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| my new favorite artist - found here |
When I got my first engineering job, as a co-op student, I all of a sudden had this huge income of money (going from $0 to $30/hr as a 20 y/o). In return, I saved about half and spent the rest on clothes. Unfortunately this is before I really valued material and make over quantity. So while I should have invested in a suit to wear for interviews, I bought party dresses and tons of jeans and shirts - because I could... and I was 20. Oh, and was totally dedicated to the idea of "I have to buy this, it's on sale!"
When I was 23, I hit my next wave of "ooo income, must spend!" - I got hired full time, and moved to Seattle. This is the phase where I decided to buy every dress imaginable. And join every members-only site out there.
Then, by 25, Ben had moved in - but my habits were hard to die. This is about when I tore my ACL too, and was on bed rest while I recovered. I gained a ton of weight, but still had access to shop online in my old "I'll get there again" sizes. (we all have those clothes in our closet, amiright!).
When I got married, Ben and I decided to really start taking finances seriously. And more so when we were considering getting pregnant. I looked in my closet and found that I had pants that still had tags, and were 4 sizes too small. I had half my dresses still with tags, and equally not in my size.
The first step was to follow the moto "if I don't love it, don't buy it." and "only buy items that fit now." These steps helped to refine how I was shopping.
The next, huge step was to clean out my closet, and start new. I hated having so many unused and totally new clothes in my closet. I just never found an outlet for these items. There was a lot of equity in them, many were designer or quality name brand items. Then I stumbled on this post - and because I don't have an instagram following, I decided to go use ThredUp.
The first Bag, in which you order from them and is free, I filled up to the brim with about 20% gently used clothes and 80% still has tags. They go through the bag and list what they kept and my profit of it. The rest of the unused items go to a charity or a textile recycling factory - or you can pay like $13 to have them send your items back to you. They ended up using a lot of my items, which gave me an awesome, almost $100 payout. Of course I realize this is a FRACTION of what I actually spent on my items, but I wasn't using these items and was not earning interest by having them in my closet. They also send you an email after you items are sold. Here's a small snapshot of how my items are doing.
I just got done stuffing my next bag, which has about 30% new with tags items and more business-esque items - I even threw in a few pairs of barely used shoes. We'll see how I do, but it feels so good getting rid of BAGS of items.
If you sign up using my referral link, I win and you win!
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