Hello dear readers,

And welcome back to Home Ec! It’s 8:05am on Friday morning and class in session, but the weekend is also around the corner so, hey, let’s keep the learning light and fun today.

As part of my new “Bulk Buying” experiment, I’ve assigned one day a month to hit up my most common stores. Rules are that I have to go to that store that day AND that I cannot go any other day of the month. This past weekend Goodwill and Amazon fell on the same weekend, so Saturday morning I wrangled my husband and baby and headed out to our local Goodwill with a long list of items I would ideally like to purchase from a thrift shop (think Member’s only jacket, some extra utensils for our emergency kit, winter gear for the baby).

As soon as we get into the store, I can tell my husband’s not really feeling it. I’ve been yakking his ear off for the past few months about reducing purchases and here we are doing shopping for me, while he cannot do any shopping of his own. But I’m too excited so I kind of pawn off the baby on him while he looks at books and I’m off and running. Racing down aisles, picking up things on my list and other things that seem useful, I will purge later before we actually buy so that I don’t exceed my goal spending of $100 (which can buy A LOT at Goodwill).

The cart is full when I find my piece de resistance: two framed prints from the 80s, 3′ x 4′ with gold mirror inlay of a floral scene. They are HUGE, STACKED in a pile with a bunch of other large framed pictures, and far from perfect condition. But I am mesmerized, so I go grab my husband to convince him that we need these pictures and elicit his help to move them.

When he sees them he does a really good job of playing along and being supportive, cause they are cool. I’m busy rattling off all of the reasons why we need them (“they’re matching prints!”, “these are like straight out of the 80s!”, “how cool would this be for the baby’s room!”), meanwhile my husband is countering with practicalities (“well, if you got new frames they would look much nicer”, “they’re huge and will be really hard to hand”).

Finally, he looks at the frames and the full cart and he has had enough:

Jesus Christ! Don’t you have enough crap to bring home?!

Correct husband

And he starts spouting back at me all of the things I thought had just been going in one ear out the other from me. I am floored because he rarely says anything about my money behavior. It’s embarassing (not like in the store because he’s speaking politely, but in my heart cause I know I’m being a total hypocrite in that moment).

Anyway, I buy the frames because I want them, but the shock of my husband touting frugality pushes me to put back a few things.

A few hours later at home though, it hits me like a brick, like no amount of reading about frugality and minimalism has, that my trigger for spending is on things that are cheap and useful – that’s my category for hoarding and purchase justification. And the thing that really hit me was that my justification was so deeply engrained that I didn’t even realize it was my own thought! I think I thought it was just common sense. But my husband calling out the hoarding for what it was was a real eye opener.

No matter how CHEAP or how USEFUL something is, it does not mean that I NEED it.

Epiphanized professor

And so I’ve been mulling on that for a little less than a week and it’s really done a number on the amount of time I spend thinking about ANYthing to buy. Here’s hoping the feeling lasts!

A couple of new rules that have come out of this experience:

1. No more assigned days for anything but Total Wine, Costco, and Amazon (and maybe Amazon needs to go). It was like budgeting, once the money is allotted it’s doomed to be spent
2. Way less TV – kind of tangential, but after my epiphany me and my husband got to talking and remembered that TV is just junk for the mind so we should cut down on that too

Alright, I know you are ready for the weekend, and the professor’s not as funny as she thinks, so class is dismissed!

P.S. Really loving that this blog is along the way because it IS fun to capture little realizations like this!