January 22

NSD

Dinner:  Goulash (Instant Pot)

Dinner did not turn out so well on this day.  If anything, most dinners have been too watery in the Instant Pot.  But this one went the opposite way. 

I have some days to get caught up on...

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January 23

Allowance Spending (Moi): $139

Dinner:  Garlic Chicken Parmesan (Instant Pot)

Tried a new recipe, dinner was okay.

For some time I was exposed to so little advertising that most of my spending trigger (the past few years) has been SA.  Seeing people talk about purchases or things that sound interesting.  We stopped watching TV commercials 20 years ago (when we got our first DVR) and probably have our computers well equipped with ad blockers.

But alas, the social media ads are getting very creepy in a 'reading your mind' kind of way.  I expect I've made it worse during pandemic by sticking to just shopping online.  Probably didn't do much clothes shopping online before.

The other pitfall was free shipping.  I was just about to pull the trigger on a $40 purchase, and just going to eat the shipping because didn't really want or need anything else.  But thought about it more carefully and thought of some things I could use.  Couldn't find what I needed and then just ended up shopping more.  Spent $100 on clothing and jewelry.  After that I circled back to some cute shoes I saw and resisted earlier, but at least found them cheaper on Zappos.  The clothing I will most likely just donate what I don't end up liking in person.  But the shoes I will 100% return if they don't fit (they likely won't).  

{During normal times, if I do shop online I would just go return in store.  In this case, not even sure if a local brick and mortar store exists.  Have expanded my shopping horizons a bit during the pandemic, trying other stores besides just the one in my neighborhood}.

That said, this is all very typical of my spending style.  I did look it up and I haven't bought any clothing in 3 months.  If I spend $150-ish every 3 months, that's my $600 per year *blow money*.  

The line between clothing and *blow money* is probably blurry.  In this case, was 100% nothing I needed whatsoever, and so was obviously *blow money*.

Edited to add:  Shoes arrived and did not fit.  As expected.  I would pay anything pretty much, for shoes that fit my feet.  Makes my total spending $100, but won't get the return processed until next month.