welcome to purge-atory. (part 2)

the ever mounting "TOSS" pile.

purge weekend certainly did not unfold completely as planned. whereas my paperwork stash did make significant gains (via significant losses), i mostly succeeded in moving things from one shelf to another, and squinting a lot at my shelves while attempting to determine exactly how i wanted things to look. i did scrape off a good chunk from the living room bookcase (which has been notoriously overrun with crap since day one), much of which actually ended in the donate pile (see inset).

i also nearly broke all of my bones falling off the counter… which i was standing on in socks (socks are slippery) to clean out my kitchen cabinets. but did find yet a few more things that can go (if anyone wants a popsicle mold shaped like rocket ships, you might want to hit the forest ave. goodwill this week).  it was probably worth the almost shattered pelvis.

after that though, things kind of unraveled. i was off to old port fest for fried mushrooms and panic attacks (WHERE DO ALL THESE PEOPLE COME FROM?), and then accidentally ended up having beers for 6 hours with some very smart and chatty friends. needless to say, when i stumbled home around 11:30, i was in no mood finish putting my toys away.

still, some positive things have still emerged from this somewhat wrecky purge weekend:

1. laura at fore front fashion has graciously offered to show me the ways of fashion minimalism. (can you say closet gutting session?)

2. the boyfriend actually did keep his promise and got all of his shit out of the living room.

3. 2 loads of trash and goodwill donations have already left the house, with the promise of more to come over the coming week.

4. i used my hangover as an excuse to eat cheesy pazzo bread for breakfast.

the plastic files.

first and foremost, i would like to apologize for not posting yesterday. i am still getting the hang of the daily posting gig, and also drank one too many bourbons after a particularly rough day and ended up face down on the couch at 8:30 instead of  writing my post. i repent. also, i am hungover as hell today- so my body is repenting too. but on to the promised content!

so i am very proud to say that a year has come and gone, and i have not used my credit cards even once. i did have to borrow money from the boyfriend on a couple of occasions, and i did certainly have more than a few months of barely scraping by (including and especially this one), but it still feels like progress to me. am i delusional? is learning to control my finances a gradual evolution, or should i have figured my shit out by now? i worry that it’s like being an alcoholic, where i either need to quit cold turkey or never get better…

as usual, i still have dreams and hopes of getting a tighter grip on my money and finally making a bigger dent in my debt this year. i’m still way behind from xmas and more other random unexpected shit (burst pipe!), but i’ve started a new habit to help defray at least a little of any future emergency money madness: i have become a gift card hoarder.

usually after xmas, i take any gift cards i might have and rush my little ass to the mall and spend spend spend…  but this year i promised myself that i would hold on to them for a bit and see what happened.  i have also amassed a few more from rebates and online surveys (i’ve had great luck with these guys), and my cache is looking quite tidy (see above). here’s my master plan: