Spending Hiatus Update: Week Seven

Money poster by Howard Sokol via allposters.com

I might as well come right out with my confession.

I bought a shirt last week. A completely unnecessary shirt. It was at Take 2 Apparel, a really awesome "upscale" (i.e. no grandma sweatpants) secondhand store where they sell not used but "experienced" clothing (because experienced sounds so much more positive). I fell in love with this dark purple satin blouse- it fits perfectly and looks fab with both dark blue jeans and my slacks and skirts for work. I have been lusting after a jewel-tone satin shirt for awhile and this one was only $10, being secondhand and all. Plus, there was no guarantee that it would be around in April when this spending hiatus gets over with. And so...I bought it. I felt a little guilty afterward but to be honest shh, I don't feel all that bad. The shirt is perfect, at any rate, and I can't return it- the one downside of buying second hand.

So now that I've confessed, my good news is that I haven't felt the need to buy anything else lately. I know, I know, I keep saying that every week, but it really is true. Once I got out of the habit of shopping all the time, I haven't felt the compulsion to buy things. The one exception lately may be shampoo, because I decided to try out a new brand and it makes my hair frizzy and not at all shiny, le sigh. So I AM tempted to pick up a new bottle, I'll admit. But that would be cheating wouldn't it? I've resisted the siren call of better shampoo so far, telling myself that I will wait until the current bottle runs out (which it can't do fast enough).

Last week was, again, a pretty busy one. This quarter's classes are nearing their end and I've got research projects and exams looming, so I had to work on those during the week. The weekend was great, though, since I decided to take some time off and relax. At any rate, here are some of the things I did instead of shopping.

• On Friday I grabbed sushi with one of my coworkers and her friend. I forget the name of the restaurant we went to, but it was located in the most charming Victorian house right off the main drag and had excellent avocado sushi rolls. I even got adventurous and tried the eel sushi that my friend got, which tasted more like mush than anything.
  
• Also on Friday, we plopped down on my couch and watched Mamma Mia! with Pierce Brosnan and Meryl Streep. My feelings on the movie are mixed. It was cheese to the extreme, but also hilarious. I am seriously lusting after some long wavy hair now.

via Wikipedia

• On Saturday we (same group as sushi the night before) hit up the gallery hop in the Short North, which is when all the art galleries open their doors the first Saturday of the month and you can walk around checking out awesome art exhibits and street performers and generally have a great time free of charge. This is also when the Shirt Buying Incident occurred, and I blame peer pressure (ahem, Sarah A., ahem). We also stopped by Jeni's, my favorite ice cream place in the entire world, which I wrote about back in January. It was the first warm day of the year, so the place was packed but the wait was worth it for a cup of Riesling Poached Pear sorbet and Honey Vanilla Bean ice cream (mmm).

Gallery Hop Night: image via the Short North website (see link above)

• Sunday I worked on this damned biology paper that would have been easy had the instructions not been vague and contradictory. That, church, and a nap consisted of pretty much my entire day.
  

At any rate, I had what I consider an amazing weekend and I didn't feel too guilty about slipping up on the spending hiatus. I have another 5 weeks to get back on track, after all.

How about you- how was your week/weekend? For those of you doing the spending hiatus, how has it been going?

You can check out the rest of my spending hiatus posts here.

PS: If anyone wants to suggest an afforable shampoo that doesn't turn my hair into frizzy straw, that would awesome! :)

Spending Hiatus: Week 3

So last week was week three of the spending hiatus. First, the temptation:

It was $1 sale time at Rag O Rama. As the name might suggest, this is when the store (basically a trendier thrift store) takes a bunch of stuff out of storage and marks it all $1. Yes, a single dollar. Believe you me, I sorely wanted to go and "just look" but I think we all know that never really works (it only $1!) so I stayed home.

And what I did instead of shopping:

I realized on Friday that I was bored/lonely and, thus, tempted to go shopping but instead Iwent to Baja Sol and had amazing burritos with a friend. I might just have to invent a new type of therapy- burrito therapy. I think it would be a hit. They also have an awesome salsa bar at Baja Sol with at least 25 different salsas to choose from which is like heaven for me.

And that was pretty much my weekend, since on Sunday I mostly studied and cleaned. And reorganized my closet. Which sounds lame, except that I love reorganizing. Plus I got to banish my fugly blue clothes hamper to the closet so that it doesn't sit in the middle of the room anymore.

I found that I felt a lot better about going out to eat and buying gifts this weekend because I hadn't already wasted my money on other stuff. I was able to really enjoy myself because I wasn't stressed thinking "I already spent $20 on makeup (or $1 clothes), so I shouldn't really buy dinner..." Instead, I just went out and enjoyed myself. And that was really, really nice to not have to worry about the money all that much. Which is not to say that I will be eating out every night- just that as an every-now-and-then thing, it's not going to kill me IF I keep my other spending in check. Could it be that I *gasp* learned something already?!

How was your weekend? (PS I just realized that half of this post is about food. I like to eat. A lot.)

Also:
The Spending Hiatus
Spending Hiatus Week 1
Spending Hiatus Week 2

Things to Do Instead of Shopping (apparently I should add in eating a whole lot)

What is Jeni's, you ask?

Photo from the Jeni's website.

My previous post got me thinking that maybe some of you all aren't aware of Jeni's Ice Creams. Since that is a tragedy beyond measurable proportions, I'm here to inform you.

Jeni's is the best ice cream ever in the history of mankind and I'm not kidding.

And before you say "I don't like ice cream" just know that I have taken at least 3 self-proclaimed ice cream haters to Jeni's, and each one of them has been back since. It is that amazing.

Jeni's ice creams is located in Columbus, Ohio and has several locations in that area. In case you're not lucky enough to live just down the street from it like I am, it appears that you can order it on their website, though don't ask me how you're supposed to ship ice cream.

You can also find a flavor list here. To give you an idea, they're pretty much the only place I know that offers flavors like Riesling Poached Pear Sorbet, Olive Oil w/ Sea Salt Pepitas, Cherry Lambic Sorbet, even Thai Chili and Saigon Cinnamon (both very hot flavors, which is a weird sensation in ice cream). I also highly recommend Honey Vanilla Bean, my other fave.

I'll stop now before I start sounding like an advertisement- I just had to spread the Jeni's love.