Posts tagged as:
I’m just a walking pregnancy cliche.
And if you’re like me, with no real desire (or money) to shop, check out my local tips for staying stylish while being frugal in this month’s Mindful Metropolis. Your wallets and husbands will thank me.
{ 4 comments }
At first, I was going to write this post about all the scary things I’ve been reading about regarding endocrine disrupting chemicals and their affects on unborn fetuses. I mean, Dr. Karp told me personally to avoid nail polish and other beauty products in order to avoid being a phalate-carrying menace. Boy did that put me in a bad mood. Double-whammy for me is that this crap really matters in the first trimester, and since I’m almost at month 6, well, hell, I’m going to get my feet rubbed and scrubbed. (In all seriousness, though, Nicole of Nine Naturals did send me a link to this site, which is pretty helpful.)
But no, not even after trying to find a safe, toulene-free nail polish (although OPI brand does not use formaldehyde anymore), I gave up and started worrying about something else entirely.
I’ve lost the desire to shop.
It’s scary, I know. I have no interest in perusing stores, browsing online or gasp, even going to the low-hanging shopping fruit known as Target.
I should have known something was amiss on Friday, after I got my haircut downtown and had no desire to make the three block walk from my salon to H&M. I always like going to H&M.
But the pregnancy hormones have overtaken even my frugal shopper hormones (remember when I was supposed to be all about being frugal here?)
I’m not even a frugal shopper anymore. I’m an abstinent shopper. I don’t have the drive or the will. (Or the money.)
Maybe the winds of Fall will also bring my shopping mojo back again. But until then I’ll be high and dry and wearing my old, elastic waist duds.
{ 3 comments }
I have a new obsession. Saving money. I even opened up a savings account today. The bank told me I’d have to keep a $300 minimum balance. Then they said they’d waive the monthly fee for 6 months. Thank g-d.
It’s hard to save when I have no money coming in the door. Well, very little. One freelance job every 7 months isn’t gonna cut it.
But I’m getting resourceful about my new miserly ways.
I am obsessively selling off things in my closet on ebay (want my old shoes?!). And I’m vowing that every cent I make from every lame psuedo-work endeavor I will put in my savings account. I gotta get to $300.
Also, my husband just gave me all of his leftover change from work which I quickly took to the local Jewel and cashed out to the tune of $150! There’s something really cathartic about hearing those coins go plink to the bottom of the Coinstar machine.
There are many things I could have done with that $150, but I’m being good. So after I left Jewel I went straight to the salon to get my nails done. I didn’t say I was perfect.
I’m also obsessively rearranging things in my house since I can’t buy anything new. You have no idea how good it feels to switch the living room lamps with the family room lamps. I was so excited I forgot to take a before and after photo.
I gotta get a life. Or a real job.
Or you could do me a favor and buy my shoes for a lot of money.
{ 4 comments }
In my quest for frugality, I’m trying to separate how to be frugal without being cheap. Frugal is cool; cheap is, well, not so chic.
For example, buying only the necessities (plus a cute hat for $9.99 ON SALE) at Target is cool.
I got the hat when I went to Target again two days later. For more necessities, of course.
But saving the remnants of a partially eaten (and ripped) bag of Goldfish instead of pouring your kid a new one, not so cool.
I mean, seriously people, even my husband agreed that we couldn’t throw this bag out. Then again, this is the man who saved three, count ‘em three pieces of elbow macaroni when we moved houses.
“Finding” $500 worth of unused gift cards and store credits in my file drawer was really cool. (Now I know what Oprah means by “found” money.)
That $10 gift card to Target is going to go a long way. Crap, I could have used it to buy my hat.
Using those gift cards to buy my friends’ kids birthday presents, hmmm… debateable.
In the quest to spend less money and save more, I’m finding myself just running into dilemmas like this: do I spend the $4 in gas to return the $10 worth of chicken salad that I bought from the store which spoiled in 2 days which I only bought in the first place so that I wouldn’t eat lunch out as much?
See what I mean? Being frugal cool is a lot of work.
I think I’ll go blow that $40 store credit at the Gap on myself tomorrow. It might clear my cheap head and I might look a little more chic in the process. I can only hope.
{ 7 comments }
There are so many ways I could tell you all about what’s happened in the past few weeks, but it’s easier for me at this point to say it, get it over with, and move on.
I lost the baby two weeks ago in my fifth month.
That’s all I can or want to say about the whole, horrible experience.
Really, it is.
Writing about it will only dredge up painful memories and right now what I need to do is move forward and not look back. Thanks for understanding.
In fact, in an effort to spruce up my lacksidasical blogging efforts and create a diversion for myself I’m going to change the focus of my blog a smidge.
Amidst our country’s worst recession, my husband and I feel we have no choice but to alter our life and cutback and conserve where we can. Now if you know me at all, you may laugh at the notion, but even my spendthrift self needs to learn how to save money.
I’m going to join the frugalista movement and save and budget like no self-respecting spoiled mom who drives a Lexus has ever done before.
Really, I am.
I even gave up my favorite Dermalogica face wash last week for an Aveeno one. It wasn’t so bad.
Ebay, craigslist, coupon clipping here I come. Hope I can entertain you all until I get back on that pregnancy bandwagon or fall off the conservation one.
{ 36 comments }
