Project November-ish

Ok fine, I get it. Project November is definitely off to a late start. But, see, I have good reason. But first, the project...

Project November: Don't spend any money on myself for 30 days.

The reason I had to wait, of course, is that I saw my stylist last night for some much needed root work and shaping and I knew it would cost me. And, if I start today, I'll be finished with Project November-ish just in time to buy myself a thirty-*cough* birthday gift [well, not really, I'll be able to make a purchase the day after my birthday...close enough].

I'm really not a shopper, but I'm a spender, and somehow I manage to pull that off. A and I have a weekly allowance for the main purpose that sometimes we each want things that we don't have to justify to the other. A uses his allowance mainly for boy toys (think guitar stuff and computer stuff) and nights out with the guys. I use my allowance for books, movies, music, fancy cooking tools, clothes, shoes, and the odd lunch or dinner with pals (though I often try and justify putting the lunch on our joint debit card through some very flimsy arguments with myself).

I have, by and large, been pretty good about sticking with my allowance for the 2.3 years we've been married, but recently a few developments have caused me to overspend.

For one thing, something happened to me that hasn't happened since I was nineteen years old. Someone gave me a credit card.

For another, I've been spending a lot more time in court and with clients in the year since I passed the bar, I didn't have too many professional clothes to begin with, but then I had to go and have a baby and absolutely nothing fits these days, so my clothing expenses have gone way up (see: credit card).

Then I had to go and get a raise this week, and I'm spending way too much time thinking about buying even more things I ought not buy with the justification that I'd somehow earned the right to buy them with my fantastic lawyering skills (*cough*).

And let's not forget that I find excessive consumption gross and irresponsible, and all this spending is making me feel like a Rocky River mother complete with a sense of entitlement (less an expensive handbag with the name of an Italian designer emblazoned all over it and a sport utility vehicle). Call me judgmental, but I find all that time spent working just to buy more crap we don't need is shallow, wasteful, and downright immoral. I fear that if I don't stop going down this road, I'll end up screaming at homeless people to "go and get a job you bum" or (EGADS!) turning into Sarah Palin, and then it's all over.

Suffice it to say that I'm a few weeks ahead on my allowance, and I keep buying stuff (odd stuff, too, like way too many songs from iTunes) and I need to knock it off.

So, I'm going to try and spend the next 30 days not spending any money on myself, reminding myself of the difference between want versus need, and trying to put some positive things out into the world rather than needlessly consuming the world's resources at a breakneck pace.

I'll let you know how it goes.