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10 pounds down 32 pounds to go!

Tuesday, May 15, 2007

"Don't you watch television? I thought all children despise effort and enjoy cartoons.

169 with hardly any effort. i'm so pleased. pleased in the way that makes me want to not eat bad stuff so that number will hang around. that and it's a rainy day which really helps me fight the ice cream craving that's been rearing its' ugly head. in bizarre news a woman, who yesterday told me i looked like i lost a lot of weight since last year, said today that my pants were too big and made me look fat. thanks lady. i know that already and i don't need to hear it on the streets. i should be wearing skirts, like i said i would, but it's effing cold here. what can you do, some days are about the process and not the result and this is part of the process.

you think she would have said my clothes looked bad if i was too fat for them? it's probably more socially acceptable to say someone looks fat when you think they're thin. which sounds fucked up but it seems to be the norm. skinny things saying how fat they are and no one blinks an eye. i hate that. self-deprecation is the new black.

enough about crazy people (who seems to be the only ones commenting on my new...state. is that me self deprecating, i only hear compliments from the mentally ill?) and floppy clothes, i'm all about food today. it struck me this weekend while i was roaming the organic meats and eggs that i'm pretty confused about my organic shopping. i buy organic eggs because the featherless slave chickens make me sad, i buy unscrewed with chickens for the same reason and also because matt doesn't need the antibiotics they feed the aforementioned featherless slave chickens. i buy the shitty bacon because that's what matt likes but mostly he agrees with me about buying natural products. i choose unbleached flour, raw sugar...but i buy regular milk and produce. what's up with that? it doesn't actually make any sense. not now that i can afford to buy groceries i feel better about. so i'm going to be working on going more organic. maybe even soy with my milk. which i haven't tried since my sister was in high school and maybe i would like it now. ten years later.

i have been spending a little more than i budget for. it's hard to help the feeling that you're rich when you aren't suffocating in debt. i planned for this. i knew i would be a little free with the purse strings when things started to look up, but i'm trying to be realistic about it. i still can't afford to be careless and i've learned enough about spending and goal setting that i want to see things happen with my money that aren't limited to the expansion of my dvd shelf. i upped my budget by a small amount so i won't plan myself into a corner and come up short where i shouldn't be and still have a little fun.

however, it might be time to reassess my financial priorities. do i want to go organic badly enough to spend the money and give up something somewhere else? do i want to be eating into savings to have happy cow milk? or am i saving enough by not eating meat that it won't be a big deal to add organics. i've been all track and add and compare with my grocery bills the last few weeks to figure some things out. i do my best budgeting when i'm ocd about it. but i have to be ocd with an open mind. part of the freedom of getting out of debt is doing some of the things i've been putting off. good food is one thing, buying the books i want is another, and building hobbies is up there too. art supplies and classes, even fitness classes, cost money. i don't want to deny myself these things forever, i know they'll add to my happiness and quality of life and be worth every penny i spend. it's just there's this part of me that doesn't think i'm done paying for some of the mistakes i've made. a part of me that wants to be scrimping and saving incase something goes wrong or i make another bad choice. i have a lot of thinking to do. and some forgiving. and getting-over-ing. everyone makes bad choices, it's what you learn from them that matters. i'll be keeping that in mind while i crunch numbers. less punishment, more joy.

4 comments:

MayQueen said...

I just got my savings back up to where they were before I was unemployed for six months. I've been a bit too lax with the clothes spending and the impulse buys. Ferinstance: yesterday I went to Stop&Shop for spinach. I came out with spinach, 4 mangoes, a package of whole grain naan, and a Rolling Stone. I need to chickety-check myself.

Amy said...

yeah, clothes. it never occurred to me how expensive replacing my entire wardrobe would be.

Jennette Fulda said...

it never occurred to me how expensive replacing my entire wardrobe would be.

Word. I'm looking forward to a day when my weight finally stabalizes and I can invest in some nice wardrobe pieces. I never want to spend too much money on anything because I don't know how long it will fit.

As for food, I personally don't mind spending more money on good food and fitness classes because I know they are cheaper than the medical bills I would be paying without them. But I also budget for them and cut back in other areas. I go to the library a lot instead of buying books and DVDs.

Amy said...

i'm lucky not to have medical issues from my weight, but i'm unlucky in that the library here is very small. i've read everything and i get some of my favorites there, even in the dvd's but it's a really small collection and i donate more than i take out. but my town doesn't even have a library so i have to make do with bar harbor until they figure out i don't live here anymore.