Doing the Opposite

After agreeing with Thrift Deluxe that keeping out of the shops in the days following pay day is the best policy, I did exactly the opposite yesterday.  Call me a hypocrite, it's true, but I suddenly got the urge to get out of the house and go to the local mall.

I'd not been in a while.  I just don't have a need to go these days, as there's very little I need or want to buy, but when I get the itch, I have to scratch it.  Maybe I just wanted to know what I was missing, who knows.  Anyway, I decided I'd hop on a bus and go.

All I actually did need to buy were some food items - a mid week top up shop, and possibly some storage canisters and a cutting board for the kitchen, which we are currently redecorating.

I should have known it wasn't a good idea when I got out of the house and realised that the bus stop at the end of the street was closed due to gas works.  I knew this, as I walk past it every day, but it didn't occur to me when I decided to get the bus.  Anyway, I had to walk up the high street for quite a while to the next stop and of course a bus came in that time and I was way too far from the stop to catch it. In fact I ended up walking two bus stops further on to catch the bus which came shortly after I got there.

I got on the bus.  It had a particularly unpleasant smell. It got diverted and then I eventually got to the mall. By this time I was already thinking 'why did I bother?'. Anyway, I went straight to TKMAXX to look for kitchenware. The weather dramatically worsened, it started raining and the wind started blowing shop signs around.  I began to think it was a message from you know who.

Maybe it was, there was nothing in TKMAXX that appealed to me. I contemplated buying a £20 sleeping bag for LB's Duke of Edinburgh expedition next month, but resisted only to receive a call from her later to say she'd found one in the CS during her shift for £7 and was going to buy it.

Next I hit M&S.  I had some vouchers I'd received as a shareholder.  I looked in the homewares and was strongly tempted by some storage jars, but the spend wouldn't have met the required amount on the voucher and I didn't want to buy extra things for the sake of it. I walked away. Besides, the colours weren't quite right.  I tried on a sports bra, that looked awful. In the end it was down to the food hall to buy the bits we needed and use at least one of the vouchers burning a hole in my purse.

Once I'd shopped for the food, of course, and spent enough to qualify for using the voucher i.e. £20, the bag that I had to buy to carry it, was not light and I then had to hump it back through the mall, stopping every few yards to give my arms a rest. Grocery shopping by car is so much easier.

I did stop off in Primark and I did buy one item.  A new pack a mac for £9 to wear to work in the summer months. I couldn't find anything else I liked and the only other shop I wanted to go to in the mall, H & M, I was just too exhausted to make the effort to get to it.

I couldn't even be bothered to go to the café in John Lewis and use another voucher for a free cup of tea and a cake, which was another intention.  Instead I just headed back for the bus, missed another one just as I approached the bus stop, then had to wait 10-15 minutes for the next. Nearly fell up the stairs when the bus started moving and eventually got home swearing that I wasn't going to do that again in a hurry.

I may have completely lapsed on the Buy Nothing New front this year, (you might have noticed that the posts have stopped - it was a step too far for me), but my desire to purchase new stuff is definitely waning. I guess sometimes, I just need a reminder that I'm really not missing out on anything by not going shopping and I certainly got it.