So this budget thing kind of means that I have to give up shopping as a hobby. I realized that the other day when I was in the mall (the trashy mall I love so much that has Old Navy, Claire's, London Drugs, Winners, Zellers, Reitmans AND...a Dollar Giant "everything for $1.25" store. Shangri la for people who want to buy lots of things, cheap). I needed to buy two items from the dollar store and then go down to the end of the mall to the grocery store for an additional two items for JPM's birthday, and I had to walk THROUGH Zellers and past every single other store to get the specific items I came for.
And it took every fibre of my being not to just stop in and see what was on sale. Because there was nothing else planned or needed besides the items on my list. No cute tops, or toiletries or earrings or socks or frying pans.... Just paper plates, napkins and French bread. Period.
And then I had a revelation: there are plenty of people in this world who just go out and get the stuff they need, who only shop when they actually need something. We've been trying to be those people - not just buying stuff because it's on sale, or because it strikes our fancy, or because we MIGHT need it sometime. I think that to rock the whole frugalista thing and to be successful on our new budget - this is what JTM and I need to get good at: being the kind of people who acquire the things they NEED, and who don't treat shopping as a hobby. And we will just have to fake it till we make it - cause it is going to take a long time to rewire ourselves as need-based consumers.
One issue I keep coming up against is that the urge to consume seems to be innate; and if I shut down one channel, another one opens. In other words, I've been eating like a PIG lately.
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