Minimum Amount of Clothing

[Leta]

Living in a 150 year old house has really made obvious the ridiculous amount of clothing modern Americans have. We have moved to the family closet set up, which is fantastic, but I'm wanting to pare down further.

DH and I share a 50" enclosed garment rack as our "dressy" closet. We each also have a drawer of socks/undies and a 30" unenclosed garment rack for everyday clothes. I'm thinking I need to actually put out-of-season stuff away... somewhere... but I'm also thinking that I can let some stuff go.

For example, DH has five sets of work clothes (pants and Tshirt). This is a fixed thing for him. I do not work outside the home, so I am pondering going down to five casual outfits. I also am thinking of investing in some sweats that are comfy/functional/presentable enough to multitask as PJs and athletic type clothes.

We do a lot of manual labor, though, so I'm concerned that I'm going to end up with clothes that are in tatters from wear, and quickly.

Has anyone had success determining what a minimum amount of clothing is?

 

[2dream]

No success at all. Every time I find an empty hanger I have to purchase 2 t-shirts and 1 additional hanger.

 

[Neko-chan]

...

 

[FarmerChick]

I lost close to 70 lbs and I have clothes in a few sizes but most of all---I bought tons of great new clothes when I hit my size 12!!

and now I am trying for size 10---hmm...not sure if I can get there cause for some reason size 10 just eludes me. being 5'8 I just can't seem to lose to that size 10 and when I do get into a size 10---if I eat one grape I am in size 12 again HAHAHA


well, that means for clothes, I got tons. I like clothes. Farming ruins clothes fast. Countless times I come in from somewhere out in public to have to run down and free a goat from a fence or something and RIP---never failed. We went thru work clothes like crazy on the farm. We wore them tattered for a while also cause I couldn't keep up with the wreckage of clothes all the time getting new ones...lol


I do not limit our clothes. We have what we want. I have the good, the bad and the darn right barn ugly LOL

Only time I weed out is if the kiddo outgrows or they are holes in anything--that kind of thing.

I never tried to 'find a minimum' amt. of clothing and don't think I ever will.

 

[OrganicKale]

I like clothes too, and will keep as many as I can comfortably fit and find. I have a small walk in closet, a spare closet in the spare room; three dressers and one of those cubical things; and a coat closet. I can typically go about a month or more and not wear the same outfit to work twice. For casual, I probably have about 20 outfits. I like to have choices! I don't want to wear the same things every weekend. The thing I have the most difficulty with is not buying clothes when I don't need them- I love getting them, and I love updating my look but sometimes I feel guilty because I don't really need them.

But I get over it pretty quickly.

 

[Beekissed]

I've never kept many clothes and this might be from when we were homesteading and all my clothes had to fit into a cardboard box under the bed. I have one pair of jeans, several T-Shirts, a couple of long sleeve shirts, one skirt, a few shorts, two nighties(winter and summer), couple of sweat pants, underthings and several sets of scrubs for work. I keep old shorts, sweat pants, shirts for working around the place and these are really, really paint, grease, cr&p stained...but if they cover my body decently, I just use them anyway.

I was planning on traveling pretty light this summer and so thinned out my wardrobe even more, so that everything I owned in the way of clothing/shoes would fit into one large duffel bag....and it does. I love it!

The key is buying clothing that will mix and match for several different "looks" so that you can get more mileage out of your wardrobe. My rule of thumb is this: If you haven't worn it in a year's time, you don't need it.

 

[OrganicKale]

My rule of thumb is this: If you haven't worn it in a year's time, you don't need it.

I agree with this. I wear all of mine! There isn't enough room to keep things that are worn out, or don't fit, or that I really don't like. So sometimes I have to make some hard decision.

 

[valmom]

Hmm. I wouldn't mind a minimum of clothes- especially since closet space in this house is really pretty limited. I have khakis and shirts for summer work clothes, and turtlenecks and sweaters for winter work. I live in sweats at home- barn chores, sitting around, doing whatever. I have 2 pairs of jeans for going out in public like food shopping or post office. I don't wear a whole lot of "dressy" clothes. I do have some old favorites saved in the upstairs closet. I think I pretty much have the minumum I can cope with- any less and I would have to do laundry more often.

 

[Beekissed]

any less and I would have to do laundry more often.

Yes, but with our nifty and subcheap homemade laundry soap we can afford to do it, can't we?

 

[k0xxx]

At one point we lived in a 150 year old home also. It had no closets at all. I did some researching and back in the 1700's and 1800's, at least in southeast Louisiana, your house was taxed by the number of rooms, and closets counted as rooms. Well off people used wardrobes for closets and a lot of the well to do homes had hidden rooms built into them. We were into the whole consumer thing back then and really had to downsized our clothes and we put a bunch into storage.

These days I own 4 pairs of overalls and about a dozen shirts. I have three pairs of footwear, regular shoes, work boots, and a pair of rubber boots. Though I am considering buying a brand new pair of overalls just so that I can dress nicer for weddings and funerals.