I Got Rid of 24 Shirts This Weekend

You can tell what colors I like wearing.

I threw away a lot of stuff during this weekend’s fall cleaning project, and I put even more stuff into “to-donate” boxes. (Which I’ll have to figure out how to carry over to the Goodwill drop-off station. I’m either making several trips or taking a Lyft.)

Here’s an itemized list of everything in the clothing box:

• 1 coat
• 1 jacket
• 1 hoodie
• 1 skirt
• 1 pair of sweatpants
• 3 pairs of leggings
• 6 dresses
• 24 tees/tops/shirts
• 1 trash bag full of underwear/bras/socks/tights that’ll go to the company that turns ’em into rags and fiber

That’s… a lot of clothing.

Luckily, not all of it will need to be replaced. I have a coat and a jacket. I have skirts and leggings and a pair of sweatpants. I could use another good fall-weight dress, but I don’t need to buy six more dresses.

I do, however, need about ten shirts to replace the 24 I put in the box.

Yes, 24 seems like a really high number to me too. But keep in mind that I didn’t buy any summer T-shirts this year, so most of these tees and tops are at least a year old—and they weren’t very high quality to begin with.

I also had this box where I put T-shirts that I got at events and concerts, the kind of shirts that never really fit all that well but could be sewn into a T-shirt quilt someday, and then I decided that I was pretty much never going to do that.

So that’s how I ended up with 24 donateable shirts, and why I only really need to replace about 10 of them. (I know! That still seems like a large number! But I want enough clothing that I can go a full two weeks without repeating an outfit, so… I have to fill those drawers again.)

The cheapest way I could get ten shirts would be by dropping $100 at Old Navy, and I may end up doing at least some of that kind of shopping. I’m also going to see what the non-Old-Navy Labor Day sales look like, in the hopes that I can restock my closets with something that’ll last at least two years. (I’m not hoping for much more than that, especially with fast fashion knits.)

Anyway, I wanted to let you know the results of my big cleaning project—and if you’re ever in a Seattle Goodwill and you see a blue shirt that reads “I am on the side of the scientists,” you’ll know it might have been one of mine.

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