I'm playing around with blog ideas and learned how to make mood boards! I spent a lot longer than I should have putting this one together, but with more practice, I'm sure I'll be a natural in no time. It may not be a good idea to create style boards (or any boards for that matter) when I'm on a spending strike! Ha! Oh, the irony. Who cares? It's fun. If it leads me down a dark and dangerous path, I'll stop. I swear. Besides, most of the items on this board are out of my price range! Not to mention the purse, the coat, and the shoes are not vegan-friendly. I already had the pictures pulled from Pinterest so I just stuck with them. Mood boards in the future will be vegan-friendly. I'd like to try to center these boards around a certain theme, but not sure I'll be able to pull it off. For right now, they may be random and sporadic. The one above is for a day at MASS MoCA. Matt informed me they were having a free day tomorrow so we're going to venture over and have a good look around.
Well, I'm 10 days into January and I have already decided to take my blog in a different direction. It's not a huge change by any means. Instead of focusing on my "spending strike" I will be throwing in bits and pieces of life happenings. This has basically just turned into a personal blog so I can archive memories.
I'm always a little embarrassed when I come up with blog names and feel the need to explain the meaning behind everything. I'm a Roald Dahl fan (who isn't?) and came across the above quote. I obviously just pulled words from the quote and made it my blog name! Ta-da! It's a good reminder to have good thoughts, good intentions, good feelings, good everything!
Continuing on...I will still document my progress, successes, and failures of my "spending strike". So far, on this 10th day of January, I'm doing pretty well. I haven't purchased anything that wasn't a need. I haven't been lured into going to Target for no reason. I just have no desire to spend my money on things...at least, for right now. Finances are so tight that I can't even contemplate spending money on things that aren't necessary. I have been toying around with the idea of giving myself "fun" money each month, but I'm not sure. It wouldn't be much, maybe $30-40 each month. I haven't decided what I would do if I didn't spend all of my monthly "fun" money. Maybe I'll put the remaining balance towards my credit cards or put it into my savings account. Or, maybe I'll allow it to roll over. We'll see how that goes.
I guess it's worth mentioning that I paid off one of my credit cards already. Wahoo...I guess. There is a bit of backstory that I won't delve into deeply. Basically, I took a credit card out for a loved one so they could make one big purchase and they promised to pay the card off. Well, they never did and the card defaulted and was sent to collections, and blah blah blah. I was bombarded with phone calls from the company about my delinquency. I finally had it and decided that this particular person wasn't going to be responsible, so I called the credit card company and set up a payment plan with them to finally pay this debt back. Luckily, I didn't have to pay the whole balance. I believe the balance on the card was in the $900 region but I only paid back $500 or so. I made my final payment yesterday. I'm glad it's over with. I don't want to be bitter about the particular situation. I mean, I can't be bitter and look lovely at the same time, right? I clearly shouldn't have taken a credit card out for someone else...or let them max out another one of my cards (let me hang my head in shame for a minute)...but, you live and you learn, right? Maybe that was too much information. Maybe not. Oh, well!
On the bright side, I will be meeting my baby nephew in TWO WEEKS. He better love me because I'm going to be squeezing the heck out of him when I arrive.
It's almost 4:30 PM on the east coast and so far I have not spent a single penny! It also helps a bunch that I haven't stepped foot outside of my apartment and that I don't have any money to spend. The real test will be when I get paid next week.
Matt & I had a very low-key new year. We went to see The Hobbit movie and crashed on the couch afterwards. Party animals.
My spending strike success might be a slow start. I'm predicting that I won't save as much as I anticipate, but at least I do believe there will be some success in the end. I have approximately $10,000 in credit card debt (nearly $100k in student loans...which I hope to tackle before I die). This spending strike is set to conclude at the end of 2014 and if I want to achieve my goal, I'd have to save an average of $850 a month. I can already tell you that is not realistic, BUT, I'll still try my darn best!
This month I will be flying to San Diego to visit my baby nephew for the first time. I don't plan to spend money shopping, but I'm going to allow myself money for food only. Food is definitely on my needs list. I'll be buying my own groceries while I'm there (can't really mooch off the parents since I'm vegan and they're not) and will probably go out to eat a couple of times.
Hope everyone had a safe and happy new year!
