Day 20 - January 13, 2011 - Hemorrhaging

Watching the 6:00 a.m. news is always an unreal reality check. There was a 'professional shopper' woman on this morning talking about the great deals on clothes that one can find on the internet. She was comparing dresses at stores vs dresses online, raving about what a deal you can get at www.gilt.com because the little black dress she was featuring was only $250.00.

$250.00!!!! Really? That's a great deal? I've never in my life spent that kind of money on any clothing, including my wedding dress. When I got married I went to a bridal shop in town and emphatically asked to look at the budget closet. I ignored the skepticism of the saleswoman and managed to find a lovely wedding dress for $75.00.

When it came time for me to order flowers for my wedding, I just picked purple roses, and emphatically told the sales clerk that I did not want to talk to the wedding consultant because I knew what I wanted. We made our own invitations, had a friend cater the affair and another friend took the pictures. We spent days putting together music tapes for dancing, had a keg and jug wine, all under a rented tent with tables and chairs. Thankfully my betrothed nixed the wrought iron arch my mom and sister wanted, so we saved a lot of money there. We put on our entire wedding for 100 guests for a grand total of $700.00. It was a good thing I didn't spend more on my dress because we were married outside and it poured rain the night before. At the end of my wedding night the bottom of my dress was black with mud.

Now that was a frugal wedding! And you know what? My marriage lasted 24 years. That averages to about $30.00 year. Not a bad return, I'd say. Of course our divorce cost us 50 times that in money and a million times more than that in sadness and hurt.

Opps....I was talking about the perky blond woman on the 6:00 a.m. news who was talking about the great deals she found online, and I wondered what planet she was from. Honestly, with the unemployment rate so high, foreclosures dotting every neighborhood, and people desperately trying to hold onto their jobs, I couldn't imagine worse timing for a 'news story' about $250.00 dresses. The day before the same segment covered cheap vacations: 4 night cruises for $600/person. Again, what are they thinking? I can't afford a $45.00 night in a Kenosha, WI hotel!

Are people really going on vacations? Do they really spend that kind of money on dresses and other clothing items? Maybe I've completely lost touch with the real world because I've been buying my clothes at Target for so long. My idea of a vacation paradise is to rent a little ramshackle cottage in Frankfort, MI and sit on the beach.

And then there are some days the money hemorrhages out of my wallet. Today was one of those days. In between work and my first Thursday night grad class, I had a bunch of errands to run. First, I needed to buy gas because I was, as Jackson Browne once sang, runnin' on empty. I also had to get to school early because I had to pay my fees so I wouldn't be kicked out of the program this close to the end. I was tight on time so I had to buy fast food. I hated to do it, but there truly times when life just takes over and there's nothing you can do about it. So it was Jimmy John's.

As soon as I got to school I had to pay my fees. Instead of charging my checking account the $60.00 I owed, the clerk charged me $3,385.00. Luckily I caught it and they put a credit through right away.

Keeping perspective on things, I was feeling poor tonight because I paid $28.00 for gas, $6.00 for dinner, and $60.00 for school fees. It's been so long since I've spent money, I felt completely drained of mula at the end of the night. Of course the only thing that made it okay was that these were all necessities.

Let's see what tomorrow brings. I think I have 10 more days of buying only necessities.

Karrie