10 New Year’s Resolutions for the Conscious Consumer

New year, new you, same shopping addiction? After the holidays we typically feel over-shopped and completely sick of being sold by a million emails and advertisements. Ready to minimize your life? Here’s 10 great New Year’s resolutions for the conscious consumer.

1 |  De-Clutter your Closet
What have you not worn in 2 seasons. Unless it’s one formal evening gown, place it in the toss pile, you don’t need it.

2 | Create a Clothing Exit Strategy
Many people choose to donate clothes to Goodwill or Salvation Army however there are some clothes that won’t resell i.e. underwear, socks, bras, and really, really worn clothing. For un-donatable garments, choose in advance, where you will take them to be recycled. There are many stores and programs that clean and break down the garments back into raw fiber and repurpose it in housing insulation, mattress filling and more. Voila!

3 | Commit to a Capsule Wardrobe
A quick search on Pinterest will give you great inspiration for this. Having a capsule wardrobe means buying only things that match your existing wardrobe, not buying more things to fit the one garment you just purchased. Here’s how to build a capsule wardrobe.

4 | Read the Label
Blend of synthetic fabrics like polyester, nylon, and acetate, are very bad for the environment. When possible buy natural fabrics and for extra credit buy organic natural fabrics.

5 | Incentivize Your Shopping
Many retailers have created discount programs for recycling old clothes. This gives you added incentive to turn in old clothes and use the discount towards your new capsule wardrobe items.

6 | 30 Wears Challenge
When you do need to buy something new, make sure it fits the 30 wears challenge. It’s as simple as it sounds, will I wear this 30 times? 30 wears translates to 1-2 times a week per season.

7 | Start a Seasonal Clothing Swap
Give your garments new life with a new owner. It has recently become a trend to host a clothing swap at your house. This essentially means you invite your friends to bring their old clothes, come over, and everyone can have free reign to pick anything from the pile of goodies brought in.

8 | Start Mending
Lose weight? Gain weight? Or generally don’t wear a garment because it doesn’t fit quite right OR you wore it so much it now has holes and damage? Bring it to your local seamstress/tailor to mend. You can patch holes, hem, let out seams, or turn an old dress into a totally new garment with some creative handiwork! Bonus points if you know how to sew yourself already.

9 | Upgrade Your Reading
One of our favorite magazines is Conscious Magazine for the go-to conscious community. But there are also several wonderful bloggers you can follow online and on social media!

10 | Subscribe to THR3EFOLD’s Conscious Consumer Emails 
For weekly tips AND great ethical brands you can begin shopping.