Dollars and Sense

So my husband Steve got a couple of t-shirts at Threadless recently. I’ve sometimes done the same, and when I saw Steve’s new shirts I thought “I want some new shirts too.” And then I remembered that I’d gone through my clothes recently, reorganizing them, and marveled at how many t-shirts I have already.

Bottom line, I really don’t need any new t-shirts. I have plenty of them. I’m good on clothes too. Any of the things I’m buying at this point are extras that expand my wardrobe and give me something to play with—they aren’t things I truly need. And that’s something I’ve noticed over the past few years out here—how much I can be coaxed into buying things I don’t really need. When we first moved to Seattle we were watching every penny we spent. I didn’t go shopping for new clothes at one point for a good year or so. I got out of the browsing habit, of coveting after novelties. When we did go into a store I was sometimes struck by how much extraneous stuff was being marketed to me. It’s so easy to be bombarded by images and messages of what we should buy and what we should want, sometimes almost fetishizing the experience of acquiring new things.

As is obvious, I like getting new things as much as the next person. I enjoy shopping, trying on stuff, enjoying new food, having new experiences. But I’m trying to be aware of when my desires are swayed by exterior messages, and not by what I truly want or need.

That being said, I am pretty hooked on browsing Seattle Goodwills on Mondays—when everything with a specific color tag is priced at $1.29. One week it’s a blue tag, the next week a pink tag, the next week a red tag. My guess is that they use a specific color of tag for almost all the items that come in for every few days or a week, and the longer that color is hanging from the racks, the closer it gets to its $1.29 day—it keeps the inventory rotating. This week it was everything with a green tag. I flipped through the aisles, looking for viable green tags, and also grabbed a few other things that were either pretty enough or weird enough to try on. The strangest was a “Western Boot Cut” pair of Levis corduroys.

The inseam swooped out at the cuff, the front and back pockets were pretty bizarre, and the waistline dipped just a bit at the front center.



They were only $5, (not a green tag) and I was tempted to get them just because they were so strange, but I had a hard time imagining wearing them much, so I put ‘em back.

I did love the zippers though.

I ended up buying one shirt…a linen knit t shirt from Zara.

Also not a green tag—it was also $5. But I liked the way it draped too much to resist. Oh well.