Out of Chaos an organizing newsletter

Carrie’s Shoes

If you are a woman of a certain age, and many of you are, you might remember my favorite episode from Sex in the City, in which Carrie Bradshaw, desperately trying to be a grownup and come up with a down payment to buy her apartment, confronts her wall of Manolos and realizes the folly of all those purchases.  Nine-hundred dollars here, six hundred there… pretty soon you’re talking down payment money.

And of course, shoes aren’t like the sterling that your great-grandmother considered safer than cash; shoes are more like your car, the minute you drive off the lot, its value drops by 50 percent. If a navy blazer is an investment piece, your Prada patent platforms may be more like a tech stock, so hot—and then so not.

I know a lot of people are feeling both broke and cluttered after 18 months riding the pandemic roller-coaster. While selling a bunch of stuff probably won’t put too much of a dent in the “broke” part, giving stuff away will help you feel less cluttered. But studies show (and I can attest) that the minute you own something, even if it’s a 50-cent mug from a tag sale, you become attached to it, and it is harder to let it go. I hear all kinds of excuses: “But I spent money on it,” “It’s so cute,” “My mother gave it to me.” We over-value things we possess.

So, what’s the answer? Resist in the first place. Remember the lesson of Carrie’s shoes. Keep your eye on the big prize, that trip to Greece, that three-bedroom apartment, paying down that student loan. As hard as it is to resist those shoes or throw pillows or tchotchkes, I promise you, it’s ten times easier than parting with them once you own them. And hey, you might save enough for that trip to Greece, or at least Cape May.