unsubscribed.

i made myself a 30 day 'chip.' why should people in AA have all the fun?

hello, my name is Bethany and i am a shopaholic.

okay, not completely true but slightly (you can tell this is the denial part of my problem). I have never gone into debt for anything--even school, but that doesn't mean that i might not shop a little too much.

But i have changed my ways. i have unsubscribed from those handy emails that tell me when things are 40% off already reduced prices. i have made new budgets. i have given away my shopping arsenal to save money. i have even liquidated shoes, bags and a ridiculous amount of lotion on eBay.

Maybe i am giving myself too much credit for not shopping for the past 40 days, i mean if you already own enough dresses that you could wear a different one each week to church without repeating you probably should have stopped shopping about 40 dresses ago...Same with dishes, i mean i have three sets and can serve 24 people--i can't even fit 10 people in my apartment! The fact that i own EVERYTHING i could possibly need during my twenties combined with the Mad Men collection from Banana Republic this year not be tempting in the slightest, i shouldn't be shopping anyway...

the feeling is mutual W&S... the feeling is mutual...

Ever since i was young i have been obsessed with money--making it, counting it, writing budgets for it, organizing it, planning the future with it--everything. With ten kids in the family and my dad being out of work my entire life due to a dibilitating accident everyone noticed money and probably our lack thereof. I was never without anything important, i always had clean clothes, a nice house, birthday/christmas presents etc. and didn't ever notice that we didn't have a lot of spare change, I just knew that if there was something i wanted i needed to figure out a way to earn the money to purchase it. This seemed, and still seems, very logical to me.

When i was younger i would take every babysitting job that was offered, even the ones from that family that the normal sane 13 yr old didn't want to touch with a ten foot pole. When i would get home i would write the date, job, and amount i was paid on a piece of paper and drop it in a tin box. At the end of the year i would tally up how much i made at each job and which ones were more profitable. I would also write down every dollar that i spent in the same fashion and tally that up too. For years i could tell you exactly how much i made and spent in the smallest of categories.

i do get to shop if i have a gift card. thanks nyc boss for giving me things i could return to Nordstroms so buy these shoes instead.

Then i was a teenager and basically on my own financially. I moved out when i was 16 to be a live in nanny for my sister while her husband served in Iraq. I was living on such little amounts of money that i had a strict budget for buying things like shampoo. It was also during this stint of my life that i started really wanting my own home. By the time i graduated and left my hometown i had lived in 6 different homes with 4 of those being during high school and two during my senior year alone. When i would get stressed out or have an argument with my sister i would de-stress by going to the mall. I couldn't buy anything but i began to love being in stores--no one cares if you are wandering around slowly and everything is nice, new and clean. Soon however, shopping became a talent of mine and not just a coping mechanism.

Turns out that i am really, i mean REALLY good at shopping. I can find everything that i have been wanting at the best prices always.

As i got older and had better paying jobs i started buying things that normal teenagers didn't buy. I went to college with William & Sonoma oven mits, a Kitchen Aid and cleaning supplies i had already more than broken in. My favorite stores weren't Forever 21 or Gap, they were William & Sonoma, Pottery Barn, and Costco.

i am REALLY good at shopping and getting killer deals

Then i discovered Banana Republic. And then my life got very full of stuff.

But, i am changing my ways.

i am especially not allowed to buy nail polish, you could say i have enough...

In January i decided that for the rest of the year i would not buy anything other than the most basic necessities--groceries and gas. I allow myself a small budget to go out with friends--so that i can still have friends--but i am trying to only eat out etc when someone invites me. And other than that, i am done shopping. I will not buy anything for my house--not even a tupperware, not anything for the bathroom (i have a stockpile of lotion/tooth paste/shampoo etc so the rule is that it has to be GONE before i can buy anything new), no nail polish, no new clothes, nothing.

The ironic thing is, up until i stopped buying things i was attached to most my possessions but now i am really good at getting rid of things.

here's to 10 more months of not being a consumer and hopefully building up a savings account again. The last six months have been more than rough money wise, but i have high hopes that i can fix it. I am so serious about this venture that i unsubscribed from most emails AND gave my last Banana Republic reward ($30 none-the-less) along with my 10% off tote to my sister so that i wouldn't be temped.

damn you uncle sam and your taxes.

my last purchases, a green pencil skirt and patterned top from Banana Republic. turns out it is really hard to take a decent picture of yourself with a self timer...

oh and i decided i am not even buying a car when i have to give my nephew's back in june. i mean, i already own a bicycle... because as you can see i am very good at riding bicycles.

2,480 shake shack burgers

By 9:44 last tuesday night i was wasted. All of my belongings were packed, or gingerly shoved into reusable shopping bags, and i was trying to lighten my moving load by eating the biggest bowl of Golden Grahams with an exorbitant amount of milk. My feet were filthy, my head was throbbing, i was unable to process anymore emotions, and soon i had to lug all my belongings 0.6 miles to the couch i would be inhabiting, on and off, for the next two weeks. Utterly exhausted and eating cereal on the nasty floor should make it clear how i feel about my current situation--it blows.

i took this on the bus a week ago, now just image the rain as tears on my face and you get the picture.

