New Year’s Resolutions

Here’s wishing a very happy New Year to everybody in the world, with–as we say in Greek–’oti pothite’–whatever you desire.      

I’ve started this blog to help me stick to my New Year’s Resolutions by making them public, so I’ll be accountable to my readers.  I am hoping for your support and encouragement, and if any of you share similar concerns, I hope that in turn I–and the other readers here–can support you.

This year I’ve decided to work on these three areas:

Less excess in shopping.

Less excess in weight.

Less excess in clutter.

I think that these three areas are at least to some extent interconnected, so I am starting out with all three in the same blog.  I realise that each blog should have a clear focus, so let me explain why.  Excessive shopping leads to excessive clutter.  It can also lead to excessive eating and drinking, hence excess weight, which is the second area I need to work on.  Excess weight can lead to excessive shopping for new clothes because the old ones don’t fit, or because excessive clutter means I cannot find old clothes that may still fit.  Excessive shopping also means that I can’t even remember some of the things I have, or find them in the clutter, so I go out and buy new ones, adding to the clutter.  Vicious circles that need to be broken.

Frequent news of the recession and various financial crises in 2008 have made me realise that I need to reconsider my consumer lifestyle.  I’ve never been in debt, I pay off my credit cards in full at the end of each month.  But I don’t have much in the way of savings.  I have been content with a part-time job because it means I can be home for my son.  My income’s been just enough to put food on our table and indulge my shopping habit, but nothing is left over.  If I want to save I must either find a new job or other source of additional income, or curb my shopping, or both.  The easiest at this stage appears to be to limit my shopping.
Or is it the easiest? I’ve been doing some reading as well as serious introspecting on this issue. From one book I read (I’ll post links once I learn how) I figured out that I am the bargain hunter type. I’m a real sucker for the freebies, the little gifts which the companies offer when one buys two or three of their products, the gifts attached to products, or the ‘two for the price of one’ offers.  And I find solace in shopping, it fills an emotional void.   More on that in another post.

So today I’ll start by focussing on the shopaholic in me.  As a first step I’ve decided to give myself an allowance of EUR50.00 cash a month, to cover all my expenses such as bus tickets or refreshments when I’m out of the house.  Only if anything is left over at the end of the month can I either spend it on something for myself, or save it towards something bigger the following month.  I’m also going to limit food shopping to perishables until the freezer and pantry cupboard are empty.

My biggest foreseeable challenge in the next two months is that the sales are coming up.  I will allow myself to buy some clothes for my son,  but that’s all.  The truth is that in anticipation of this New Year’s Resolution I’ve been on a very serious Amazon spree.   The British Pound has slipped to near-parity withthe Euro so these were bargains, of course!  Yesterday I went to the mall with a friend and our children, and bought myself the last makeup for one year (guess what, they were giving away a cute purse with several products). 

Well, I’d better go off and cook the goose, we’re having lunch at my in-laws today and that’s my contribution to the meal.

Please wish me luck and the fortitude to resist the numerous temptations I’m sure to encounter over this coming year. 

And my very best wishes to you in keeping your own New Year’s Resolutions.

 Sunny