The F-word

You will laugh at me, and you will be oh-so-right.

I have been spending much time this past week lecturing various poor souls on the wonders of Your Money or Your Life and on how it was actually going to change theirs as well as mine (lives that is), and how the great thing about it is that it's not one of those starvation diets where you deny yourself everything, and then the whole thing bounces back into your face, because the pressure is too much and you go on a binge, and feel horrible, and have to start all over again, except you have even less money now, because of the binge, etc.

NO, I said to them (... to you...) this approach is different, you need not consciously change anything, only observe your own behaviour with kindness, become aware of your patterns, and let your subconscious slowly but surely, without you ever noticing it, readjust your spending reflexes.

But, as every good minister will tell you, there is the preaching, and then there is the practice. In a rather too well known case of neural disconnection, my ears were having trouble hearing what my mouth was saying. It got so bad I didn't want to buy the stamp to send off my very first swap package (which is why poor Elianne had to wait for days, I'm sorry Elianne, I was insane, it wasn't me, they made me do it!). I actually spent a whole morning thinking of ways of getting out of BUYING A STAMP! I kid you not.

So the backlash came, as expected, today, and I bought:

- a ticket to the Rubens & Brueghel exhibit (with museumjaarkaart discount);
- a subscription to Craft Magazine (only the digital version, half the price; you see there was some attempt at control);
- a (small) bag of expensive yummy dried pineapple rings from the organic store around the corner;

Admittedly, the grand total didn't exceed 25 euros, and it's all I've spent on myself so far this month, and these are things that will give me pleasure for sure, but the mood I was in when making these purchases seriously worries me. You should have seen me, tongue lolling out (well, not really), mad red-rimmed eyes (that really, but more to do with no sleep and reading Your money or your life into the dead of night), trembling hands... a starved out wolf accidentally coming upon the yearly voluptuous piglet convention, that was me. It was not pretty. Now I have a hang-over.

So, whence from here? Back to the F-word. Essentially, back to square one for attempt two. Except I've now set myself that challenge for November (me and my big mouth). The no spending thing. And imagine the shame of retracting. Publically. The humiliation.

Ok, I'm just kidding. Sort of. And being in a whacky mood. What I wanted to say is that the November challenge will only work if there is pleasure in it. Only if I can make it fun (rather than torture). And that is in fact the real challenge.