Do I have a problem with Shopping?

25 05 2012

Do I use shopping as treatment, as a sort of therapy? When I get bored?

I had a sort of an argument with someone last Wednesday night and what did I do? I wanted to get my eyebrows done as I seriously was beginning to get a unibrow. I went to the salon next to my yoga studio as I had my osteopath appointment there in an hour or so. I was told there would be a ten minute wait. I should have sat down and waited in the salon, but I decided I am going to go to the Winners next doors and ‘Browse’. Browsing is obviously death to a budget. I bought a skirt, a $11 purple gorgeous skirt, but nevertheless, a skirt that I do not need, or need to add to my overflowing closet. But I did it, I bought it and I like it a lot, but I didn’t need it, I still do not need to add any more items to my closet at all.

I got my eyebrows done and then I went to get a burger at this place, I have been wanting to try out for a while, spent $8 on a burger. In one day, I spent $12.59 on a skirt, $15.69 on eyebrows and upper lip, and $9 on a burger, not including the $100 on the osteopath appointment of which I get $80 back. Total spent – $57.28.

Part of which could have been avoided, if I didn’t use shopping as therapy.

How do I work on this? One way I have been thinking is to stop going shopping when I am upset or bored. That is one sure-fire way to ruin a budget. Instead, I have been thinking of going to yoga. Of course, this is something that needs constant work. Another way I have been thinking is to spend a few moments thinking before spending any penny, about why I want to purchase this item – what do I want from it? Why am I buying this item? What am I hoping to get from it? What will I actually get from it? Just asking some basic questions will get you away from the ‘I want’ mode to ‘Do I really need it?’ mode, which is so helpful.

What do you do to get away from the Shopping Bug? Let me know below.


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Categories : Life, Money

My younger self and her goals

22 05 2012

When I was 14, I wanted to be famous. I was taking part in a random beauty contest at our all-girls high school in Dubai, and they had a questionnaire to decide who gets to part of the semi-finalists.

There were several other questions on there, but one question stood out for me.

What do you want when you get out of high school?

Until that point, I had never really thought about that question. I had always assumed that my parents would tell me what to do. That is how I had lived my life in the small towns in the Middle East. Oblivious to my own self, I didn’t realize I could make my own decisions, that I could actually figure out what “I” want.

Such a little thing to so many North Americans, but I didn’t have that luxury in the small Moslem country.

I had always been told that I would be a doctor. I had always been told that my mother didn’t get to become a doctor, because she had to get married at 17 and give birth to me at 21, and she wanted to make sure that I wouldn’t do what she had to do. I had the opportunity to do what I want with my life. I am going to be more than she was.

Until that question in that little room, in that moment, I had never thought about that.

I decided in that moment, I wanted to be rich and famous.

Just the fancies of a young, undeveloped mind, influenced way too much by Television and Media in general.

What were your goals when you were a young ‘un? Did you want to be an astronaut or an air hostess? Let me know below.


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Categories : Family, Life, Money, work

What I learnt from handling cash as a server

18 05 2012

I used to work as a server in my past life. I worked at a bar and grill restaurant, and I enjoyed the work. I liked the fast-paced nature of the job, I loved chatting with the different people who came to the restaurant, and I loved getting paid in cash every night.

I liked handling cash on a daily basis, because the feel of using paper money to pay for items is a very different feeling from paying with a credit card. Paying with a credit card has a very detached feeling to it. You do not actually really think about it twice before swiping your credit card to buy yet another black sweater when you have 3 others in your closet already. You do not really think that this is real money you are spending on real things, that will need to paid off in the future. This isn’t really your money you are using to pay for that car repair, or dinner. This is someone else’s money which you are going to have to pay off and if you don’t plan it out right, you might not have enough money to pay off that bill. Which will be really sad to say the least.

When I started working at the restaurant, I had a big fear of handling so much money. I would sell upwards of $2000 a night and I started worrying about losing wads of money, I had nightmares about it, and I started really fearing going into work. That was only in the first week though. The more I started working with money, the more comfortable I got with it. The mistakes that I would make with losing a dollar or twenty here and there, due to carelessness, were completely eliminated. I made sure I took care of every single penny as I remembered and understood how hard I had had to work in order to earn that one penny.

I started converted everything I would buy into hours worked. For example, if I wanted to buy a car for $2000, I would convert it to working for a 100 hours, which is ten days in order to earn that cash. Ten days for a car seemed to put things into perspective. I would appreciate everything I purchased much more when I started looking at it, in terms of hours spent working on my feet, speaking to unpleasant customers, dealing with rude colleagues, working late nights and doubles, and all the other foibles that come with a server position.

