Suburban Wife’s Daily Dollar Diary

Oct 30 2007

Day 59

Published by Suburban Wife at 9:46 pm under SWI - Shopping While Impaired, Daily $$'s

Merkury foldable docking headphones Let’s be honest here. I don’t know about you but I can go only so long being frugal and keeping to bare-bones purchases. But eventually, the dam breaks and I finally break down and make purchases that I’ve been pondering or putting off as non-essential. And when the dam breaks, it’s usually not a single, simple non-essential purchase. No, it’s usually a string of non-essential purchases. Well, today was the day my dam broke Let’s hope I got that out of my system for a while and I can go back to a few weeks of regularly scheduled frugal living.

Costco — $38.66
The Tank’s tank was again just below the half-way mark but since I was going right by there this morning I thought it would be a good time to fill up. I noticed that the price of gas is creeping up; it is going up everywhere?

I pumped 14.270 gallons at $2.709/gallon. The odometer reads 115,829.

T.J. Maxx — $22.61
Here’s where I went “nuts.” I really need to stay out of T.J. Maxx and Marshalls. Anyway, I went in looking for picture frames and ended up finding an armband for my iPod Nano and this really cool pair of Merkury Docking headphones that you plug your Nano into.

I stood there forever trying to decide whether or not to get the headphones. I simply cannot use the NordicTrack without music — my ADD-tortured brain goes absolutely nuts about 5 minutes into exercising if I don’t have music to listen to and even then sometimes I just cannot do it. I wanted the armband because I often don’t have a place to put my Nano when I’m exercising so I was thrilled to find one for $5.99.

But then I saw the headphones and suddenly life was complicated. I’d found the armband I wanted but the headphones looked really cool. And potentially very practical. See, we only have two pair of earbuds between The Son, The Daughter, and I and no one likes to share with The Son because, well, ear wax issues. Yuck. Plus a few weeks ago The Daughter shared the fact that earbuds increase ear bacteria by some phenomenal amount and I haven’t felt the same about using my Nano while I exercise since then. The earphones would avoid the whole earbuds dilemma.

I finally decided to buy them. They were on sale for $15.00 and I confirmed with the store manager that they could returned within 30 days even if the package were opened. Normally my gear-head self would be thrilled with the purchase. But my newly rediscovered financial conservatism is just not letting me feel good about the purchase. I’ll probably get over it

Oh, and I discovered I’d paid a Stupid Tax. I’m a regular at T.J. Maxx but not in the men’s department. I discovered today that I could have saved myself a lot of money if I’d gone here instead of Sports Authority when shopping for basketball-related clothing last week. C’est la vie.

REI — $36.73
This was my original errand this morning and was my second unbridled, the-dam-has-broken-and-money’s-spilling-out-everywhere purchase of the day. And it wasn’t even noon yet! I bought four 32-oz Nalgene water bottles. Two pink ones for The Daughter and two green ones for The Son. I don’t feel bad about paying $8.50 per bottle (I couldn’t find a better price after factoring in shipping anywhere on-line) for Nalgene because 1) I have very strong opinions about the kids drinking enough water when they exercise or participate in sports and 2) the non-leeching qualities of the nalgene plastic.

The big issue I faced was having to buy four bottles all at once. We used to have one 32-oz nalgene but it has disappeared as things will when you have kids — of course, they’d say that I lose things too but don’t listen to them, they don’t know what they’re talking about. We have smaller nalgene bottles that are great for school because they fit into the little mesh pockets on the sides of the backpacks/messenger bags but the 32-oz size is ideal for sports activities. I’m not sure about The Daughter but I know The Son needs two bottles for each practice. So I bought two each and made it clear that The Daughter will never, under any circumstances, even with the permission of her brother, use the green bottles. And, likewise, The Son, will not, under penalty of major mommy wrath, use his sister’s pink bottles.

Target — $49.00
Not only was this trip made on a frugal-dam-breakdown day, but it was also taken late in the evening with The Daughter. I was hungry, tired, in pain, and just a wee bit grumpy. It could have been a SWI disaster. It actually wasn’t too bad though.

My one completely un-frugal purchase was a picture frame that, as it turns out, will have to be returned. I’ve really been itching to buy some frames so I can hang some of the terrific photos from the kids’ recent studio photo shoot and have done some comparison shopping at Costco, T.J. Maxx, Hobby Lobby, and Target. I like Target’s selection best and I’m trying to wait for a sale but I don’t know that I can hold off completely until then. I’ve been thinking maybe I’d frame just one or two photos now and a few more if and when I find some frames on sale. So I found one tonight that will hold two 5×7’s and was excited to get it home and put it to use. But it turns out that I don’t have any two shots that will work together in the same frame. The photo of The Son is against a black background but it’s on a landscape orientation whereas The Daughter’s solo shot, also on a black background, is on a portrait orientation. Also, some photos are on a white background which wouldn’t look good against the frame’s off-white matting. Oh well, I’ll return the frame and pick up one for a single 8×10 photo and get the cutest photo up on a wall. Then I’ll patiently wait for a sale — or not.