13 Days In

I'm not sure if I can even really say I'm on a shopping ban at this point. To wrap my head around it, I'm going to list the things I've purchased so far this year that I've (ostensibly) chosen not to buy.

• 1/12 - Taco Bell - $6.42 - fast food
• 1/10 - Jimmy John's - $12.00 - fast food
• 1/08 - vending machine - $2.85 - trash food
• 1/07 - Michaels - $3.20 - craft supplies
• 1/04 - Taco Bell - $6.71 - fast food
• 1/01 - Joann Fabrics - $5.34 - craft supplies

For a total of $36.52 that I hadn't planned to leave my wallet. This doesn't even take into account the random $15 I got from work that I didn't fold into my budget. I can hardly remember what I spent that on. So, if I'm totally honest, I spent $51.52 over the course of the past 12 days that I hadn't intended to.

This is not an exercise in self-flagellation; it's just something I'm going to do every week or two to keep myself accountable and to better understand where my temptations lie. Guilt over this is useless, so I'm going to acknowledge that this is where I am and commit to doing better over the coming week.

Since my biggest temptation seems to be fast food (*cough* Taco Bell *cough*), I'm going to concentrate on avoiding that over the next seven days. One of the strategies I'm going to employ in this regard is cooking some really delicious food this weekend, including pulled pork and homemade bread. I think I am also going to take my credit card out of my wallet on days that I am not likely to need it, which means every week day because I do my grocery shopping on Saturdays.

Major steps forward include joining Unroll.me, which is helping me clean the shopping spam out of my inbox so that I stop "just looking," and I haven't placed any online orders since the ban started. I wasn't concentrating on avoiding online purchases but it has definitely been a source of impulse consumption for me, so it's a win to realize that, though I've looked around several shops, I've managed to talk myself out of each purchase.

One specific item that I was very tempted to buy was a new case for my tablet. The one I had recently broke, so I got a new one that turned out to be spectacularly awful and I started searching for another new one. Then I reminded myself that I already had one that was uselessly covering my old tablet (to be donated) and it turns out that its nicer than I remembered, though it could use a little cleaning. Instead of buying new, I used what I had and am perfectly content with the result. #winning

Until next week!