The one thing getting me through all this job uncertainty and house deferment and kid anxiety, is that Bear did get a raise, although not what we were hoping for, and that means that we no longer have to live on ramen noodle student budgets.
Last week Bear got his first paycheck with retroactive pay. If we didn’t want the money so bad I would have framed it. Money is awesome.
We’ve been having tons of fun with it, but every time I go to make a purchase I feel an anxiety attack coming on. We went to Old Navy and Bear bought an entirely new wardrobe of casual clothes. He desperately needed it – he’d been wearing hand me down jeans from his dad and T-shirts he had 10 years ago – but still, hearing that total made me nearly burst into tears. While we were there I got a new pair of jeans and a shirt, and it is the first pair of jeans I will have ever purchased that was not previously owned by another person.
I got new makeup for the first time in 8 years, and I dropped over $300 on scrapbook supplies. That one hurt bad, but it was a lot of fun while it was happening. I haven’t bought a thing in two years, and if I am going to get back in the game, I gotta be relevant. So out it went.
So far every dime going out has caused a painful twinge. I assume it will get easier and that I won’t always have to talk myself into buying a $13 shirt. (“Do I really like it $13 worth?)It must, right? Otherwise how would so many people be in so much debt? And how would Nordstroms stay in business? I just hope I don’t ever get too used to it.
At a party I went to the other day I overheard someone saying, “when you think about it, $150 isn’t that much to spend on jeans. I mean you wear them, like, every day.” I nearly spit my drink out. This was not coming from some dot.com mogul. This was coming from a young mother whose husband worked two jobs as a salesman. $150 on jeans? When the styles change the way they do? I can’t imagine. I just can’t. I hope I never do.