Things I Learned During Lent + Giving Up Shopping

This past Lent season I decided to "give up" shopping for home decor and clothing/shoes. I chose this to give up so that I could focus on one of my goals for the year: practicing "enough". I thought I'd share some of my thoughts while going through it and a couple things I learned about myself and such, since I had some readers ask me how it went. Hope you enjoy!

cassidy carson photography - I love fashion and home decor and beauty all around. This is built into me and I think it's a good thing to love those things. God designed me to love to create and design and cling to beauty for a reason. - I love the satisfaction of finding something adorable and perfect for my wardrobe or closet. Quite honestly, I just like new things. They make me feel good (hard to admit ha!) - Most of the 40 days was really easy to not buy anything. I've always liked challenges and I like succeeding at them. I felt pretty proud of myself (not sure if that's a good thing ;)) - There were a couple instances where I REALLY wanted to buy something on sale, and started to justify it in my head (because #sale) but stayed strong. - During this period of time, I was doing a design project for a client where I had to go out and buy enough decor to decorate his entire house. I remember feeling really excited about this, because I got to shop with someone else's money. Ha! (I don't take this lightly for my clients-- I always stay in budget and get them things they really love...just saying, it's fun and I'm thankful for this job of mine!) - I definitely had some jealousy when I would scroll on Instagram and see the fashion bloggers posting their new clothes and things, so I even unfollowed a few. Not because I couldn't buy things at the time and I was jealous of that, but because I just think seeing girls posting new things all the time isn't good for my heart.  - The above discovery led me to this next one. I don't want people to feel that way when they come to MY page or blog, so I want to be really careful in sharing things moving forward. There's a fine balance I think...I want to share what I love and I know a lot of you want to know those things (and hey, it's fun to share!), but I also just want to be careful not to make anyone feel like they don't have enough stuff or need something new all the time. - After Lent, when I was able to shop again, I actually really thought about my purchases (want vs. need). I definitely want to head towards quality over quantity and make sure I'm not buying something just to buy it or have the adrenaline rush of something new. - I think I should do a couple of "spending freezes" every year to teach myself constraint and practice the feeling of "enough". It did good things for my soul.
- Jesus is better than clothes and home decor and shopping, friends. He really is. He is the only thing that won't run dry.
Have you ever done a shopping spending freeze or given anything up like this for Lent? I'd love to learn about your experiences! And hopefully I'm not alone on some of my feelings above:) xoxo
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