In addition,  the feel of a twenty dollar bill while paying for an item is a completely different feeling than swiping a card. I really feel that I learnt to appreciate every single dollar earned and spent through my server position.

I am back to using a credit card now to earn Air Miles to use for travel. But I know how easy it to slip back into not realizing the value of the dollar spent when using credit.


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Categories : Life

Living the slow life in the city

14 05 2012

I agree with you when you say that I have a Type-A personality. I am in constant motion, in constant movement. I hide it well, under the facade of yoga and meditation, but I am on the go for 18 hours a day, straight through, every day, even on weekends. Eventually the system breaks down and cries out for rest, which is what happened when I got an infection last week. Any illness or sickness in general means the system’s run down, as the immune system is not up to par.

I was thinking on my way to the office today – what about the slow movement? Why hasn’t it pervaded any of my friends’ circles? Is it because we are the generation of Internet and fast food, and iPhones and High definition? We are moving fast, and faster everyday.

Is it possible to live the slow life in a big city? Or do we have to move to a farm outside cities, and give up everything in order to live a slow life? That’s a question that I really want to answer.

I know it doesn’t seem like an important question to some, but to me, it is THE question to answer right now. I am living a fast life, but I believe, I really, truly believe, it is possible to live a slow life in a big city. How do we do that? Some suggestions are below, but if you have any more, please add them into the comments section.

1. Give up your car. Just having a car means you want to get to places faster. Taking the bus, biking or walking slows things down significantly.

2. To follow giving up your car, you have to live close to your work. Walking or biking just doesn’t work, when your commute by car itself is an hour long.

3. Reduce your wants – that means you are not spending a lot of time working in order to pay off your bills. You are using your time to live, instead of living to pay off bills, for things you do not have time to use.

4. Slow food – cooking a meal and sitting down to slowly savor it is in my opinion one of the best ways to live in the moment.

What else?

 


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Categories : Life

Money watchers

3 06 2011

“People watch what other people do with their money.”

I read the above line in a book by Alexander McCall Smith, an amazing Scottish author, and it really made me think. I wondered back to me buying something and people observing that fact, storing it in their mental almanac, and then throwing it back in my face, when I say I can’t afford something or I would rather not spend my money on that right now. It is true, I do it myself sometimes. I make judgements about people based on what they wear, what they buy and whether they are spending their money on the ‘right’ things, or whether, in my opinion, they are wasting their money. Of course, I have no idea of the circumstances of the person, what they are like, what their lives are like, what they do in their spare time, what their spending habits are like. I shouldn’t be making a judgment at all. It is not my place to judge.

For example,  a friend of mine went on a 5 month hiatus from spending on clothes, accessories and shoes. After that hiatus, she went on a spending spree of $500. Everyone around her must have thought that she was a careless spender. Look at her, she’s spending 500$ on clothes in one day. But they didn’t realize of course, that she had abstained from it for five months, which itself is a really, really hard thing to do. The temptation is all around us, I mean, all around everywhere, even in our heads. There is just no way to escape it.

I just want you to observe when you do judge someone for spending. The circumstances might be quite different from what you judge.


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Categories : Life, Money

Principles

10 05 2011

If you knew me personally, you would find that I am always harping on and on about my principles. I have principles and I will stick to them, by god. Sometimes I find that sticking to your principles too closely results in a problem as well. Of course, you shouldn’t be always jumping from thought to thought or from principle to principle. You shouldn’t let others sway your thinking, you shouldn’t change your thoughts depending on the sway of the the wind passing through your hair. But you should have enough flexibility built in that when you realize that your thinking is wrong, that your principles were built upon the wrong principle that you should be able to change over to a different viewpoint, without feeling like your world is falling apart.

That is what happened to me over the weekend. My world felt like it was falling apart. All my beliefs about myself fell apart. I fell apart. I was devastated. I have always believed I an an intelligent human being. If nothing else, I have my smarts. I might not be the smartest person in the room, but I am up there. I am quick. But I fell for an internet scam. I know! I was stupid. A friend recommended me to something, and I fell for it. Of course, that ‘friend’ is no longer to be found and I am out 2000 dollars.

It is so stupid, I cannot even bear to look at myself in the mirror. I have nothing left to look at. I am a shell, a nobody. I have nothing left to admire about myself. Nothing to be proud of. Of course, this too shall pass. But until then, I feel hollow, empty, distraught.


