Stuff buying ban update

Well it’s been… crap has it really been 11 days? It’s been 11 days since I started my “stuff buying ban” and I thought I’d give a little accountability update.

I’ve managed to stick to it for the most part. I very nearly bought some MP3’s the other day, but I stopped myself. Instead I just downloaded to my laptop a few songs that I had already paid for but never even downloaded. That being the case I think it’s obvious I shouldn’t be buying music- even if the site I buy it from tents to only charge 9 or 15 cents a song… if I’m not even downloading everything I buy, or listening to it for that matter… good call, adding music to the list.

I’ve managed to not buy books, but that comes from not allowing myself to go to book stores, the main problem in my book-buying addiction. I’ve been trying to read more over break as well. After the recent Harry Potter movies came out I decided to re-read the series, and I’ve just finished Prisoner of Azkaban- easily my favorite of the series. I had forgotten how well-crafted and delicious a novel the third HP book was. I mean, they’re all good, but I’d say that Prisoner of Azkaban is Rowling’s masterpiece: not only is she telling her best story, she’s also telling it with the most skill. The fourth book and on felt rushed, which I know they were, and the first two you can tell she was still learning. Really solid work, though, and they remain on my list of favorite books of all time for sure.

I’ve managed not to buy DvD’s, though Social Network was released today and I really want it. I’ve convinced myself to wait for my birthday on that one, anyway. I’ve been doing a great job with not buying clothes or toys or school supplies- yesterday I found a notebook from a semester or two ago, and I pulled out the pages with writing on it, kept what I thought would be useful, threw the rest away, and ended up with a thick enough notebook to not have to buy one like I usually do before each semester. So that’s nice.

The only thing that’s been rough has been fast food. I have managed to avoid places with drive-throughs entirely, but I realized not long after making this deal that not eating fast food causes me to spend more, not less, on food when I’m out of the house. Whenever I have work to do for the movie, which we do in the lab at my school, fast food is the cheap option for eating around campus, cheaper than eating on campus or at a real restaurant.

It’s hard to tell how much of a difference this is making in my spending because I never had real figures on how much I had been spending before, and I’ve been doing a larger portion of the grocery shopping for my house than usual, so I feel like it evens out, but perhaps to good effect. If I continue this into February, I might have to rethink the fast food vs. restaurants idea. It’s clear that eating at “real restaurants” is much more expensive. But is it better for me than the drive-through? Maybe not even.