Be True to Yourself

At one point, a sister of mine refused to wear hand-me-down clothing. J also didn't want to shop at discount stores, or from the clearance racks. She spent a lot of her hard-earned money shopping name-brand, in-season clothing. Fashion was pretty much her favorite thing ever.

J in high school

J with another sister, S.

When J got married, and especially when she became a mother, her priorities shifted. She realized that she would rather spend more time with her husband and son than working to earn the money for her expensive wardrobe.

J still loves fashion though, and dressing nicely and in-style is still important to her. Instead of giving up the fancy wardrobe, she simply gave up the labels & price-tags. She has become one of the best bargain-hunters I have ever met. She has also simplified her wardrobe and chooses to embellish her relatively few outfits with lots of accessories.

 

In addition to her fashion sense. J loves to surround herself with beautiful, clean, simple, fashionable things. Again, budgeting became a challenge when J got married, and she found herself unable to purchase all the fancy furniture and decor she wanted.

Rather than accept a life of cheap, run-down furnishings, J improvised. She kept her love of beautiful things and figured out how to find or create things to fit in her home, for a much smaller budget.

I rarely buy anything at normal stores anymore. It's thrift stores for everything, unless it's toiletries or something. I've noticed that no one can tell the difference anyway! -J

She found solid wood end tables for ridiculously cheap... from a craigslist 5 hours away from her home (and then had my parents take them to her when they visited a month later), and then refinished them with a bit of sandpaper and spray-paint so they would match the decor of her house. She found old lamp bases at a garage sale for a few dollars each and spray-painted them as well, and fitted them with new lampshades which she bought on sale, and with coupons.

J's tiny 1065sq ft, 2-bedroom row house is full of stories like this. Her simply furnished, beautifully decorated, tiny home always inspires me.

 

While we may not have the budget or space for fancy things, we don't have to change ourselves. There are ways to keep our own individual identities and simply change the way we approach the things that are important to us.