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Categories : Life

Argument over values

18 04 2011

My parents are very mainstream in their beliefs, and that has worked amazingly well for them, propelling them to the higher rungs of success over the last fifty years. Of course, they are going to assume the same rules apply in the new world, but I disagree vehemently. The rules of the jungle have changed. A good job after a good education isn’t the key to happiness, even though it might be key to variable success. And what could possibly be more important than happiness?

I was in yoga class yesterday and the yoga instructor believed that unless you are pushing yourself over the edge and always growing, you are not actually living. I wanted to get up and yell out, that is so not true. This has been fed to us over the hundreds of hours of advertising and schooling, by which we are taught the rules of the jungle, but it is not true. We are conditioned to believe that, because then we are a good working part of the cogs of society, of an industrial society wrecking havoc on their environment. Just because we are growing and pushing ourselves, doesn’t mean we are happy. Sometimes, pushing ourselves again and again, is like beating our head against a steel door, absolutely useless. It doesn’t result in anything, and it causes us to feel guilty and self-loathing because we are unable to get the results that are expected of us.

I also realized that I have to reexamine my money beliefs. Money is important, I know that. It is necessary. It is absolutely needed for the basics in life, food, shelter, clothing, heat, water, and time with friends and family. It is good, and needed. But the thing I argue with my parents is that, I do not need a lot of it. I do not need to be a millionaire, I do not need to be a billionaire, I need just enough. Enough to take care of myself, and enough to be able to travel around the world, and do the things I need to do. I do not need a lot, I need enough of it. I know my parents come from a different mentality, they were poor when they were young, they always feel like they never have enough money, even if they were millionaires, they would still feel like there’s never enough. My mother said, that she doesn’t have enough money to give to others. I got angry at that. We have so many family friends, who spend thousands and thousands of dollars on gold jewelery. Absolutely useless jewelery that sits in the bank’s safe year after year. But they complain that they dont have enough money to give to the needy. That annoys me.

I am not the paragon of humanity, by any far stretch. I am a normal selfish, prideful, egotistic, rude, and other weird qualities-filled human being. I have my good moments and more than that, I have my bad moments. I haven’t given money to the needy in two years, since I had my last full-time job. I give one or two dollars here and there to the homeless people I pass. But I give time, I try to give time to the endeavors around my community. I try and give what I can, what I do have.


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Categories : Family, Life, random, Relationship

Yoga teacher training

19 03 2011

I have been in a uplifted happy mood for the past few days. I do not know what it is, but my buoyancy is affecting other people as well. When you are happy from the inside, other people feel that happiness, that joy, and they wish to connect with it as well. It makes me happy to spread the joy around. But I have to be careful not to give away too much of my energy out. That is something that is a caution to everyone who works around the public in customer service, where you have to be around negative energy as well as positive. Feeding off of the positive and letting the negative energies bounce off you is the key.

As you know I have been planning to take a yoga teacher training course from a really amazing studio in Concord, Ontario. I love the studio, the energy of the place, the rhythms, they are all so peaceful and calming. Whenever I lay my head down on my mat, at the studio, I feel a serenity seep through my body. I was planning to take the course coming up in the next weekend, but now I am thinking I am going to postpone it to September. First of all, I want to work like a dog in the summer at my server job and pay off at least 10k of my loan, and save up enough for the training so I am not scrambling each month to pay off the $1000 installment. I was thinking about it all night long, and I really like the new plan better. It works much better with the way my life is going. It doesn’t mean that I am not going to take the course at all, it just means, that I am not there yet. I need a few more months to prepare myself financially and physically as well.

Everything happens for a reason I believe, and finally, with this new job, I am feeling a sense of security and happiness. I feel less anxious about money and I feel happier about my job. I do not feel stressed by it, and I am able to leave it behind when I leave, knowing that I did a good job. I feel no sense of shame about doing a job that damages the environment or anything like that. Everyone needs to eat, and if they are going to eat outside, our restaurant does a good job of feeding them a meal that is reasonably healthy. Healthier than most restaurants. I like the people I work with. I do not dread going into work, because the management is nice and they take care of their employees.

My parents of course do not like the fact that I work such a job, but they usually ignore everything that has to do with happiness and only look at money and what other people might think. That is something I choose to ignore. People will talk no matter what, let them talk about you, you are going to be laughing all the way to happiness.


