Welcome back Readers,

Shopping can be quite exciting especially if you are a fashion enthusiast like myself. You just feel like shopping until you drop. But this easily begin to take a toll on our mental health and on our lives, finances, relationships and also on the planet.

It can become unsustainable fairly quickly and it become out of hand quickly especially if you are taking out credit just to shop or your choosing shopping as a means of escape as a result you late paying your bills and go in debt.

Shopping intentionally helps as it prevents you from purchase items that you will never wear but you purchase it with the aim of wearing it “one day” or for a specific event that you know will less likely come to pass.

It allows you to not just at what is in trend at the moment but to purchase products that are more timeless and are based on the type of style or aesthetic that you want to achieve.

When you don’t shop intentionally you end up having a bunch of random pieces of clothing that don’t match and you become unable to form an outfit. You then subconsciously convivence yourself that you have nothing to wear this then re starts the cycle and you go out to shop.

Then go out to purchase trendy and unmatched clothing again that won’t match anything in your wardrobe nor does it match your current everyday lifestyle.

Creating a mood board and finding a genre of clothing that interests you is great as it will enable you to purchase clothes with an ideal wardrobe in mind and it will limit the amount of impulse purchase you do.

Make sure to create that you create a budget every month and have a set amount of money aside to purchase clothes. Also if you struggle with spending and that and sticking to a budget then maybe looking into having a separate bank account for your shopping escapades. This way you will only spend what is inside your account and never go over the amount. If this doesn’t work then maybe look into having multiple bank accounts for different expenses. So that it will an additional boundary/system put in place that will ensure that you spend all your money on clothes.

As Christians we are thought of the dangers of making things into our idols or making them into mini gods in our lives.

Matthew 6:24-25 “No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money.“ Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes? “.

When shopping bare in mind what you already own in your wardrobe so that you prevent yourself from purchasing multiple of the same products. As this can be a problem for many of us and cause us to have duplicate products which wastes time and money.

Before you shopping and purchasing more clothes I would suggest to have a wardrobe clear out. This will help you to get rid of any unnecessary clothes in your wardrobe and it will allow you to actually see what clothes you already own.

You can either sell your clothes on apps such as Vinted, Depop or Facebook market place etc. or you send it straight to a charity shop or hand it to your relatives or family.