I am following Beth's lead and not buying anything for a year. DO you think that you could do that? Do you spend too much money on crap that you don't need or have time to use?

-- Kymm Zuckert (hedgehog@hedgehog.net), December 01, 2000

Answers

I spend WAY too much money on crap! I've spent the past few weekends going through boxes of stuff I've bought, and giving them to Goodwill - mostly clothes and shoes, but I have a ton of CDs, books and magazines, too - that I thought, at the time, I'd be able to get into by now, but, alas, I can't. That's a huge problem I have: I buy clothes too small with the thinking that I'll lose weight soon, and be able to wear it. A twist on that thinking is that if I want to wear it badly enough, I'll work hard and lose the weight so I can wear it. Neither of those lines of thinking have worked in the past two years, so I don't know I why I keep thinking that way. Same thing with books: I keep thinking I'll have time to read a new book when I've got five hundred thousand unread books getting dusty on my shelves. It never happens. Call me a copy-cat, but this is a great idea, it's something I NEED to do, so I'm throwing myself into the fray (besides I needed another resolution for next year anyway!)! Thanks for the inspiration, Kymm (via Beth and Nikol)!

P.S. Good luck with Sundance!

-- hez (lmjaliashez42@hotmail.com), December 01, 2000.

I used to spend way too much money on crap, especially books. Oh lord... I would go on major book-buying excursions every few months, and I still haven't read all of the books I've bought in the last couple of years. Those were the "I'm still in high school and living with my parents and the only expense I have is gas for my car" days, though. Now I'm pretty careful about what I buy.

digital ink

-- Katie (ktrame@digink.net), December 01, 2000.

Let's just say that i'm STILL working on my resolution to not keep buying the same damn magazines with the same damn crap recycled into each issue.

Working on it. Not succeeding but working on it. Ithink i've finally lost the desire to buy Mademoiselle since they suck donkey ass ever since they redid their format. It's a start - baby steps you see.

Sherry

-- Sherry (sherina@masc.ca), December 01, 2000.

Who doesn't spend too much money on crap? I get alot of useless crap off of ebay.

-- Jen (Winter@nyc.com), December 02, 2000.

Mon Dieu, I just came back from a weekend out of town and I spent a lot of money on useless crap! Well, impulse purchases would more accurately describe them: aromapharmacy candles, gourmet jam and carbohydrates, and especially books. After I finally resolved to get out of debt permanently a couple years ago, I put myself on a rigorous $10 per day budget (it was awful) and I logged my expenses -every day.- There's no better way to realize just how much money one is spending and how one spends it. I encourage everyone to try.

Best,

/Robert

-- Robert (rbdimmick@earthlink.net), December 03, 2000.

I don't spend a lot on crap anymore. I used to have a spending problem though. One of the little things that helped me is the idea that time is not money but, in fact, money is time. Meaning that everytime I look to buy something I attribute it's cost to how long it takes me to make that money. So if I make $25 an hour and I want to buy a gizmo for $200 dollars I think "Is this worth 8 hours of my life?" I was really suprised at how the importance of things began to shift when I switched my mindset this way.

-- Travis English (blackmere@hotmail.com), December 04, 2000.

I WNAT TO BUY S S SCRAP .. QUA: 1000 MT PLEASE GIVE ME YOUR REPLY ..

-- imeranadhiya (smyleimran@yahoo.com), June 19, 2002.