For one, we own a home now. We live in the Stanton Heights neighborhood of Pittsburgh. I worked for three and a half years with Sur La Table before moving on to Williams-Sonoma. We've seen lots of good and bad moments come and go, but we're still pretty much the same semi-boring people we've always been.
Friends have come and gone. My mom is still kicking. And, dammit, I'm still here.
My time with W-S has come to an end and I am looking towards the next step.
What will it be? Your guess is as good as mine.
I've already begun applying for jobs and will be continuing to do so in earnest. I stopped to talk with my good friend Maria on Friday and will likely be helping her out at the shop a few days to learn a bit of that business, give me something to do, and keep my sanity intact while the job search gets underway.
However, the thing I'm here to write, reflect upon, and hopefully chart the progress of is a Month Without Shopping.
Beginning today - the 22nd of January - and lasting until the 23rd of February (I'm going to try for the long month of 31 days), I want to keep myself from spending unnecessarily.
I'm allowed to buy groceries and toiletries. If a lightbulb blows out, we're not going to live by candle. Bills will be paid. But otherwise I'd like to keep my spending at an absolute minimum as a challenge to myself.
Since college - and likely before that - I've been a shopper. It's not that I've needed most of the things I've bought. It's that shopping acted as a cork for some unknowable hole in my life. Depression? Very probably. A temporary thrill to salve over a larger problem sounds like why some people drink or take drugs.
I generally operate without cash, so it should be fairly easy for me to keep track of my spending, not losing the odd $5 bill to this or that.
I'm going to be very boring this month, but for a very good reason. I need to do this for me.
Here's to day one.
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