Cleaning Out My Closet

The amount of clothes that I have in my closet and have not gotten rid of yet is absurd.  I think part of the reason I want to hold onto them is, in my mind I believe that one day I will be able to fit into some of them again.  I find it interesting that I am not one to frivolously buy clothing, but I have so much of it.  When I shop I have to make sure that I love it.  You can easily catch me walking around a store with a cart full of clothes and walking up the register with a hand full of pieces.  My "collection" has been growing for a while and the fact that my cousin is a shop-a-holic (who I get to reap the benefits of) has not helped my cause of condensing the amount of clothing I have.

Here's a breakdown of what I have in my closet:

About 440 items (This does not include anything in my drawers, and I am currently also using my dad's closet for some of my "extra" clothes.)

Yoga Pants-11
Shorts-32
Jeans- 29 (I only wear 3 of them)
Sweat Shirts- 16
Sweat Pants- 27
Button Up Shirts- 28
Dressier Pants- 22
Dresses- 21
No Sleeve Shirts-63
T-Shirts- 76
Sweaters- 16
Dressier Tops- 32
Hats- 34 (I love hats)
Coats- 33

The Countries in which my clothes were made in are as follows:

United States-
China
Indonesia
Mexico
Ecuador
Guatemala
Vietnam
Italy
El Salvador
Thailand
El Salvador
Bangladesh


The amount of stuff that I have is honestly overwhelming.  There is no need for me to have so much .  I would say I probably only wear about 20%-30% of the clothing that I have.  The items that I seem to wear the most are my Yoga Pants, my 3 pairs of jeans that actually fit, half of my sweatshirts, about 5 of my dressier pants (because the rest don't fit right), 10% of my t-shirts, about 7 dressier tops, and I have to say I do like to constantly alternate my hats (especially when it's cold outside.)  This small percentage is what I wear 95% of the time. 
I would have to say that at least 35% of my closet were hand me downs from my cousin, another 25% being presents that were given to me, 10% would be promotional clothing I acquired from my mothers restaurant from liquor venues, 5% would be items that were bought used, and the addition 25% as items that were bought new.

After going through all of my clothes it was not my consumption pattern that bothered me, it was my retention pattern.  I had acquired so much stuff that, yes at sometime had a purpose, but was just junk now.  If I haven't worn it in a year then what the hell do I need to keep it in my closet for.  I started to actually develop a little bit of anxiety going through everything, and I realized that I just need to get rid of things I don't need.  I love my T-shirts because most of them have to do with music and music is one of my favorite things in the world but do I really need 40 band t-shirts? I don't think so.  I learned that I need to get rid of things that are taking up space and maybe it's time to buy clothes that fit my body. I don't need to hold on to size 0 pants when I know my booty isn't going to be fitting in them anytime soon and honestly I don't think I want it to.  I really enjoyed this project because it helped me look and analyze at what I needed to do to create more space.  Instead of buying cheap clothing and having a lot of it or excepting everything my cousin gives to me, I think now it's time to go for quality.  Having more things with better quality that I can actually get use of. 

How I felt after realizing all the stuff I had and going threw it