A Little Spending Experiment

If I am on the spending wagon, then I better just admit it, I fell off of it last week.  I fell so hard, I’m lucky I didn’t lose an arm, a leg and half my retirement savings too.  I did a little retail therapy at one of my favorite boutiques, and came home with a sack filled with just two pair of jeans and a shirt, and a debit card transaction that showed more than 400 dollars had been taken out of my account.

Told ya, this was no little bump on the head, this was a fall the size of  Texas, but even new jeans didn’t make me feel like dancing a two-step.  I slunk to my car with the BFF in tow and we sat there, looking at each other.  Then it started, she started going on and on, about how this is so not YOU.  You, Anita Cochran, don’t go spending 400 dollars on stuff you don’t need, much less don’t even really LOVE.  ”What the Hell are you doing???” Melissa asked.  Actually I don’t know what she really said, other than, “Didn’t you see me shaking my head???” At that point, I was hoping her head would spin all the way around and land back in the story to get my money back.  It didn’t, but by the time we got home, we were both so sickened by the overspending that at least she quit talking.  It’s not that she wasn’t right, oh she was right, but I already knew that and was beating myself up the whole time too.  I bet my tongue lashing will leave a mark so deep I won’t buy jeans for a year.  (Ok I won’t buy jeans over 30 dollars a pair for at least a week or so!!)

The end of the story goes something like this, I returned the two pair of jeans and got a good 300 bucks of my money back.  I needed to do that, it’s not fair to my family to make the sacrifices we have these last few months, and spend foolishly on something like that.  Just for a moment I returned to the days of yesteryear, when money was coming in and all too often was going out again on things that needn’t cost as much.  This time however, I noticed, I nearly barfed from the regret, and I righted my wrong, and now I’m ready to hang tight to the tight-wad wagon again.  The one thing that money couldn’t buy me was freedom, and now that I have it, I’m not gonna let a stupid thing like stupid spending drag me back to a time when working was all I knew, when spending was all I wanted to do, and where answering to EVERYONE else became a way of life.  Granted I’d be wearing spectacular jeans when I got there, but frankly, as Melissa would say, “I’ve seen your ass in all your jeans, and it pretty much looks the same  no matter which one you’re wearing.”    So the next time you see me, look me in the eye, because the rear is gonna look just like it did the last time we met and be covered in the same ole denim.