Cutting out unnecessary purchases has made a huge difference in my money, and I hardly had any unnecessary purchases to begin with. My rules are pretty simple. The steadfast ones:
- Don’t exceed weekly/monthly budgets, which goes for dining out, groceries, transportation (both train and gas), and entertainment
- If there’s a store-brand option just go with it
- If I don’t fall in love with something right away, put it down and leave the store
- Spend the last of that Amazon gift card money wisely
- Put any extra or unexpected income straight into savings
And the flexible ones that I think I’ve just been following intuitively:
- If I can get home in the next half hour and find something to eat there, don’t eat out
- Order the cheapest thing on the menu (which leads to tea in every coffee shop, pasta in every restaurant, both of which are a-okay by my stomach)
- Take help where it’s offered, and only ask for it if I’m starving
- Don’t starve, no matter what the budget says
But even as someone whose material consumption is low for her demographic, sometimes, I really want something, and I can’t have it. There are days where I can walk into a supermarket and walk by every single treat to head straight for the wheat bread, and then there are days where I stare resentfully at my precious quarters which I want to use on a Snickers bar but must save for laundry. There are days where my face is very dry and broken out and needs good, proper exfoliation to look anyway presentable, but that’s a lot of money and it’s not going to happen. Heck, I went through all of last year cutting my own hair with sewing scissors and a bathroom mirror, and practically cried with joy when my mom got me a salon gift card for this past Christmas.
Especially at my university, which is full of (mostly) well-dressed and pretty girls. Even though I’m not trying to attract anyone’s attention, still: I spent all of last year feeling great about myself and the way I looked, and now I feel eyes skip right over me while I walk to class. Sometimes that’s just fine — ya’ll know I hate BC social life — but sometimes it just pools into an overall sense of shabbiness, of being a cheapskate, of failing where other people aren’t.
There are just these little luxuries I’m extremely aware of now. Not that that’s made me anymore worldly or appreciative of what I have in any kind of way. Let’s not kid ourselves — I still want these things and think I deserve them. But while the dress may look pretty and my ears could do with re-piercing, I can’t have it, and so I’ve got to suck it up. Kick my heels into the ground, tug at my hair, and sulk at my lack of social options — do whatever I need to to make the jealous and covetous feeling pass — but I can’t. Can’t, can’t, can’t.
And then hope that after a while, I won’t mind so much anymore.
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It’s that time of year, when my generally amazing immune system (for normal diseases, I mean; the bizarre “only on House” types of reactions I’ve got covered) screeches to a halt as it gets a little bit colder, because even though I think I look pretty good when the cord jacket gets its seasonal debut, my body seems to REALLY HATE SWEATER WEATHER.
Well, like clockwork I’ve been struck with the same monster cold everyone else has. I was pretty convinced it was swine flu this morning, what with the trembling and the fair-maiden weakness and the vomit, but now I don’t think it is. I think I’ve just got the exact same thing I get every year, the exact same thing the girls in my house have had for weeks.
It’s pretty suck timing, as my boyfriend is currently on a plane home and I was spread-eagled on my bed wishing for death when he left. I’ll need to get through another month now, and at the moment I feel okay. I’m snuggled in my jammies in my bed, breathing fine through one nostril, feeling totally not guilty about spending every weekend at home. I’m on a bubble of love that must not pop any time soon.
Unfortunately, I’ve been experiencing heightened depression lately. It’s nothing I want to go into here or now, but suffice it to say that my good moods are very easily crushed by bad thoughts. I’m back in therapy for an indefinite amount of time while I try to figure out how I can summon the elation of a happy memory the way I seem to be able to summon the misery of a bad one.
So, after that monster check list of my hopes and dreams, I’ve thought of a few things to put on a new one. If I’m bored one day I might make it into a sidebar. And I’m bored a lot.
- Do yoga regularly. I spent $20 on a mat so I better keep this up. My plan is Thursdays at 12:45, between classes, and then on my own time using a video Podcast. This will hopefully allow me to calm my mind and my body, because both of them are reacting as though I just came back from ten years trapped in the space/time continuum rather than one year in Europe.
- Knit or crochet again. I have a project in mind, and I’m once again enthralled by the idea of sitting in my pajamas watching movies on my computer while knitting a scarf. And this time I have no one to come into my room on a weekend night and imply that I am a gigantic loser for not going out.
- Make jewelry. I’ve made a few pieces that I really quite like. None of them are terribly complicated but that’s because that’s not the sort of jewelry I like. Kage saw some and said they were good, and I would like to continue and make some monay. I’ll do a “ask me to make you something” post soon, so start thinking now if you need a gift or would like something nice for yourself.
I know in my heart that to stay positive for the next year, I have to keep busy and feel like I’m making progress rather than ending up back where I started, which is the major problem at the moment. Beyond feeling pretty and liked, I need to feel useful and productive. This year probably won’t be a roaring success, but I wouldn’t say no to some proud mewling.
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Yikes all Friday, it’s really hard to believe this is coming to an end. And I know that it’s NOT coming to an end, that it’s just changing, and change isn’t all that scary and most of the time it’s usually good for me and I can do this. And I know I can do this because just look at the year before last, how it was pretty much great in most respects, and now this last year was THAT MUCH BETTER.
So instead of thinking of it as any kind of descent, I shall see this as jumping from one mountain top to another. And there’s an ocean in between.
