness of what you’re wearing each time you open your closet. You’ll either be enticed to wear the things you don’t normally wear or you’ll feel more at ease with letting the item go.

I generally say to come back at the end of the month sometime and see what hangers haven’t been flipped. Now, obviously, there are some seasonal or formal items that won’t work for this so easily. Use your own common sense based on your personal needs.

I implemented versatility for a minimalist wardrobe.

The last thing I started implementing in my own minimalist wardrobe was versatility. I started paying attention to the combinations of items I had.

The more versatile the wardrobe, the fewer clothes you actually need in order to make an outfit work. That means, if you have one shirt that can be worn with 3 different pairs of pants is cutting your wardrobe needs by two-thirds.

I would love to make this post a two-way conversation so leave a comment below! Never give up on becoming the best version of yourself because you deserve amazing peace and clarity. Thanks for reading and I'll catch you next time.