Shopaholic or not?

There have been times in my life when I have been criticised for spending too much money on things I don't need.

Actually, come to think of it, that is probably quite a large portion of my life, but seeing as I have been more or less financially independent for the last 15 years or so I don't think I have ever been completely irresponsible with money. Careless at times yes, but not crazy.

Following on from successful blogs like The Sartorialist, Berlingske (our daily paper) has a section at the weekend where they photograph someone in the street who they think looks cool (or captures the zeitgeist as I have always wanted to say) and ask them various questions about the clothes they are wearing and how much they spend on a monthly basis on clothes. It seems that the average is about 2000kr per month (approx £200 or $350) which always seems like a great deal to me especially when they are asking students and young people.

I started writing this post because I felt like I have spent more money than usual on clothes in the last couple of months than usual and I have been looking for more things online. This is partly because the weather has changed and I am quite a lot smaller than I was last winter so I have needed to buy some new things.

In actual fact, I have only bought a new coat, a down vest and a couple of shirts/t-shirts totalling around 2000kr and that is in at least 2 months. I had a big blow out in August and bought jeans, a belt, a jacket and a sweater in England, but I needed some clothes for work that don't look like they belong in the garden. Juxtaposed to this is the fact that I currently have a number of my cast off items for sale on eBay including a very old ski jacket and a number or pairs or trousers. As it stands at the moment, I will be getting about 1000kr back from them by the end of the day.

So, do I spend a lot or not? I'm not sure, sometimes it seems like a lot, but in relation to these trendy young types, perhaps I am more frugal than I imagined.