Six Hours

That's about how long it took after my last blog post for me to break my shopping ban. As I was driving home, I decided to get McDonald's for dinner. And I didn't just stop with a meal, I also got a shamrock shake ($9.72).

Then, on Saturday, I went to Michaels and bought a bunch of stencils and stamps. ($33.88).

Saturday night, I was watching a YouTube video that included watercolor painting and saw the Gansai Tambi paint set for about the millionth time and dropped $40 on that and some white gel pens I'd been wanting to try. I threw in some underwear, partly because I needed it but mostly to allow myself to justify the whole impulse to shop.

Finally, on Valentine's Day, I went to Taco Bell to grab dinner ($5.65). I don't care about Valentine's Day, I was just having a craving and indulged it.

Lately, I have begun to feel like one great big blobby consumer - nothing more. I earn money, I spend the money, I eat food. My apartment is piled with things.

And it's almost all about anxiety and loneliness. I see what's going on in our country right now, I feel hopeless and empty, I feel the absence of personal connections in my local community, and I go buy things.

I literally sit in my car thinking, "I don't need to spend money this way. It's not going to make me feel better." Then I do it, anyway. This seems to be one of my main coping mechanisms with stress and anxiety but it's not coping at all... It's self-sabotage.

Anyway, it's a day early but tomorrow's my birthday and I'm not blogging. My grand total for against ban spending this past week was $89.25. Rather than reducing to zero, I tripled what I spent in the three weeks prior. I might need to rethink and rejigger this experiment. Maybe a reset for a shorter time period. I'll think about that Saturday.

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