Don’t Buy things on sale

There. I said it. Stay away from sales. They are a trap! If you are trying to be sustainable, sales can be the opposite because sales help you rationalize buying things that you might not normally buy. You feel like it’s too good a deal or bargain to pass up. 

I’m not saying never buy on sale. But don’t buy something *just* because it’s on sale. If you want to build a sustainable wardrobe then it’s not so much about saving a certain percentage off. It’s about buying what you love and wearing it for a very long time. If it happens to be on sale, fantastic. But that’s not really the focus. 

If you buy something on sale that you don’t actually love, then you are wasting money that could have been put towards something you do love. So, you are not really ‘saving’ anything.

Sales are designed to make you feel like if we don’t buy it right now, you will never have another chance. Going, going gone! This is a scarcity mentality that’s designed to get us to hurry up, shut our brains (and our hearts off), and just buy.

You don’t have to be afraid. If anything we have too much to choose from, not that there’s not enough. It’s more about being strategic about what you buy and want to include in your wardrobe. Sales make you think that you will miss out, but buying under that kind of pressure is most likely not going to work out.

The other problem with sales is that many times sales can be final. So you don’t really have a chance to kind of sit with your purchase for a bit and make sure you want to keep it.

I believe it’s better to buy for the long term, period. On sale or not on sale, invest in something you want to keep and wear forever. If you want to keep an eye on something and hope it goes on sale, that’s smart. With me, since I am really trying to be selective, I may not always want to take the chance and hope it lasts until the sale.

The fashion cycle is crazy anyway nowadays. Something is released and if it’s not bought within a few months, prices are slashed and it’s considered obsolete. It’s a nutty treadmill that we all need to get off of. And frankly, a lot of retail stores and designers can’t survive like this. We all need to go back to valuing clothes and not seeing them as disposable and throw away.

Sales can be quite a heady experience. I’ve lost my mind one or two times on Black Friday or at Barney’s sample sale (miss you Barney’s!). The next morning I would wake up with a headache and blurry-eyed. I would glance over at what I bought and wonder: wait! I bought that?!  For 2022, let’s all resolve not to have this particular kind of hangover again.