I attempted a shopping freeze in October, but I didn't make it through the entire month. I caved and bought two gorgeous pairs of shoes with just a few days to go. But between all the shopping I've been doing with the holiday sales (for myself, I've barely started Christmas shopping!) and taking a look at our credit card balance after our trip, I'm feeling the need for some cut backs.
I'm making some exceptions, because I know myself. Obviously, I'll be buying Christmas presents. I'm getting my tattoo for Christmas from my husband, and I've already picked out his gift. But we still have to buy for grandparents, parents, cousins, and friends. I'm also going to give myself a very small shopping budget. It will be nothing compared to the shameful amount that I spend normally, but I know that if I think I can't get ANYTHING I will want EVERYTHING.
There are some planned home purchases we'll be making in the coming weeks though. We're waiting until after Christmas, but we're going to be buying lots of gallery frames to hold pictures from our trip, new baking sheets (ours are worn to hell), and possibly new towels. We agreed that we'll be throwing away like 80% of our ratty, hand me down, fraying towels. If the amount we have left isn't enough, I want to replace them with something that will last. Either good quality white towels or Turkish peshtemal, or a mix of both. I have a thing about dark towels. I feel like they must be hiding gross mold or something in there. White is where it's at (plus I can bleach them).
Those are boring purchases, but I'm excited about them. I love new towels so much. And we have some West Elm Design Dollars that we've earned, plus a discount code I got for doing market research for them. We'll probably put that toward the frames.
This will be a challenge for me, and I'll especially need to stay away from fab.com. But I know I'll be happier about it in the long run (especially when I get my new house, which is our next savings goal!).
