January 1 - an old favorite

What: size 8.5 black 3 inch heel slides
From: Bandolino (I think probably Hecht's)
Purchased: very early in DC life - '94-'96
Cost: guessing - $32

These are my sister pair to the brown slides I've really outgrown. I got both pairs at roughly the same time and wore the heck out of them in the 90s. I mean all the time - those two pairs of shoes were my go-tos in warmer months. But I probably haven't worn them in at least 5 years.

These have been in the hanging shoe organizer in my closet and I never got around to them this summer, but I pulled them out for our holiday trip to Florida. We had a beach wedding on Jan 1 to attend, and I though they'd work perfectly, which they did. The heel is awfully chunky, but the wide strap really works with current styles. And they are still really comfy, probably becasue they're an 8.5. I can't remember buying them, I'm surprised I got an 8.5, so there must have been a good price, maybe cheaper than my standard guess.

BTW, my sister, on the brown slide post, thought the brown ones were shoes we had gotten together in Florida, but that's not the case- she's thinking of black and brown hurrache-type shoes (but with a thick sole and heel) from Mia brand. I may have gotten rid of those shoes in the '08 purge, but I don't think I did. I think there is a box stashed in an inconvenient place in the attic that contains those shoes and also my black slouch boots. I am still really annoyed about the slouch boots. I'm going to miss a narrow window when they are back in style. Must find them.

Anyway, back to these shoes - they were worn so much I totally wore down the outside heels, and had to have them repaired - they had to put eveners on them to counter the wear!


Bottom line: still a keeper, though they probably won't get much wear

2010 shoes

So, guess what? I totally forgot about a pair I bought in 2010, but by deductive reasoning, them checking my stash of receipts, I was able to pinpoint I had indeed bought a pair of shoes in February 2010. I've edited below, and numbers that were edited are marked with an *.

So in addition to cataloging my shoe collection, I'm simultaneously exposing my buying habits. I bought 22* pairs of shoes in 2010. I've shown you 19 pairs - still have three* to reveal.

In 2010, including the two pairs I haven't yet documented, I spent $617.50* on shoes, or $28.07* per pair, or roughly $50/month. Yikes. Wow. I had no idea. Seriously, if someone asked me how many shoes I bought a year I'd say maybe 10-12. Twice that is a surprise. I don't know how this year really compares with other years, because I can usually pinpoint my purchases to within a season or a span of 1-2 years, but I don't have perfect memory. Friends have asked me how I remember the dates I bought shoes, and it's because I've changed jobs or just been in different life stages over the past ten years or so. So I remember I bought shoes before or after I met Rich, before or after the wedding, with colleagues from my long-term non profit job, from my communications job, from maternity leave, from freelancing etc. But it's not a perfect memory. I'd say I've probably bought more these past few years because I've had more opportunity, but even when working I had a fair amount of shopping time. So who knows.

The good news is I am a bargain shopper, and for less than the price of a pair of fancy designer shoes, I've been able to buy 22* pretty darn good pairs! Where I keep them all is more of the problem, though.

I've already semi-reviewed my purchases, and I don't have many purchase regrets.

So what's on tap for 2011? Well, I'm going to get some wear out of the three* from 2010 I haven't yet worn. I have to take my now-beloved gray ankle boots to the cobbler, though, because I've worn them so much they already need new heel taps! Love them.

I do have a few shoes I'd like to purchase. I really need hiking boots, and missed out on buying some for super cheap in the Lands End winter sale - deliberated too long and they sold out of my size. Hiking boots can then double as snow boots, but if I see some cheap snow boots on sale I'm going to grab them, although we probably won't get much more snow (I hope not at least - on average we only get one >6 inch snow storm a year, though of course anything is possible). I am still longing for gray shooties, but that's another post. I've been cyber stalking a pair I think I love, but they're $165, and that's too rich for my blood. I've been cyber stalking two other pairs of shoes - these in teal/gray and red/taupe - but again too pricey for me. I really, really covet the teal ones.

