It’s been ten years since I did the Closet Confidential series that then turned into my book, Closet Confidential: How To Audit Your Wardrobe and Update Your Style. So I thought I’d do a catchup while also talking about my end of year bargains.

You can read the start of it all in the 2014 post at this link here.

And the posts continued into 2015 at this link here.

In that series I thoroughly cleaned out my closet back in the summer of 2014/15. I made the desicion to not buy black clothes again after throwing out many black items, unless they had a particular print on it I couldn’t live without. I’ve rarely bought any black in the last ten years. A printed top here and there, a pair of crystal covered jeans, a black leather jacket for $13 from an op shop (I mean, how could I leave that behind), but, I did go crazy over t-shirts from Redbubble a few years back when I was making my TikTok videos. I bought the t-shirts to match my T.K. Wrathbone books, so very horror in style. I’ve also bought many a coloured item since as that was the plan moving forward. To only buy multi-coloured, or coloured clothing. And that continues today. Even in Redbubble t-shirts a few years back.

I still have my yearly December/January audits, although they aren’t as big as the almighty 2014/15 audit, and sometimes a mini audit in June/July, as we here in Aus move from the warm months to the freezing cold. Summer items are donated or thrown in the rag bag for its second or third use, and winter items will be examined to see how many more winters they have left in them. Sometimes they have many, sometimes not.

Throughout the year I do several tidy-ups of my wardrobe to fit everything in, make sure my shoes still fit, etc., and if not, they go on the “to go” list as well. 

My jewellery and accessories are in the bedroom I sleep in, and I thoroughly go through them. I did an overhaul this year when I bought hundreds of pieces in an eBay sale, and had to reorganise how all of the cabinets worked. I donated multiple bangles that no longer fit over my arthritic hands, and went through my “to make” craft containers and threw out a lot of that. I ended up reorganising them many times over the months to see what else I could get rid of and cut down on, and if I could get them into smaller storage containers. I did, and they’re organised under the table differently. Several bags of findings and jewellery were donated to the op shop, or thrown out. 

I had been awaiting late November/early December to do the big cull, but then cue August/September.

After feeling a late winter hibernation exhaustion, I decided to get my energy back by getting a head start on the audit to get the blood pumping and some excitement happening. I did bits and pieces in August, like reorganising my shoes one night, and I threw out three pairs. Then, in September, I started throwing out items I no longer wanted, or hadn’t worn, and the rush was on.

The adrenline rush, that is, of finally deciding to let things go. Cosmetic purses I had never used, or no longer needed simply because I’d found far better ones since I’d bought them went. Bags were reorganised into containers out of dust and were no longer rubbing against their shelf mates, clothes were culled until I got eveything into the closet and tall boy, and the leftovers remained in my red suitcase. The only items left over from that was my Bennetton bag of Bennetton items and six pairs of jeans that I’m hoping to fit into when more weight comes off and they went into a canvas storage container that sits elsewhere. There are five more jeans in the suitcase, and when I looked at them I had two thoughts. Wow, they’re long, better keep them. And damn, was my waist that small in a size 12!

Small containers were thrown into the recycling, paperwork shredded, my folios, bookshelves, stationery containers, and my bedroom were re-organised again. Items I bought years ago I looked at and went why did I buy you?, so into a box for the op shop they went. And even Betty and Bobby-Sue, my two jewellery dolls, went to donation. I bought them way back in 2013, and you can see that post here. Betty is pretty stained and yellow, so it’s time for another home. I haven’t made jewellery collections since 2014, and rarely make it anymore. Now it’s all about repairs.

It’s always nice to have a clear out and refresh a space. Besides reorganising the massive book collection I have in the office/spare room, washing the curtains and window and vacumming, I’ll be doing a basic once-over in December, spending a few hours finishing the clean out, to feel refreshed for a holiday and everything else I have to do like typing up books and maybe writing other things. It’s sunny, it’s summer, the UV rays are giving me energy along with daylight savings. It’s a good time to get it done. I also need to finish off the paperwork for everything I own.

But, since we are ten years on, let’s get into the bargains I’ve bought throughout the year.

The jewellery I’ve bought since the beginning of the year.

All five are the same designer brand and four came from ebay, one from depop.

This Swatch has been on my wish list since I first saw it. A Christmas Swatch, it comes in a glorious Sleeping Beauty style container and has crystals all around the face which is a sun. There are no hands, but a black dot that shows where the time is as the sun rotates. Telling the time is going to be confusing when I wear it.

Onto the accessories I’ve bought since the beginning of the year.

I bought these gorgeous pink sunnies for $12 from Millers, and this blue clutch from the op shop for $4, which originally came from brand Colette.

Onto shoes. I bought the espadrilles last year but never showed them.

This year I bought the pink boots for $199.95, and the gorgeous Skechers Diane Von Furstenburg sneakers for $99, all three are from Styletread. Can you tell I love pink!

I haven’t bought many clothes, besides a pair of shorts for wearing around the house in summer these three are the main ones. A Scooby t-shirt for $10, a gorgeous teal faux fur coat for $90 (a luxe item I spent on) and a massive fluffy hoodie for $15 that has multiple names around the world as they all think they invented it.

The only perfume I bought this year, was SUPPOSED to be a 50th birthday present from my mother who harrassed me for weeks to get something. When it came time to pay, she only offered a partial payment, which NOPE, wasn’t happening. So once again, I bought my own birthday present. A Salvatore Feragamo Signorina two pack, it’s a 100ml bottle plus a travel spritzer. So cute.

That’s it for the end of 2024. I’ll do a light refresh in the next few weeks and then my end of year audit paperwork as I always do. I’ll talk about it in one of the first blog posts next year because who knows what I’ll buy over christmas.

See you next year!