Goodbye Target?

This morning in the shower I was thinking of ways to save money in the coming year.  With the new year starting soon, it actually is the perfect time to do this.  Often I get on these kicks in the summer, and it is really hard for me to start something new at the wrong time.  Like, if I want to do a twelve month experiment such as this, I cannot go from July to July, I just think, "oh, I'll start in January."  It's just an excuse, but it's an excuse I don't have this time.

So this morning I'm in the shower and I'm thinking and I'm reminded of this book I read a couple of years ago, Not Buying It.  I love this book.  It was the inspiration for our living more simply the first time.  In this book the author and her partner make a commitment to drop out of consumerism for a year in order to pay down their credit cards.  And, as I'm taking a shower in preparation for an outing to Target (after my outing to Wal-Mart yesterday), I think, "do I really need whatever it is I'm going to buy at Target?"  Probably not. As far as food goes, I have a pantry full and a freezer half full.  All of us have closets and drawers full of clothes.  And no one needs more DVDs, Blu-Rays, or video games.  And I'm in the shower looking at the array of fine smelling shower gels lining the tub and remembering how when I was a kid I got a bar of Ivory soap and some Suave shampoo.

I pride myself in our lifestyle.  I feel that we spend a lot less money than most people.  We don't have a car payment (though both cars are on their last legs, so there is a threat that a car payment may be imminent), we don't have cable (though we do pay $10 a month for Netflix), we only eat out about once a week.  But really, there are so many ways in which we could stop spending money without it really hurting our lifestyle.  We buy just to be buying.  Sure, our expenditures are at Target and Wal-mart instead of high end establishments, but they're expenditures all the same.

So today my goal is to come up with a list of guidelines for the following year.  Will my husband like it? No, he will not.  But I'm thinking if he saw our budget and checking account balance as much as I do, he would like those even less.  So wish me luck as I come up with my list, which hopefully will not include too many easy outs.

OK, OK, luckily I only have one follower!

Yeah, yeah, so the 25 day thing didn't work so well.  Let's just let it go now and move on to bigger and brighter things....

It's the middle of November and that means, in Steph's financial terms, that it's time to prepare for the new year!  Basically, this year is kaput.  We've already made enough bad decisions to follow us into the new year.  Now it's time to figure out how to deal with that.

I often look back on the time we were saving to pay of our debts and buy our house and think, "how the HELL did we manage that?!"  Because at this point I really do not know.  I can blame the fact that I no longer bring in an income, but really my income was so small that I don't think that's the real reason.  I think we just set our eyes on the prize and made it happen through sheer determination.  Once we attained the house, we haven't truly devoted ourselves to any other goal, and because of this our budget has suffered.

For me the new year will, hopefully, bring a renewed focus to getting our finances in order.  I DO have financial goals, it's just that up until now none have seemed as pressing as buying our house was.  But now that Sallie Mae wants to take all of our money to pay for that business degree I'm squandering, it's time to tighten our belts and get some shit done.

Today I am motivated.  Sucky time to find motivation, really, what with Christmas coming up and all.  And I know of these money-saving ideas for Christmas, but I cannot seem to follow them.  Christmas is my weakness, I LOVE buying gifts, I cannot resist shiny new wrapping paper (even if I have a closet full from last year), and I think I spend more on cookie baking than any rational person should.  I have started shopping early, thinking that would help me find things on sale and kind of spread out the spending so it wouldn't hurt so much, but oftentimes this just makes me nickel and dime myself to death. So we'll see what happens in the next month.  Lord, give me the strength to not max out my credit card between now and then!