wish lists

A while ago, I made the conscious decision to rid my blog of any content using product images, in the hopes to make my site more organic and a place where I only featured items I owned and loved. Most of that content came in the form of wish lists. After reading a piece at around the same time by my Twitter buddy and fellow teen blogger, Eleanor Claudie, I’ve been mulling over why maybe we should all start to rethink wish lists and why they’re fit for purpose for more than just your Christmas or birthday lists as a child…

Although it’s a lot easier to see something of a higher price as an investment, I personally like to see everything we obtain and buy as an investment in itself especially when it comes to our clothes.

It’s easy to walk into a high-street store and take the low prices for granted; if you don’t like something after a few weeks or months of buying it, it doesn’t have to break the bank to pass it on or throw it away without much thought.

I know I’ve come across plenty of still-new and still-labelled items in charity shops which shows the short amount of time it can take for something to come in and out of our wardrobes (it even makes me think people have forgotten returning items for a refund is a viable option).

This throw-away culture has become easier for me to avoid and understand over the past couple of years not only due to my knowledge of consumerism but also due to the fact that as I near adulthood (6 months!), I know that what I buy is mine and will be with me when I leave home and create my own haven for collecting and storing what I own.

This even crosses over into other parts of my life, like home décor – I’ve curated a style I like and I have posters and prints that I one day want to have framed and hung on the wall. They may not be of use to me now but I know they’ll be of use to me in the future.

What we buy now should last us for years. There’s really no excuse for buying something now and not liking it after 30 days (the usual time allowed for returns and refunds for most stores); it’s a mindless way of buying, whichever way you look at it.

I take this to the extent of properly considering what I buy second-hand, too. Due to the fact that second-hand shopping doesn’t have many consequences or cons to it, it’s easy to want to buy everything you set your eyes on but the same principle still stands. Do you really need what you’re buying?

I’ve previously discussed ways to know whether you’ll actually end up wearing what you buy and one of the tips I suggested was ‘sleeping on it’. Here’s a quote directly from that post which a fair few of you found helpful…

“If you walk away from something you catch your eye on, you’ll know for definite if it’s really worth buying if you sleep on it and wake up still thinking about it.”

Perhaps as a child, we never took this too seriously. We might not have written down what Bratz doll we wanted after sleeping on it for weeks and weeks – yes, I played with Bratz, Barbies and the odd Action Man – but we wrote it down and waited and if we were lucky and fortunate enough, it would show up under our tree on Christmas morning or wrapped up on our birthday, and we would go on to treasure the gift because it hadn’t been bought for us on impulse.

Not only do wish lists make us think through our purchases more considerately, they also give us time to think about our budgets which can be helpful especially with items which are priced a little higher. You’ll be more certain about how worthwhile the purchase is and you’ll be more certain you can afford it, too.

So, what’s on your wish list currently? What do you really love but are willing to wait for? Here’s a list of items that I’d quite like to add to my wardrobe…

~ MY WISHLIST ~

Of course, everything is better in moderation and I would recommend you limit the number of wishlists you compile because otherwise, it defeats the whole purpose of more considerate choices. If you want some easy ways to create a wishlist without putting pen to paper, you can use a notepad on your laptop or create a bookmark folder on your browser.

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