Vanquishing My Debt

I'm 29 and trying to get a handle on my finances so that, one day, I can buy a home of my own. I've been reading personal finance blogs recently and decided to start one chronicling my own struggles and success (hopefully). I am lucky, considering the amounts of debt and tales of tragedy I've read about... but I am making some positive changes and moving in the right direction.

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Location: Los Angeles, CA

Friday, June 16, 2006

Old habits die heard

Ain't that the truth?

I haven't been buying things for myself recently... other than a great purse that was on clearance that I had budgeted for. The other day I went into one of my favourite clothing stores, Lane Bryant (yep, I'm big and beautiful), with my mom. She wanted to buy some pants.

Let me just clarify that Lane Bryant could easily be a financial downfall if I let it. When I discovered the store with a friend of mine, maybe 4 years ago, I thought I had died and gone to Heaven. Beautiful clothing, fit me perfectly, made me feel sexy and attractive and confident... and they also have wicked good sales sometimes. So I applied for a store credit card, just because. Even though I have only bought items on sale or clearance (truly, I think I bought 1 jacket at full price, but that's it), I was soon upgraded to a Platinum card. We all know that that means I was branded a sucker. And then they started mailing me coupons - the nerve! I was hooked. But as time went by I was weaning myself off... especially lately.

So my mom decides to go try some pants on... which left me to browse. 10 minutes later, I had bought a pair of sale pajama pants and a clearnace t-shirt... and charged the $29 to my store card. But a funny thing happened... before I even left the store... I felt badly that I had caved in to my impulse buys. New pajamas are always nice, but I didn't need them. And I kept thinking about having another $29 of debt to pay off. I didn't listen to my inner voice at the time, so I left the store with them. It seemed very odd to think of leaving my favourite store without a purchase.

And now they're sitting, still with tags and in the plastic bag with receipt, in my bedroom. I fully intend to return them.

I am rejoicing at this inner voice... while I've always been a practical shopper (i.e., sales and coupons), it's nice to know that I'm seeing shopping items in terms of adding to my debt... I think it signals a great change in the way I think... which signals peace of mind in the future.

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