24 in 2024

*Surprise!* Hi, it’s me, here with a blog post!! I am very much enjoying selling real estate in Portland, and that keeps me quite busy, but I wanted to share a closet challenge I am doing for 2024.

It’s been more than a year since I took a step away from blogging and content creation, and that has given me space and perspective on the way I buy and add clothes to my closet. 2023 was all about learning to dress for a new, professional lifestyle, and most days I enjoyed the challenge. Getting dressed is infinitely more enjoyable now that it’s not tied to creating content or promoting brands/clothing sales. Some strange part of me still enjoys documenting my outfits however. (See those on Instagram stories.) It’s a great sartorial exercise to document your outfits, the merits of which are too long for this particular blog post.

The perspective I gained was mostly related to my personal sense of style. I was able to connect back with what I loved and desired to wear, not what catches the attention of others or an algorithm. And shopping became much more intentional as I sought out particular items to add to my wardrobe, ie. black trousers, blazers, etc. However, I still added plenty of items to my closet. Hence, how I got to this blog post.

The Plan.

For the last few years my BFF Paige has impressively added 20 items or fewer to her closet. It started with a 20 in 2020 challenge. I toyed with the idea, but it never felt doable with blogging being my full time job. At the end of 2022 I became a full time real estate agent and in 2023 I only wrote one blog post. But in 2023 I still added 57 items to my closet. My friend Paige challenged me to do a low buy this year, and while mulling it over, I saw that my blogging pal Jesse is doing a 24 in 2024 challenge, and it clicked.

For this year I will be adding only 24 items to my wardrobe, including gifted items. I don’t do a lot of brand work any more, but there are a few brands I particularly love and still actively work with. I will include those giftings in my challenge. Also included: any shoes, activewear, coats, bags/purses, swimwear. Not included: socks, underwear, jewelry or makeup.

Why?

Great question. I’d like to be more in control of what’s in my closet and make sure getting dressed continues to feel even more easy and streamlined. I’d like to be a better consumer and buy fewer things. I’d like to model being a better consumer for others. I am always very inspired by other people’s actions, and I’d love to help someone else in their consumer choices. And I’d like to spend less money on clothes and more on savings and travel.

I’m sharing here in case this inspires you, but admittedly, my reasons are selfish was well. If I say it outloud, then I really have to do it!