THIRD WEEK- things are getting easier 

Seems like adapting to not being 'credit card swipe happy' is going well, my brain muscles are adjusting to this new reality. It usually is said that it takes 3 weeks to form a habit, I have not yet formed the habits to spend wisely but they have adapted to 'spending cautiously'

I actually feel a lot calmer!
Sometimes you see kids that are totally out of control settle down when there is an authority figure that they respect are introduced into the picture. Guess my brain was the kid who was out of control - I am suspecting the reptile brain - overriding my prefrontal cortex or maybe bribing it with the promise of immediate 'feel good' hormones was taking over for its insatiable immediate gratification needs, leaving the responsible part to deal with the aftermath and suffer.
Knowing that I should not be buying everything that I 'think I should need'- being fed by the community and ads -   put a barrier between me and the multibillion dollar consumer economy.

Highlight of my week: A close friend of my father had an Acura about 15 years ago and my father was always picking on her saying that she should sell the car before it caused problems and she kept on saying that until it costs 300$/month to fix she will keep it. My father passed away 9 years ago but apparently the car was still rocking it as I saw her Facebook post on saying goodbye to it at 350k miles. She is my inspiration and I trust my wonderful Rav4 will perform that way, we are at 140k now! 

 Buying a new car sounds lovely the toxic wonderful new car smell, the ohh and ahhh's of friends and neighbors in the first month is dizzyingly satisfying but after that first month what you have left with are the monthly payments for years! No thank you I would rather pay that amount to other things that I truly enjoy as long as the car is in good shape and is safe.

Lowpoint of my week: Due to a series of unfortunate coincidences - leaving the car key on top of the car, my husband moving the car using the spare key and me then not realizing that it was the spare key driving away probably hurling the key that was on top of the car somewhere. I heard it is very expensive to get spare car key. Now I have to decide whether I should get one of not. On one hand if I lose, misplace  or lock the only key I have inside the car (this has happened) will be stuck somewhere which will cost me more in the end.

Next week I will take car to service and ask about replacing the duplicate key. Crossing fingers that it will be just a regular service and not something where the Service Advisor will need to sit down with a pitying face in front of me  carrying a bunch of papers.

SECOND WEEK - budget busted by 50%

During the second week I had to take an advance (put coins back into the Budget box from the Spent box) which was really painful, until I realized that there were several recurring monthly payments that I had entered in this 2 week period  which will not be in the next 2 week period and I had also purchased the rehearsal dinner and shoes for our daughters wedding coming up in 3 weeks.

You might say why I chose this time to start my experiment? I would justify my decision with the fact that this is life, there will always be stuff popping up good or bad and I have to actually learn to ride the wave of spending. I am also hoping this will reeducate my brain into saving for emergencies and unexpected expenses and not living hand to mouth.

One bad decision cost me 30$.  The county had not gotten to remove the dead tree trunks/branches after hurricane Irma and a couple of guys were doing cleanup asking for 30$. Since the heap had been quite impressive (a beautiful Mango tree and huge oak branches) we decided to hire the guys and get the curb cleaned up. You probably guess what happened right? the next day county showed up with 'the claw' cleaned up the whole street. GRRRR... That hurt. Beforehand I would have said oh well, that was bad luck/timing but now that I am tallying everything it really bummed me.
Lesson Learned: Patience Jedi

I busted the budget by 50% !! This is not a good indication, however although it was quite tempting to readjust the budget - slapping hand for even thinking about this - I chose to stick with it to see how I will survive the second 2 week period in which I will have 50% less funds than I did initially.
When I was doing the finances for the family loonnggg time ago since I liked numbers it was like a game balancing, reconciling and comparing. My husband has taken finances the last 18 years to help out and this caused me to be disengaged from reality. I know it is shameful but it is the truth.
Lesson learned: it is not enough to budget to what you usually spend in any period, but you have to take into account other payments that are scheduled. 

Survived the 1st week!

However because I had not explicitly defined which expenses were supposed to be in the budget I underestimated.
 I modified my budget which was initially supposed to be monthly, to a 2 week budget. And at the end of the first week I had spent 60% of the whole not too bad considering that this is the adjustment period, and I did splurge on a beautiful handmade mug by Chandra DeBuse whose handbuilding/decorating course I took past weekend, and I ate out twice.

There was one purchase that I regretted and the reason was FOMO (fear or missing out). There was a team order for a pullover for those who are going to Hooch and I tagged along not really thinking. (my old brain at work) There was a problem with the order and I had a chance to back out of the purchase that was a close call. I have to be careful of these tendencies, I got lucky this time.

While grocery shopping I find myself to be more price conscious. At home I am trying to make use of the groceries I have instead of trying to follow a new recipe to the dot and shopping for each ingredient that I might not actually even use again.

It indeed is fun to place the chips from Budget to Spent and counting the chips for someone anal like me. Actually not shopping is giving me a satisfaction. Hoping that the second week I can hold on and maybe just maybe make it within budget although I only have 40% left instead of the 50%.

At this point I am not keeping track of actual spendings and categories this is something I might look into to see where I am falling short or overindulging.

How it all Started

• Do you know how much you spent this month 
•  Hmmphh.. guessing too much? (shit here it starts again)
• Your credit card is xxxxxx
• It can’t be
•  Go online and check we might as well have gotten Amazon stock at least get some of the revenue you are generating come back to us.
•  (defiant at this point) Well it is too easy to spend with credit cards I wish we only used cash.
•  Then spend cash, but we actually get rewards by using the credit cards
• But.. if I only spend cash  then.. how exactly can I shop online?
• You don’t
• (went down a very bad path here trying to spare the bit of an ego remaining ) I need a budget when I don’t have a budget I lose control especially with the plastic (swoosh swoosh such a satisfying action, and then you actually get to click the green check button.. then you get Approval ! wow dopamine rush in a few clicks I feel good even writing about it)
• There is no  budget just don’t spent that much
• (Walking away mumbling)  I really don’t know how I spent that much money – head hanging in shame

This conversation has been the soundtrack of our household making us both puff up like alley cats attacking each other. Although I am the guilty party I really am having a hard time remedying this. After all I am against the mercy of the most brilliant psychologists, and marketing strategists of our times being paid by the mega companies and a government whose sole existence is based on consumption.

