A freelance journalist is undertaking an unusual challenge to only buy clothes from charity shops for the year.

Debbie Attwood, left, has set herself a project to not buy any clothes from high street fashion chains for the whole of 2011 and is blogging about the experiment.

She decided to start the challenge to combine her passions of writing and shopping in charity shops and hopes to encourage more young people to buy clothes from them.

Debbie started out in journalism as a sub-editor at the Kent and Sussex Courier where she completed her NCTJ training and she now writes regularly for Mizz magazine and is the style writer for SO Tunbridge Wells magazine.

She said: “I decided to start the challenge to combine my love of charity shopping with my love of writing.

“I wanted to have something interesting to write about and I thought setting myself a challenge would give me this.

“At the beginning it was easy, the blog kept me busy and so I wasn’t lured in by the High Street. It is getting harder and harder to walk past Topshop now.

“I do love shopping in charity shops though and have found some amazing items. From designer (like the Karen Millen coat) to various great vintage pieces, you get a much better quality of clothing for a lot better price – plus you are helping a good cause which is great.

“I just hope to get more young people shopping in charity shops if I can achieve anything with the challenge.”

Debbie is writing about the challenge at her That Charity Style blog where she gives descriptions and photos of clothes she has found.