Tuesday, April 17, 2007
Spending
I recently had an hour to kill before a meeting in one of the suburbs. I’d never been there before and didn’t know where to go that wouldn’t take me too far out of my way. I drove around a bit and slowly it dawned on me; the only things I could think to do involved spending.
It’s one of the more powerful effects of being on this ‘spending plan’ (read: strict budget to get out of debt). I now realize how much of my previous spending was just about killing time. Shopper’s is a particularly lucrative trap for me. I could walk into that place and spend $50 without pause. $20 at S’bux because I don’t have to be somewhere for another half hour.
Maybe if I’d found a park or something it would have been different. Instead, I walked into Shopper’s, intending to stand in the magazine section for an hour. I did stand in the Magazine section; I read O and a story out of Stuart McLean’s new book.
Then an employee started adjusting things on the shelves and I felt guilty so I decided to wander around the store. Just to look, though. Y'know, keep up on the new products.
I now have $60 to fit somewhere into the budget. On top of the $100 we’re currently ‘working off” in the budget, $20 at a time. Granted, they were things we needed ← I just realized that was a trick I play on myself. Because they weren't really things we needed. Wow. Lesson learned.
The moral of the story is never go to the suburbs.
Just kidding.
posted by Working From Home Today
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