Shopping Like You're Broke = Disappointment

Shopping wisely is always a good idea.

Shopping frugally is the way to get ahead.

Making sure you're getting a good deal is just good sense, and only buying what you actually WANT will help lead you to a stress-free, clutter-free existance.

However, shopping like you are broke will only lead you to disappointment.

Broke shopping means you only get the item that is cheapest.

Broke shopping means you run out the day you absolutely positively NEED something, and you buy it at the store you think will have it the cheapest.

Broke shopping means you assume you will never have the money to get what you actually want, so there's no reason not to grab this other random item that will get the job done.

I remember my days of being broke.  Of shopping broke.  Of getting so disgusted with  my purchases that I eventully stopped buying anything.  In fact, the first time my boyfriend gave me a gift card, he then had to strong-arm me into spending it, any of it, on anything.  There was just nothing I "needed" enough to trust myself to buy anything.

Over time, though, I lost the "shopping like you're broke" mentality. 

I didn't overcome it: I simply overpowered it. 

I had savings, savings that were earmarked for different expenditures, so that I could force myself into buying something.   Afterall, if you have $200 set aside in an account marked "clothes" how can you reasonably argue that you can't spend $40 on a new top? 

But if I was going to buy it, it was going to be what I wanted - so I spent time once again "shopping" different stores, looking around, trying on.  I discovered there are affordable things even in the name brand stores I hadn't ventured into in years.  I was frugal, I was seeking a good bargain, but I no longer had that air of desperation that comes with broke shopping.  

That sense of somehow failing because I had to buy any item that I hadn't planned to buy when I created my budget was gone. 

In fact, when it came time to buy a new computer, and I wanted the $800 one, not the $300 one, I walked out of the store. I continued to look at ads and reviews and be sure it was the one I wanted and I continued to put away money, until the day it was selling for $750 instead of $800, and I could walk in and buy it with cash.  With only a small amount of guilt over the expense.

If I hadn't fallen back into old habits, I might have never thought about shopping broke ever again.

As I have mentioned, I joined a gym.  I would like to lose weight, and although that hasn't happened, I have managed to lose a shoe size and a half.  That's right, in the span of about two months, every pair of shoes I owned suddenly became too big.

For a while, I got buy with sneakers, laces pulled extra tight.   Then, when the cold weather came, I purchased a very nice pair of winter boots, which I adore and were well worth the money.  They were definitely NOT a broke purchase.

I made myself go to Payless because I thought that my co-workers might start to think it odd I was wearing sneakers every day, with business dress.  There were an adorable pair of shoes, only about $20.  They were black and white-checked and business appropriate and I can wear them with black slacks or gray slacks or even navy.  These were inexpensive but I was not broke shopping.

I came up with a brilliant idea (or so I convinced myself) --  I would find a pair of brown shoes, and those two pairs would get me through the coming months. I can wear brown with browns and tans and the checked with blacks and grays and blues!  I would keep these two pairs at the office, wear the boots outside.  I would be the Mr. Rogers of Shoes!!!    Slippers at home, then sneakers at the gym, boots to the office, dress shoes at work, back into boots and home to slippers!   Brilliant!

The only problem was I didn't like the brown shoe collection at Payless that day. Or at any of the other stores at the mall that day.  I didn't want to spend too much, mind you, because these were just "transition" shoes....who knows how much more my feet will shrink?!?!

So when I happened by the brown shoes at Wal-Mart, on  clearance no less, I didn't think about it much.  I bought them fast and I left, excited at the low price I had paid.

It's only now, when I have to put on the shoes that pinch one toe until I fear there will be blood; shoes made out of some strange padded-vinyl material that explains to me exactly why people rave about shoes that allow their "feet to breath," only now do I remember the disappointments that come when you buy broke.