If you should happen to see me scuttling about town, this might amuse you: I'm a clotheshorse. I probably own more shirts than any man except Van Heusen. I have them stored in large quantities around the world so that, if I should ever need a shirt, I'll have a range to choose from. I have a point to make here that's relevant to your life, but first I must divest myself of the shame.

Spring came, so I decided to clean out the closet. It's semi-organised chaos in there, testimony to my inability to turn down a good shirt when I see one. The truth is, I don't go to my own stores when I need a shirt. I go to a retail store, and buy a nice new one, because I deserve it.

But I didn't invite you here today to talk about shirts. Trousers is my real subject. It turns out that I had 19 pairs in my closet. That's just the formal trousers. There are tracksuit trousers, and shorts, and jams, and the trousers that go with my business suits. Say another 15 pairs altogether.

This means that when I am ready to go out, I can be all dressed up with somewhere to go. Unfortunately, I very rarely leave the house, and when I do, usually can't be bothered to dress up. It is the mark of the true clotheshorse that he or she rarely opens the closet door. The good news about the trousers was that if I were to wear what I own on a rotating basis, I probably wouldn't need to repeat before the 2012 Olympics.

In a new-found spirit of fed-upness with how much stuff I have, I reviewed the trousers to see what I might be able to get rid of. I threw out one pair of moth-eaten fat trousers. Three pairs of linen trousers, bought years ago but never worn, will be sent out for hemming. A few pairs were simply old and spent. In no time flat, I was down to 12 pairs, in the main trousers department. The others are special purpose. They stay. Back off.

OK, so I've walked you through my trousers. What's my point?

It's this. Clearly, I have too many clothes. I'm probably an idiot. I would bet that you have too many clothes, but you're no idiot. You know that a well-selected wardrobe will last a lifetime, providing you don't change size in that lifetime. You know that by rotating similar garments, i.e. trousers, you can extend their lives, thus cutting down wear and tear. You know that an investment in clothes says "How d'ya do?" and all that. OK, well, you may be an idiot, too.

In Bermuda, which I would underline if I knew how, too many of us have too many clothes, and I'm here to say that it's alright. Not because I'm endorsing irresponsibility, but because my clothes Jones is relatively harmless. It seems I can affords 19 pairs of trousers, plus special purpose garments. It seems to matter to me. And to find your financial equilibrium, you have to be comfortable. It's one of the key criteria for achieving success in the financial arena, or maybe anywhere.

I'm not saying rush out and buy trousers until Cooper's lets me appear in their ads, i.e. never. I am saying it's OK if you have a clothes Jones, providing it's not interfering with your regular life. Keeping up with the Jones is a better idea than denying it. You need clothes for work, you need clothes for play, and you probably need clothes around the house.

So fling wide the closet doors, and celebrate the real you, the one of many guises, always well-prepared, or always wearing the same pair of jeans, whatever.

And now, some sage advice that you'll probably want to ignore, but I'm planting the seed. You do the hard work around here; it's your money. Buy fewer clothes in future. Don't abandon your inner peacock, just work with what you have a little more, and occasionally say "I want these trousers, I deserve these trousers, I'm not always nice enough to myself, plus my sweetie will desire me more highly when she sees me in these trousers," and then don't buy 'em.

You'll feel kind of bad about it for a while. Don't rebound by buying a speedboat, or anything silly. Be proud that you put your financial future before your trousers on this one occasion, and a week or two, or 10 years, later, however long it takes, when you give in to the little red devil on your left shoulder and dash in to buy the trousers, either you will have much more satisfaction from them, or you will decide against and not buy them. Either way, you will win. You will have demonstrated a little financial self-control.

Baby steps. Remember that everything starts with your trousers. I'm sure Sigmund Freud would have agreed.

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Note for CEOs: A few weeks ago, I wrote about how you are your own CEO. Three people e-mailed for further info, but my inbox developed fatal problems and I lost the e-mails. Write again, please: crombienorthrock.bm