Shopping

"Shopping" is a big catch-all. It includes shopping for clothing, hobbies (sewing and photography), kitchen equipment, even furniture. This heading does not include household equipment and supplies, things like that. Can I make any goals that make sense of it? I think I can.

Others have pledged to have a shopping-free week or month or whatever. I think this could work. Most of the shopping I do is online. I am drawn to the discounts. Not as much as others, I suspect, but I still get caught up in the promise of saving a few dollars. I would save a lot more if I skipped the purchase altogether.

So I am going to start small. A shopping-free week. Starting yesterday, the first of March.

Let's look at my record for last year:

I bought some big-ticket items last year because I had a little extra money. I bought an expensive camera, a few lenses, some extra equipment. So that does skew things. I won't be doing that kind of shopping this year. Nevertheless, here is what the numbers say:

Last year: I spent $10, 333 on "shopping". That's an average of $199 per week or $861 per month.

Last two months:  $487.56  Way under last year's average. $55 a week.  Some of that could go into savings or into paying off credit cards.

The goal for this week is 0.