With the wedding coming up this weekend, plus a good friend's birthday, non-work time today was dedicated to shopping. The mission: one wedding gift, one birthday gift, one outfit appropriate to wear to wedding that will hopefully be useful to general wear after wedding.
Did I really need something new to wear to this wedding? Maybe, maybe not. But, it was a decent excuse and in my defense I can't remember the last time I bought myself something new to wear. Summer just doesn't rate new clothes in my life. It's so casual. No big events, nothing to dress up for. I wear the same thing over and over and rarely wear anything other than flip flops on my feet. But fall . . . I yearn for new fall clothes. And boots. I actually succumbed to purchasing and reading Vogue. I drool over catalogs instead of cursing the companies who dare to send me unsolicited junk mail. The problem is that we are broke. Broke, broke, broke.
I just don't make as much money as I used to. About half, actually. And Al loves his job but it doesn't pay that well either. In my old job I made more than he does, now he makes more. We have cut back where we can but there really weren't that many things to cut back. People (and dumb magazines) make so many useful suggestions on how to save money without even noticing a difference in your life: bring your lunch instead of eating out (we live close enough to come home for lunch so never ate out), drop luxuries like cable (uh . . . never had it!) or cut back from DSL to dial-up (dial up is all we ever had . . . we did change to a cheaper ISP but that's only saving us $10 a month), drop your cell phones (locked into a 2 year contract with an exorbitant breakage fee). The list goes on and on. The place in our budget where we could really cut back was the fun stuff: clothes and movies and dinners out and traveling and oh did I mention clothes??? This wouldn't be quite so bad but in a mad fit of cleaning and organization about a year ago I purged my closet. Decided I would try a minimalist wardrobe. I am not loving it and can't afford to replace everything. (Only consolation of course is that the clothes went to Good Will, so at least someone benefits from them.) To add insult to injury I have gained some weight in the past year and the clothes I have look a little, well, tight.
So today I shopped. Wedding gift? Check (from the registry . . . I still remember some of the weird gifts we received, though I am sure they were well intended, and it convinced me to always buy from the registry). Birthday gift? No luck. Something to wear to the wedding? Sort of! I bought myself: one pair of pants, one skirt, one suit, one shirt. The suit isn't right for this wedding. The shirt doesn't pair up with either the skirt of the pants (I just liked it). Hopefully I will be able to combine these new finds with things I already own and come up with something. But I am soooo happy with the things I bought.
Tomorrow . . . manicure and pedicure. I am burning through a 2 week paycheck in 2 days. I refuse to feel bad about it!
No comments:
Post a Comment