7 Articles of Clothing for All of September

Besides food, another area in 7 is clothes.  I am not even going to admit how much of a problem this is for me.  The classic "I have 150 (probably a lot more than that) articles of clothes but can't figure out what to wear"

This is the kind of picture that would make a lot of women swoon.  But even before reading 7, a picture like this makes me cringe.  I don't care if you have all the money in the world, this is ridiculous.  A woman could never wear all of these shoes.  And tell me, what exactly is the point of having 20 different shoes in various shades of beige?

According to this study by North Dakota State University, (my alma matter) on farming families, the average farming family in 2011 spent $2,221 on clothes, or about 3.6% of their income, which is consistent with averages across the nation regardless of occupation.  Although, I would suspect that for a lot of professional women, that average is higher.  I am obsessed with the blog Capitol Hill Style, and she has stated on her blog before that she spends about 7-8% of her budget on clothes.

Think about it.  The average North Dakota farming family spends $2000 dollars on clothes alone.  The average income of a person in Congo according to this report is $231.  Yet we spend thousands of dollars on clothes we probably never utilize like we should.

Let's not even go into high fashion where you are spending $300 for a sweater and $1000 for a pair of shoes.  That $2000 for many people jumps into double digit thousand spending.

I decided for September that along with 7 items of food that I am wearing only 7 articles of clothing, not 7 outfits, but 7 articles, not including underwear and pajamas.  My 7 are:  3 t-shirts, 1 skirt, 1 pair of jeans, 1 pair of shorts and a light weight jacket.  I've allowed myself two pairs of shoes, one flip-flop and one tennis shoes.

It certainly makes getting dressed a lot easier when you don't have much to pick from, and it has been easier then I thought it would be to survive on these few. To be fair, as a stay at home mom, I lead a very casual life.  No business attire or meetings to go to. The biggest issue is trying to get them clean, but let's face it, with that few options, I often wear a shirt twice before I can wash it.  Kind of gross, but not the end of the world and I just use a lot more deodorant and perfume the second time around.

I have given away literally bags of clothes that were extras, hello 4 black cardigans, or clothes that I haven't fit into for 5 years but still held onto "just in case".  What a waste. What if I wore only the clothes I owned for the next year, and donated the money I would have spent on clothes to feed families somewhere else in the world?

Who truly has the time to even wear all of these clothes?

What if I recognized that I don't need a cardigan in every color, even if it would be fun?  Or that I don't need 5 different jean skirts in 5 different washes, when I really only wear the dark wash because it makes me look the skinniest?

What would happen if I packed up even just my excess and brought it to a battered women's shelter and blessed someone's life?

What would happen if I really looked at how I was literally wasting money on things and decided to do something about it??