My Wardrobe, Myself

On Courage, Clarity, and My 2025 Word of the Year

Debbie Roes

January 31, 2025

For the past decade-plus, I’ve been selecting a word or theme each January to help guide my life as I navigate my way through the year. Some of the words that I’ve chosen in the past include: simplicity, joy, deliberate, balance, peace, essential, freedom, enough, less, and lightness. For 2023, I selected the word “clarity,” and I chose “courage” as my theme for 2024. I’ve often felt that each yearly theme has naturally evolved into the next one and that previous themes have continued to impact me even after their official time had passed.

Today’s post has been on my mind for quite some time, but I’ve struggled to actually sit down to write it. Doing so has required both clarity and courage, as well as a commitment to my 2025 word, which I’ll share later in this essay, along with my reasons for choosing it. But first I’d like to debrief how I did with my 2024 theme of “courage.” To do so, I’ll use the same headers that I did when I first introduced that theme last year.

My 2024 word/theme of the year was courage.

Courage with My Wardrobe and How I Dress

When I shared my 2024 courage theme, I wrote that I lacked the confidence to just wear what I like when it runs far afield from current trends and what others around me are putting on their bodies. I indicated that the women who I admired most sartorially were those who knew what clothing and styles they liked and fearlessly wore them. I stated that I wanted to wear all black in the summer sometimes and stick to my favorite pieces like straight-leg jeans, long toppers, and striking silver jewelry.

I feel like I did a great job with dressing courageously in 2024. I continued to keep an outfit journal and jot down everything I wore and how I felt in each of my ensembles. That practice allowed me to continue honing my style preferences and identify what I didn’t feel good wearing. I got better at noticing when an outfit was a “dud” before I left the house wearing it, as I tuned in more acutely to my inner voice and the way I felt when I put something on.

The epiphany that I got last February (courtesy of reader Sally from St. Paul) about being more selective about what I wore versus what I chose to buy has also helped me to dress more courageously. I’ve been able to embrace my style preferences more fully and honor them both when I shop and when I put my outfits together. I’ve still made a few purchasing mistakes since that time, but my shopping success percentage has increased considerably by holding higher standards for what I buy and keep. I’ve also come to trust my own instincts more and not listen as much to the opinions of others.

My Best Purchases of 2024

Debbie Roes

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December 31, 2024

Well, here we are on the LAST day of the year! Most of you will probably be reading this in 2025, so I hope the year is off to a good start for you. There’s an old saying that if it weren’t for the last minute, nothing would ever get done. There are so many times I can remember when I’ve done something right “up to the wire,” and today’s post definitely falls into that category! Of course, I could do this recap post in January, but I wanted to publish one final essay before 2024 is in the history books, so here goes…

As I wrote in my last post, which covered my worst purchases of 2024, I want to end the year on a high note, so today I’m going to share the best purchases that I made over the past twelve months. Fortunately, there are many more of these than there were in the last group, and I hope the same thing can be said for all of you about your 2024 wardrobe buys.

In today’s last post of the year, I’ll show you all my best purchases and tell you why they fit into that category. At the end of the essay, I’ll also share what I learned from these items to hopefully help me shop smarter in 2025.

Here’s a bird’s eye view of the 2024 wardrobe-related buys that I’m most happy about:

best purchases of 2024

As with my recap of my worst purchases, I’ll run through the above items individually – or in some cases by small groupings. I’ll show larger photos of the pieces in each section, both for better detail and so you won’t have to keep scrolling back up to the top to see what I’m talking about.

My Worst Purchases of 2024

Debbie Roes

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December 19, 2024

With less than two weeks until the end of the year, this is a good time for me to review my best and worst purchases of 2024. This is a practice that I’ve been doing for many years now, as it’s helpful to review what has and hasn’t worked out for me in terms of my shopping. Although it’s often quite obvious why some of the “worsts” fit into that category, it’s also beneficial to analyze the “bests” to hopefully learn from them, too. This will be a two-part series, with the second part going live before the end of the month.

In the past, I usually shared my best purchases first, but I’m going to turn that around this year because I’d rather end on a high note in case part two ends up being my final post of 2024. Although I’d like to publish another essay after that one before December 31, that may end up happening in early January instead. I’ll just have to see how it goes, as everyone seems to be busier around the holidays, and I haven’t been that great at posting content this year overall despite my best intentions!