While I continue to put off packing or any other sort of necessary organisation (OMG DO YOU SEE THAT THAT’S HOW I SPELL NOW), it looks like it’s time for the semi-annual Listapalooza, and ladies and gentlemen, this year’s is an all-time best of four main acts, including a vintage list from 2007. Let’s work our way backwards for dramatic effect.
May 19, 2009 (just a few months ago)
- Enjoy reading again. Sort of. I’ve been putting forth the effort, and in fairness I did read a few good books like The Picture of Dorian Gray and At Swim-Two-Birds, but the latter of which is for my senior thesis so does that count as enjoyment? In fact, I was disappointed by most of the books I read, including The Last Juror by John Grisham. Seriously, this is the guy at the height of his game? Womp-womp-womp, big stinker of a book. So was the rest of The Country Girls series. Dewey was sweet and adorable and made me cry but was probably a 5th grade reading level. I started The Namesake but had to put it aside as I’m in thesis mode from hereon out. I am enjoying Flann O’Brien’s The Third Policeman so far.
- Make significant headway on my thesis. Har-har. Does reading two books count and barely getting an adviser to back me count?
- Walk for an extended period of time everyday. Ding! Walking’s great.
- Make as many weekend getaways as possible. Ding, with emphasis on the ‘as possible’. It has been raining longer than Noah’s frakking ark here. No, honestly, you think summer in Massachusetts was wishy-washy? I can’t even waste another breath on how bad the weather has been here, except to say that although we had a number of great weekends to Birr, Dalkey, Phoenix Park, Kilkenny, and more during those first really lovely weeks, it’s been impossible for the past two months. But although there has been no Wexford or North as planned, we did go to Edinburgh which was really amazing.
- Organize my computer. Ding, to little effect. I not only rearranged all my files, switched to Chrome, and defragged, I literally took off the keyboard and cleaned out the dust in the fan. But my fan is still pathetic and this computer is a piece of shit.
- Write something new. Nope. That is, I didn’t write any new fiction (plenty of articles). But I don’t mind. That’s just not what I want to do write now. I like my life too much to get caught up in fake ones.
- Go for a swim with some frequency. Nope. I went twice and then chickened out because I aqua jog which is very slow, and all the fast swimmers intimidated me.
- Do stomach crunches before bed. Nope. Pretty sure the last time I did this was the night I wrote this list.
- Learn to cook more meals. ¡Ole! Quesadillas, anyone? Also a bunch of other things but those were a hit.
- Go to the Dublin Zoo. Ding!
- Visit the Aran and Blasket Islands. Ding! Actually, I just got to barely see a strip of the Blasket Islands because the weather was too SURPRISE RAINY to take the ferry out, but I got to bike around Inismore.
- Buy something locally made at the Designers Mart in Cow’s Lane. Ding! This was very specific of me. But I bought my ragin’ winter coat.
- Track down distant relatives and bahbahbah. Nope. I did visit the town where my great-grandmother either was born or where her birth certificate was manufactured. I don’t care to know the details on that miscommunication any longer.
- Spend a night in a castle. Nope. Hot damn castles are expensive! But I’ve visited enough of them to know I don’t really need to stay in one anymore. Unless someone offers.
- Play a round of golf when my dad comes to visit. Nope. Too short a visit.
- Get invited to dinner at someone’s country home. Ding! Ohhhh, let’s just say, every weekend and most weekdays.
- Go horseback riding. Nope. Remember when I used to say my motto was, “I almost did and then I didn’t”?
- Learn an entire song in Irish by heart. Ew, no. Gotta say, I’m not enamoured of Irish music at all anymore. Although I can recite all the Luas stops in Irish by heart, does that count?
- Get married. Ding! Just kidding. Or am I?
- Not be afraid of anything. Yeah right, kiddo. There’s no such thing as not being afraid of anything, but I’ll tell you what, I sure got over a bunch of things I was afraid of. Except spiders and the deep blue sea.
- Like where I was and where I am. Ding. It’ll take me a little bit longer to learn to like where I was because I like where I am too much, but I know it’s important.
- Finish my novel rewrite and show it to more people. Nope. I worked on it, a lot, but it’s just not something I’m proud of and don’t really want to do it or think it’s what I should be doing, so there you go.
- Buy some dresses.
- Start a large-scale photography project. Ding! I get full credit because I never said I had to finish this project, and indeed I didn’t. I pooped out during the last two months officially, but honestly I’d given up long before that, most of those photos are lies. Lies! An interesting project, but not necessary. See what I managed to compile here.
- Knit something big, something challenging. Ding! I crocheted an afghan for my brother and sister-in-law the Christmas before they got married. It took me between one and two months, which was much faster than I thought. Crocheting is really quick and easy and has a nicer appearance than knitted stiches, I think.
- Get a boyfriend. DINGDINGDING. Oh, and he’s kinda a super fox of the male persuasion.
- Live somewhere else for a year. DINGDINGDING. Best decision I ever made. Plan on doing it again ASAP, but somewhere else.
- Eat new foods that won’t embarrass me in restaurants. Guess what, ding! You better believe it, I’ll eat just about anything now. Things I won’t eat: sushi, celery, cabbage.
Goodness gracious, now I have nothing to do for the next two years. I’m sure I’ll think of something.
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