Due to our surprise visit to France  - thanks Norwegian airlines Paris was not on my bucket list but 390 usd non stop roundtrip on a Dreamliner seemed pretty dreamy and stupid to resist – I got the opportunity to hold myself to a crash course on the country, its history politics, art, music and history scene.
 It occurred to me that things were really classy, art and music were valued by the rulers and after second world war when US emerged as the super power the whole worlds priorities stopped screeching  in their tracks  and the cranks started spitting out the new tune ‘ more, bigger  is better consume more and be happy’. History buffs if I butchered something apologies.

I recall that 20 years ago when we first moved to the US I was pretty frugal. After all there were hardly credit card usage in Turkey, you had to spend what you earned, there was no mortgage you bought the house you could pay for, same went for the car. 

In the first couple of years when I was not caught up in the big cranks of  GMMM- the  give me more more economy (that’s what I will be referring to consumer economy from now on as it does sound like a spoiled greedy kid after all try saying it really fast and it does turn into GMMM) I used to set rewards for myself.  If I lose 10 pounds buy the 40 dollar foot bath from bed bath and beyond. I know this as I am an anal collector.. I create spreadsheets, tables and love working through them, so I have the goal sheets food logs from those days.

Come to today thanks to the most successful brain washing of the GMMM ( it could also stand for God my mind is mundane) I do not even think about getting a quick dopamine fix by swiping swoosh, or just buying from Amazon, oh it got better just to spare me from the couple of finger actions there is Buy it Now! Just in case I change my mind before heading to the shopping cart and realizing what I was about to spend.

It is said that people build tolerances to drugs therefore some are highly restricted, funny that the same human behavior is encouraged for shopping and the whole countries economy and even existence is based on it.

You might say I am spoiled and I have all my basic needs met and should not be complaining. My husband actually calls this kinds of worries 1st World problems.

I think that problems are relative, that is someone who is barely making a living will laugh at this or possibly even get pretty furious at me. I get that. However I also know that this is a real problem for me and fixing this might actually enable me to make better decisions that would lead to helping others directly or indirectly.

Plus you can apply this experimend to any kind of resource. This is about Money, you can apply it to time by choosing how you 'spend' your time wisely. You can applyit to relations ' choose how and who you invest in'. And so on.

The basic idea is to make the resource tangible - a currency and then act within your means - your budget.

Coming back to the current problem. This is a problem not only because I am spending way too much money but also because I am not even getting joy out of the products I buy. There is no anticipation, there is minimal decision making, there is no weighing of alternatives it is just normal to just buy buy and swipe swipe. My husband gets worried if the box with the upward looking arrow – is it only me who thinks that it is a pretty weird shape or maybe I am too dirty minded – does not show up for a couple of days.

There should be a way to solve this problem after all I was a pretty good support analyst and am good in resolving problems turning adverse situations into opportunities.

Here is what I have to work with:

• I like buying things books, supplements, gadgets, houseware.
• When I use credit card I spend a lot more than what I would have spent paying actual cash.   
• Using credit card is pretty much unavoidable as only cash  rules out online shopping.

My goal is

to spend less and get more joy out of what I buy. That is a win for me and a loss for those who keep on blasting my inboxes telling me what to do what to buy, the latest ‘in’ concoction of the week.

Solution that will be put to test for 3 months:

-        
          Gamify spending.

What if I make spending into a game and the winner of the game is one that spends less.

After all the ultimate goal of buying (other than basic goods) is to feel good about ones self of taking ownership of something desired.

-       
  Throw in some tools: after all games are more fun if there are tangible tools to play with.

The reward of this game is built within, if I succeed or rather ‘survive’ it will be one of my biggest accomplishments.

The game is called HACK THE SPEND (HTS)

This is a very simple game, tools that are needed are:

-Poker chips

-Piece of paper

-2 medium sized boxes – big enough to hold the poker chips One labeled budget the other spent

I will be using Marie Kondo’s principle of ‘does this bring me joy’ when spending but will also add the question’ do I really need it’ this is done before the purchase.

After the purchase I will evaluate my purchases afterwards, a day later a week later. If there is any hint of buyers remorse I will analyze and determine what caused me to make that purchase and find a way to prevent falling into the same pitfall the next time.

 I am suspecting FOMO (fear of missing out) is going to be one of the major triggers of unnecessary dispensing of funds.

RULES:

• Determine a budget to stay within a certain period of time – after an initial trial I found out that having a shorter term like 2 weeks is better when starting out as it is quite a shock how hard it is to change the spending pattern.
• Set denominations for different colored poker chips
• Put the Budgeted amount Poker chips in one box
• As you spend, move chips that correspond to spent amount from Budget to Spent box
• Goal: Stay within the budget, or maybe even have some extra chips at the end of the period which you can either add to the following periods funds or buy whatever you want!
• If you bust the budget you start moving the chips back from Spent to Budget(which is empty) as you spend (backwards). At the end of the period you swap the chips thus starting the next period with less amount  - you practically took an advance.

Initially go generous with your budget as you might be surprised how much you are spending and it will take some time for you to train those ‘buy’ brain muscles to chillax. 

Go easy on yourself, even if you bust the budget don't snowball. Start again it will stick.