My Five Worst Purchases of the Year

Okay, let’s dive right in… Fortunately, my track record was better with my shopping this year, so there aren’t as many “worsts” for me to lament as in some previous years. However, I wish I would have taken a pass on the following five items:

five worst purchases of 2024

I’ll go through the above pieces one by one and share why I placed them into the “worsts” category. It may not be readily apparent why these items didn’t work out for me, but it will quickly become clear through my descriptions. I’ll run through the worst purchases from left to right, top to bottom, and I’ll show pictures of each item again individually so you won’t have to scroll back up to the top to see what I’m talking about.

No More Contingency Plan

Debbie Roes

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November 30, 2024

It’s hard to believe that we’ve already reached the holiday season and that there’s only one month remaining in 2024! Before I publish some posts recapping the year, I want to cover a topic that I’ve been pondering a lot lately. Today’s essay will address selling clothing online, which was a short series that I covered back in late 2020 and early 2021.

insights on selling clothing online

Some of you may remember that I sold a lot of my clothing castoffs on eBay and Poshmark at the time of that series. While it took quite a few months for everything to sell, I managed to offload almost seventy items through that process. In the end, I earned over $2000 in total, which helped with both the guilt and the financial burden of having made too many mistakes with my shopping.

That may seem like a decent amount of money, but the money I earned was by far eclipsed by the money I lost through not being selective enough with my purchases. It’s also important to note that I spent countless hours photographing, measuring, and listing the items for sale. It was much more time-consuming than I thought it would be, and although it felt good to deposit some funds back to our bank account, it would have been far better to have been more selective with what I bought so there would be little need to try to “recoup my losses.”

A New Pile of Castoffs…

Fast-forward to 2023 and 2024… I had gradually accumulated another pile of clothing pieces that didn’t work out for me for various reasons. Sometimes the problem was no fault of my own, such as “fussy” garments that I didn’t love wearing and shoes that were uncomfortable when walking for more than the short try-on distance in a store.

But more often than not, my castoffs were pieces that I should have never purchased in the first place, things that I mostly bought due to “the allure of the sale.” I let some of my well-thought-out standards fly out the window in the face of the “great deals” offered via resale stores, clearance racks, and end-of-season sales. And while I sometimes realized the error of my ways in short order, many of the items were “final sale” and couldn’t be returned.

Thus, I decided to once again go back to selling my unwanted – but in good shape – clothing online. Although I dreaded the time expenditure and slow process of doing this, it was comforting knowing that I had a sort of “contingency plan” for dealing with my ill-advised purchases and the guilt that they provoked in me.

Favorite 2024 Warm Weather Outfits

Debbie Roes

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October 24, 2024

Well, my wish was granted… I’ve been able to continue wearing my summer wardrobe well into October, which has made me happy. Other than a few cool and overcast days, the warmer temperatures have persisted such that I’ve kept on wearing my cropped pants, tees/tanks, and sandals. I’ve often needed to add a cardigan or jacket to my outfits because it’s not as hot as it was back in July through September, but I welcome that change.

Anyone who’s around me on a regular basis knows how much I love my toppers, especially cardigans, and I usually rate my ensembles that include third pieces higher than those that just consist of a top and a pair of pants. But one thing that changed this year is that I’ve been able to create quite a few two-piece looks that I felt good in and enjoyed wearing. The proportions weren’t perfect, but I’ve made peace with the fact that maximizing my emotional comfort in what I’m wearing means that I generally won’t hit that “golden ratio” of one-third on top to two-thirds on the bottom. Luckily, I’m tall, have long legs, and like to wear heels, which mitigates the fact that I prefer my tops to be a bit longer than “the rule of thirds” would ideally prescribe.

As the warm weather season is wrapping up, I wanted to share some of my favorite outfits that I wore over the past four or so months. While it’s happened a few times that I’ve been able to wear summer clothing well into November – and even December – a few times, I definitely can’t count on that! So, I’ve been working on preparing for the cooler days, when I’ll get back to wearing jeans and closed-toe shoes. Before I do so, however, I want to celebrate the style successes that I’ve experienced this warm weather season.

I’m still wearing my summer clothes, but the warm weather is drawing to a close.

Summer Outfits Overview

As I mentioned in my last post, I’ve mostly been wearing cropped pants instead of dresses and skirts during the warm weather season this year. I’d thought that maybe I’d integrate more skirt and dress ensembles into the mix, but I only ended up having a handful of such looks. It’s partly because I gained a bit of weight and don’t feel as slim in knit skirts and dresses (which all my current pieces are), and it’s also because my life is super-casual and pants outfits usually lend themselves better to the types of activities that I do. I’d love to find a few woven dresses or skirts next year for less “cling factor,” but I don’t need all that many pieces in this wardrobe category, as it’s just not what I wear most often anymore.