Frugalista

Sixteen days into the month of February I finally cracked.  Although I have allowed myself $100/week for food, drinks, and shopping, I think we all know that there is NO room for shopping in this budget.  I celebrated my triumph of no shopping for 12 days this weekend to Howard.  He looked at me in utter shock.  "Are you serious that 12 days is a long time to not shop?" I looked back at him with the look of a sad puppy dog, acknowledging how truly naive he was to my comment, and told him that 12 days of no shopping was equivalent to him choosing not to attend a Ravens home game.  Suddenly, it clicked....

Although I say "I cracked," I do believe that this was for good reason and could have been much worse.  I got out of my car while visiting a client and knew that I wanted to at least walk into a few shops that were near the salon.  For the past few weeks I have allowed myself this luxury, yet I leave my wallet in the car.  I don't think it is wrong of me to want to check out the Spring styles or to strangely sniff the clothes to smell the exuberance of new cotton.  Although sales associates frown upon the latter.  Today, I brought my check card and license.  For some reason I thought this was better than the entire purse, like I was going to not buy something because I didn't have my car keys or cell phone as well.  My first stop was Barnes and Noble.  I wandered the isles and checked out the best sellers, new cookbooks, and shockingly found myself spending an extended period of time in the self help section.  Interesting.  As I was getting ready to leave the store, I felt a book called "The Frugalista Files" jumping off the table and into my arms.  Two things about this book: 1) It is based off a blog written by a 20-something girl that found herself broke and in debt because she didn't want to give up her fabulous lifestyle.  I CANNOT BELIEVE that someone has stolen my thunder! I bet she didn't think to write about something different each month.  2) Based on the idea behind the book, I was shocked and fairly annoyed when I saw that the book was $14.95.  And even more shocked that the Canadians have to pay $17.95.  Regardless, the book is 165 pages of EXACTLY what I should be reading to get myself back on track and I have to pay $14.95 for it? This Natalie P. McNeal would have gotten a wordy letter from me had I let this buy (yes, I bought it) taken me completely off track of my monthly goals.  Buying just one item opens a vicious door to quickly spending hundreds.

Luckily, this book was the only damage I did today to my bank account.  I went into Target and Ann Taylor Loft after this, and didn't buy anything.  Not because I didn't want, and wasn't now prepared to blow everything, I just luckily didn't see anything that I wanted.

I'm looking forward to reading the book and learning a few new tricks.  This author has a lot to make for after all she put me through today.