Why I quit buying clothes

Ever derailed your budget buying clothes you don't really need? Then this story is for you.

- STORY EMMA EDWARDS

While buying lots of clothes for nights out as a uni student isn't exactly a unique experience, for me it was an underlying self-erasure that motivated so many of my clothing purchases.

Because I felt so deeply, completely, truly less than other people, buying a new outfit simply became a cycle of normalcy. That created a cycle. Feel crap. Buy clothes. Feel better. Feel crap again. Repeat.

Now that sounds pretty bleak, but really, the quietness of it all, the way it was just so deeply embedded in the way I saw myself, meant it just went unnoticed. It was my normal and the normal of so many others too.

And because we weren't talking a Carrie Bradshaw-style Manolo Blahnik addiction at $400 a pop, it became even easier to ignore. The amounts I was spending were, in isolation, so small that I didn't really consider the impact it would have on my finances, despite the fact my attempts to save were often trampled on by my latest insecurity and the new outfit I'd prescribed as a solution.

Behaviour patterns on your bank balance

The effect of emotionally driven behavioural patterns on your bank balance is seldom discussed in depth in the personal finance world. In fact, that was a big reason I wrote my first book, because breaking out of those behavioural traps was what finally helped me turn my finances around.