Saturday, March 12, 2011

a sad farewell

Last Sunday at church, a neighbor introduced me to her son.  He finished his ophthalmology residency a little over one year ago.  He is married with four children.  We talked briefly about residency life.  I asked him how life had changed since finishing his training.  He paused only briefly and said, "Life is a lot more convenient now."  I must have looked confused because then he said, "Like, we can go to Costco."  I chuckled and nodded, indicating that I knew what he was talking about.  But, I was waiting for more; I had no idea what he had meant.

That was it.  He offered nothing more.

As I've thought - over and over again - about that conversation, and being determined lately with renewed focus and energy to change my spending habits, I have recognized that we have been living rather lavishly, (apparently, according to my neighbor's son).  In other words, I go to Costco at least once a month, usually more.

But, really, I thought everyone went to Costco - no matter what.  It has always seemed so necessary, like sleeping, really.

So, an experiment (possibly an extremely short one): leave Costco alone.  Try to survive without my usual Costco trips where I grab everything I possibly can because everything is such a great deal and in such large quantities that I fantasize about not needing to shop again for an extended period of time (this is desirable for me since I detest shopping, but it is a delusion - I don't know how Costco accomplishes it).

We'll see how it works out.  Maybe it will last longer than my goal to go to sleep every night before 10:00 p.m. - seeing as it is currently 12:06 a.m.  I fell asleep earlier tonight while putting my 18-month old down at 8:30 p.m. so I had a nice nap squished on a toddler bed beside him and woke up at 11:00 p.m. with energy to e-mail, read, and blog.

Ultimately, I am really good at giving excuses.  Hopefully this experiment will help me curb my spending a bit though.

1 comment:

Jeff and ReAnn said...

I also think Costco is a delusion. I refuse to get a membership (although heaven knows I want one) because every trip I have ever been to I ended up spending more than I had wanted to. And honestly you can find cheaper deals out there just not as convenient. And why don't more stores have shopping carts with two seats?