You spend hours scrolling through Pinterest collecting styles you long to wear. You shop online, at the mall, and at thrift stores. You go to your closet and feel like nothing you own truly speaks to who you are, the person you envision yourself as.

You know you want more out of your wardrobe but you already feel like what you have is too much; too overwhelming. If you’re honest, it’s a hot mess.

I get that. I really do. This describes me. And it describes most women of our generation. We have too much and yet never feel like we’re dressing for the real us.

Some scary statistics about our clothing habits.

The average woman:

• Throws away 65 pounds of garments per year.

• Has over $500 of unworn clothing and 300 clothing items in her wardrobe.

• Spends 4 hours a month deciding what to wear.

And although we have increased the number of garments we buy since 2012, we are actually spending the same amount of money overall. Anytime you want to diagnose a problem you look at the symptoms.

What all this tells me is that we’re buying and buying, yet we’re not really fulfilled or satisfied with what we have.

How do you solve this problem?

You have to get serious about your style and clothing and clean out your closet!

Do want to love your style, spend less time worrying about what to wear, minimize your life, and make money at the same time?

It may sound too good to be true, but doing all this is totally possible if you can clean out your closet the right way.

How do I know this? I spent 4 years working in a consignment shop where I helped women hone their style everyday. Overtime, I became an expert at knowing innately what worked and what didn’t for each unique woman. Many of my styling clients would later hire me to come into their homes and closets so that I could help them style what they already owned and get rid of the things that no longer served them.

Cleaning out your closet doesn’t have to be a pain. I promise! Before we talk about how to get started, I wanted to let you know I compiled all my experience cleaning out closets in one helpful place. Want to check out my insights? Download my free PDF guide to “Cleaning Out Your Closet”.

The easiest way to clean out your closet is to hire someone to save you time and do it for you. But if want to spend a little extra time, you and a friend can do this and be closer to the wardrobe of your dreams.

If you’re ready to dig deep and let go of all this crap that’s been holding you back, stressing you out, robbing your joy, and weighing you down then read on.

Step One - Preparation

Grab a friend or family member. Pick a staging area and schedule some time to do this. You’ll need some plastic garbage bags.

Step Two - Purge

Pull everything you own out of your closet and dressers and start to identify which pieces really fit your style, which do not, and which are hidden gems that you’ve been overlooking. It helps to have a stylist or friend present to give feedback and encouragement.

Make 3 piles:

1. Keep

2. Donate

3. Consign

As you go through each item, decide which pile it belongs in. Once you have all your piles, put the Donate and Consignment items into garbage bags.

Step Three - Organize

Now that you’ve gone through each item you’re ready to start organizing. Make sure all your clothing is arranged by category, color, material type, length, and sleeve length and that all the hangers are facing in the same direction. I go into this in extreme detail in my 3 Step Guide which you can grab here for free.

Wrapping it all up! Time to sell and make cash.

That’s it! You’ve done it. Congratulations. The hard part is over! I hope you feel so much better.

At this point you can take the garbage bags to their respective charities and consignment shops. The reason I recommend actual brick and mortar consignment shops at this point is because I want the clothing out of your house.

Now that you have a clean slate to work from you can start to use other methods like Poshmark, ThredUp, and Etsy.

If you’re local to Knoxville then you know that StateMint is coming up. Now would be an ideal time to clean out your closet and make cash. You can still sign up. I know I’ll be there selling my extra items too.

Author bio

Brianna is a Certified Holistic Health Coach, Stylist, and author of Simple Is The Cure. She helps stressed out creatives simplify life and health so that they can achieve their dreams and change the world. She and her firefighter husband along with their dog Beau live in Knoxville, Tennessee.

Thanks Brianna for your wonderful guest post this week! The gals at Help You Dwell highly recommend her Ebook Simple Is The Cure!