More realistically, this challenge showed me just how beat up most of my dressy black sandals are, so I'll be on the lookout for a good buy. My athletic shoes are pretty worn, too, so again I've keep a lookout.

And that's about it. I think you'll all agree I don't really need any other kinds of shoes. Maybe I should institute a one in/one out rule from here on out. That would be a good rule - because if I buy black dressy sandals, I certainly have some to toss. Hmm.

So I've purchased two pairs already in 2011. One pair I'll write about soon follows the one in/one out rule. The other pair I'm really not sure about, so they might go back. We'll see what you all think. I'd like to limit my purchases to no more than 10-12 (and this of course assumes I am gainfully employed soon!). We'll see what 2011 brings!

*edited numbers from original post to account for a forgotten pair

December tally

Oh for Pete's sake. Are you all as sick of looking at my shoes as I am of thinking about them? Every month I start off strong, resolving to post every day and just finish this already for the love of god. And yet, every month I just lose my motivation. I told someone that even though I have probably another 40 pairs of so to go, I am just not inspired by any of them, which means I should probably just dump all of them. But that's not entirely true. A lot of it has to do with winter blahs. It's really much, much easier to stay in my pajamas all day and not even think about shoes or going outside. And then the photographing, the uploading...it's just too much for my winter blahs to think about. Of the 40 or so remaining, probably 10 are summery shoes I never got around to, 10 are really cool but totally rockin' professional shoes I have no reason to wear, and the rest are crap that should be deleted from my life. OK, well, I shall soldier on because the only thing worse than finishing this project is failing at finishing this project. I photographed a bunch of shoes for January, and have released my standard of having to wear them out of the house, so maybe this will go a bit faster. I'll pop those all up quickly, then start - and FINISH - February strong.

First, I have to report it's January 28th and I've already purchased two pairs of shoes this year. Eeep. I'm going to admit that I considered going cold turkey on ALL shopping for clothes and shoes for myself in 2011, but I just couldn't do it. Well, I was going to modify that resolution into only allowing second-hand purchases, but even that was too tough. So, let's recap December, which is hard because I think I made a math error in November's recap so I have to figure that out first, but here we go anyway.

In the month of December, I wore/examined 8 pairs of shoes from my collection, at a total cost of $143.50, or average cost of $17.94. Of those, I am keeping all 8, though later I am going to write about how I'm getting rid of one pair.

So, I've been blogging shoes for 214 days.

I have shown you 127 pairs of my shoes. I am keeping 108 (!) (on the fence about 6 of those, though I think I gave my mom one of those 6, I need to go back and check), trashing 3, donating 16.

So keeping 108 and getting rid of 19 is a cull rate of 15%. (My goal remains 20%, which means I have stacks to get rid of, and December didn't help me any).

And, I estimate that over the past 17 years or so I've spent $3,397.75 on shoes, or an average cost of $26.75 per shoe.

Wow, so that means I'm keeping 108 pairs of shoes. I've got to get with it so I can wrap this up by February.

My friend TSM made a really good suggestion a while back - she said once I had decided what I was keeping, I should then lay them all out, sort by category/color, and then re-evaluate. I want to do that though I'm not sure where I can set the full collection up! TSM even volunteered to come over and help, so I'll take her up on that. Actually, this is my interpretation of what she said, which was actually more along the lines of you seem to have lot of shoes that you don't wear but that 'make you smile' and maybe you should cull some of them. Which is also not exactly what she typed but what she sensibly meant.

I've been reading and watching Peter Walsh lately - he's a 'declutter expert' who talks about the types of clutter people have. I definitely have memory clutter - imbuing objects with memories. However, he's lost all credibility with me because I was watching his clutter show on the new Oprah Network and he told a woman with over 100 pairs of shoes that no one needed more than 10 pairs. Obviously, the man is delusional. No one needs over 100, I'll grant you that. But ten is purely punitive and, if putting together stylish, interesting outfits is something that interests you whatsoever, a ten-pair limit forces you to be radically unstylish. OK, anyway. Onward!