Last monday i was doing what i seem to do most mondays, ride the bus back from philadelphia to new york (i love new york but i also love that for the first time ever i live within a few hours of my sister and her family). Have you even been that person on a bus crying hysterically to the point where there is no need to hide it because everyone knows that it is you? yeah, me neither, well until monday. 

Part way through my torturious journey, my brother called to talk to me about our taxes. We own a small business together and our last accountant wasn't the best or brightest so levi recently kicked him to the curb and hired a competent one. The only problem with this scenario is that because of things that the old accountant did and advised us to do, we needed to revise our taxes for the last three years. I knew about this and had set aside some money for our favorite holiday, October 15th--the tax extension deadline. Little did we know that my savings would be about $12,000 (just savings, i had some other cash squirreled away in clocks and the like) shy of what just i owed. After one conversation with my brother i went from having enough money to live in nyc for the next few months and buy a decent car to take home, to being completely and utterly broke. All my liquid cash is gone. My grant for my internship is gone. My savings are gone. Now, for the first time ever, i am in debt. 

Do you know what $16,000 can buy?

lets try some different categories of my favorite things:

camera equipment:

-Canon 5D Mark III  $3,199

-Canon 50mm 1.2 L Series lens $1439

-Canon 85mm 1.2 L Series lens $1999

-Canon Speedlight 600EX-RT flash $557

-Profoto Studio Lighting Kit $3280

-Manfrotto Tripod $599

-MacBook Pro with Retina Display $2799

Total: $13,872

Kate Spade:

-purse $498

-dresses $398, $478, $448, $398

-coat $698

-colored jeans (in all six colors obviously) 6x$198

And that was only $4,106, that means there is almost $12000 left for 10 more purses, 12 pairs of shoes, and one more coat. So basically a total kick ass new wardrobe (you know, if i switched out a few purses for things like pants and shirts...)

Cars:

which is a lot newer than the Ford Escape i was planning on buying

or 2,000 bottles of Essie nail polish.

or 1,067 Costco chocolate cakes

or 941 Statue of Liberty cruises

or 2,480 Shake Shack burgers

or probably almost a whole baby on the black market.

or it can pay uncle sam so that he doesn't want you anymore.

After my crying subsided on the bus i transfered to the subway to head to my apartment where my check books lay dorment. Over the next few hours i went to two FedEx locations, printed $107 worth of tax forms--you know, $0.50 seems really reasonable for a b&w print, FedEx, along with your $0.30 a minute computer fee...--ran (literally) 8 blocks to the post office, ran to the drug store for tape, skipped every other stair as I lunged back to the post office, stuffed ten envelopes, wrote six checks, sealed everything nice and tight and said good bye to (most) of my assets. You'd think my night would end there, i mean the clock was abut to toll midnight, but no, since i got kicked out of my apartment i couldn't just go home, i had to then go to my friend's house to get her spare key so that i could move onto her couch the following day. 

saying good-bye to the studio

By the time my golden graham-eating-on-the-floor evening had transpired the following day, i was exhausted, still homeless, and very angry at stupid connie who kicked me out of my sublet. Needless to say i was a bit (am still slightly) a hott mess. But hott mess or not, i still needed to get it together and move all my crap--which has seemed to grow exponentially since i thought i would be in a studio for 4 months. I now hate hangers, food bought at costco, full size sheets, you know, all the finer things in life i like when i don't have to move them around the city in the larger-than-life blue Ikea bags. 

And this is how all my belongings migrated back .6 miles to where they came from only 36 days ago. Back along the same street, past the same cathedral  next to the same homeless man--who when he heard me talking to my sister on the phone about wearing dresses to work said, "God bless you!" (he must think i have nice legs, which obviously is true)--and finally pass the gaggle of rats that inhabit 109th street. When i first did this trip moving to the subleased studio (i walked this part of manhattan 7 times going to and from with my stuff) i walked because i had nothing better to do and i didn't want to draw attention from the co-op with a taxi, this time i was just feeling too poor to hail a cab. But when you have a friend that is willing to drag two bags and you can fit: your camera bag, shoulder bag, larger-than-life ikea bag, and hat on your frame and STILL managed to drag a suitcase that is 4 feet tall with all your food strapped to the back, why not just walk?

and that brings me to the present.

i still have a reeses problem... but i did mangage to fit all this in that green bag and strap it to my suitcase. win.

i am currently sleeping on a very comfortable couch in my friends room because she is very kind. But because i have vistors coming to the city i also spend time in sketchy hotels in Brooklyn and a friend's studio in Harlem. But those, those times are for a different post. But i will tell you that they involve christmas hams, trains so loud you can hear them in the shower, fish heads, duvet covers finagled into window sills, oh and Ricky Martin.

**and if this post worries you, don't be. I am not homeless in the sense of being on the street, i just don't have a place to call my own, and i have a thing called a credit card (and a loan from my business) so i am fine. I might not have any spare change for the next year, or a bed to call my own or the next two months, but i think i can survive that.**