At the beginning of the year, I decided to challenge myself to spend no money on clothing for myself in 2023. I realized that I had enough clothing. My closet was full. I thought this would be a fun challenge to see how long I could go without spending money in this way.

I am not a stranger to No Spend Clothing Challenges. Several years ago I went close to two years without buying clothes for myself. We were in the thick of paying off our debt and mortgage, and at the time the goal of being debt free overrode my desire to purchase clothing.

I thought it would be good to give y’all an update since the year is coming to a close. Overall, I did okay. I did break my challenge a couple of times, but I’m okay with that. I am learning to be more gentle with myself as I get older!

The first time I broke the challenge was in June. I was going through a difficult personal situation and at the time buying some clothing seemed to be a good idea to help me feel better! Of course, this is not the best way to look at things. No, clothing cannot buy happiness.

I am actively working on finding ways to maintain my inner peace no matter what situation I face. In general, I am so prone to anxiety which is definitely a generational thing. I am finding tools to work on this. I think my anxiety level is improving little by little, which is an amazing. I think we often forget how bad anxiety can be for us.

But I digress. After my June purchase, I didn’t buy any more clothing until the end of September. We were on a family vacation and my birthday was in a few days. My husband said he wanted to get some things for my birthday, and I could say that he bought them. I guess I will go with that, ha! I got two t-shirts, two dresses, and two sweaters.

Also at one point in the year, I got two $4 pajama pants from a store called Hamrick’s. I just couldn’t pass up that deal!

Overall, I am happy with how the year went. I know I spent a lot less money on clothing than I would have if I hadn’t challenged myself to not buy anything. There were many times that I was tempted to buy clothing, and I didn’t. There were definitely a lot of wins!

I’m not sure what I will challenge myself to do in 2024, if anything. I will give it some thought, and probably share more about that later.

If you challenged yourself to something in 2023, I hope it went really well! I think it is an amazing thing to challenge ourselves to grow as a person. Even if we don’t completely reach our goal, we still learn valuable lessons and become better for it.