Clothes shopping & Wardrobe planning strategy

I wanted to share with you how I manage the clothes shopping for my family.

WARDROBE BASICS
I have a little photo album book that stays permanently in my handbag. In it I have slipped in some paint sample cards that I picked up from bunnings, colour co-ordinated by person and season. On each one I have written down a capsule wardrobe for each person in our house PER SEASON. So I have 4, hubby has 4 and our DS3 has 2 (just Winter/Summer for him).






When I go out shopping and buy something I simply cross it off the list so I never duplicate buy.

I also have a monthly calendar which lists the regular sales that occur throughout the year so I know when to re-assess our wardrobes and go to the sales!!!



As my son is still young and growing I have another list that has the years on one side and 2 columns titled Winter & Summer. Underneath each column is the clothes size and shoe size he will need for that year. I need to do this as I tend to forget what size he will need as I always buy his clothes during the sales for the following year. For example, right now I am building his wardrobe for next Autumn/Winter and am not buying anything for him to wear now.

STYLE FILE
I've also started a "Style File" folder to keep track of all my outfits. This is just a large photo album in which I have placed pictures of outfits I wear on any given day. When I can't decide what to wear I just flick through the file and choose something that I have previously worn which means I don't waste time trying to come up with another oufit from scratch. I haven't gotten around to adding Stephen's or Joshuas outfits yet but I'm working on that.





By keeping these two books and keeping tabs on what really gets worn every season I have been able to wittle down our wardrobe to some basics so all our clothes co-ordinate together and our wardrobes are no longer full.