Even in high school, I had it in my head that buying new clothes was vain.
Picture my mother pleading with me to let her buy me pants that fit me. At some point I realized that she had starting sneaking in new pairs of socks and throwing out my old ones with holes. One of the first places I went after I got my drivers license was to a thrift store, afterward proudly showing my parents a $5 suit I bought (and wore way later into life than I should have).
While my teenage friends cared about clothes, I was defiantly disinterested in any of it. I was proud I saved what money I earned and perhaps prouder of how little I ever asked my parents to contribute. (For their part, they were more often embarrassed of my taking hand-me-downs from bosses and friends. They were worried it might look like they weren’t taking care of me, even though they most certainly were. I had one of the most loving households I could imagine, which might be why I didn’t want to ask them for anything else — look at how they helped me pay for college.)
But then I got older and entered the workforce, where the first impressions you make aren’t cast aside by the whims of youthfulness.
It took quite a few experiences as a professional for me realize that there’s a balance between spending too much money and time on clothes and too little, and I hadn’t found it. That’s when I had to make a change.
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