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Categories : Family, Life, Money, work, Yoga

Danger zones for a shopaholic

14 03 2011

I admit to a dire sin. A dire sin for a reformed voluntary simplicity yogi. I used to be a shopaholic. I know! It is shocking to believe, about the kind of person I have turned out to be, but it is true. It happened when I got my first job, as most shopaholics begin. I got my first taste of freedom and money  in the bank. I actually could afford all the clothes and shoes I had dreamed of, that I had lusted after for all of these years. I started spending money slowly, dipping in my feet so to speak. I would buy stuff only for my family at first, to justify it to myself. I am buying things for others so it can’t be that bad. Of course, it was things like food from outside where I would be included or movie tickets, where I would buy one for myself. It was a double entendre, I was buying things for myself under false pretenses.

A little by little, I started buying for myself as well. I would go to the shopping mall once a week to see if there is something new I could pick out. I bought $200 worth of clothes every week or every other week at least. I bought mostly clothes and shoes. I wasn’t into handbags, thank God. I also had a weakness for cosmetic jewelery which is hilarious because I am allergic to the nickel that is in most cosmetic jewelery. I bought it just for show, I guess. Or maybe I hoped my allergy would miraculously disappear when my skin saw all the beautiful jewelery displayed on my wardrobe counter. I would also buy make-up a lot, another funny thing, as I wore very little make-up. Almost non-existent. Another weird quirk of mine, I guess. I would go to shoppers every week to buy or replenish items that were still sitting on my bathroom counter. I justified it by the huge number of points I was accumulating. I started spending money after that on seminars, get-rich-quick seminars. Oh lordy, now that I think of the thousands of dollars wasted, I could kick myself in the head.The funny thing with all of my credit card spending was that I didn’t ever have any cash. I mean, nada. I would never have a dollar in my wallet. Everything HAD to be paid with a credit card, because I had no cash to spare. No cash at hand.

I justify the above as a valuable lesson that could never be learned better than spending recklessly, getting into thousands of dollars of debt and slogging through it, one penny at a time. I know I wouldn’t be the person I am now unless I went through the learning that I went through. I read about shopaholics on the net now, and I do feel bad for them that they have to go through this learning experience to realize the unimportance of shopping to a happy, fulfilled life. It is a tough lesson, but the benefits are tremendous. I feel like I am a much better person overall due to the lessons learned. I like myself completely. I do have moments of doubt, but as a whole, I think I turned out pretty great, someone that everyone would be proud to know. That is something else that Mastercard cannot buy. Neither can Visa.


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Categories : Life, Money, work

Fights over money

28 02 2011

I went out on Saturday night. I had been feeling down during the day, as I felt like I have been floundering for most of my life. I haven’t amounted to anything. I am a waste of space. I am bringing down my family’s reputation for good. I am useless. And so on.

It was not a good day for my self-esteem. I went out with my good friend to her friend’s birthday party. We went to an Irish Pub. I wanted the good humor and cheeriness of a pub to bring me up. The night went well, I wasn’t drinking being the designated driver. I watched the others go from sober, intelligent human beings, to slobbering, crying, fighting messes. At the end of the night, the birthday girl asked one of the guys to pitch in for the pitcher that they shared. He gave her five dollars, considering his duty done, he started to walk off.

She stopped him. You drank half the pitcher, you had more than one glass, you owe me more than five dollars. A pitcher is twenty dollars, you owe me ten dollars.

I didn’t drink half the pitcher. I had maybe one glass, that too a thin glass. I am actually giving you too much. Five dollars is how much I owe you.

And it just escalated from there.

I never want to share a pitcher with you ever again. You always do this to me when we go out. You are never invited over to my events ever again. You always do this to everyone. And so on.

It was bloodshed. I was sitting there, with my glass of water, and I felt embarrassed for all of us. They are all in their early thirties. The birthday girl is 33, and the guy she was fighting with is 32. The rest of them, besides me, are in their early thirties as well. I don’t know what I expect out of my thirties, but I expect to stop penny-pinching, and fighting over dollars and cents with my friends. I expect to be able to afford a pitcher on my birthday without coming to arms over it with my friends. I expect to be financially more stable than I am right now.

But looking at these fine specimens of individuals, with good jobs, and good futures, I saw nothing of the sort. The only reason I could surmise the birthday girl was fighting over five dollars with a friend and ruining her birthday night is because she is not financially stable. I mean, I can think of no other reason to ruin your 33rd birthday night.

That night is still six years away for me, but I wonder where I will be financially and mentally at that point. Are we ever going to stop fighting over money?


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Categories : Money

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