Post-Holiday Savings

Christmas, and the frantic rush to buy-buy-buy, is behind us. I hope your day was as pleasant as mine, surrounded by family, good food, and thoughtful gifts. We gave away the lion’s share of our leftovers, including the sweets, and I started the after-Christmas year with a virtuous breakfast of veggies and a deviled egg. I tested my new blender with a green smoothie, which I shared with my son, and even though I eventually caved and dug into the leftover cookie tin, I did throw away all the gifted desserts that nobody in my house cares for. I hesitated over the waste right before I dumped the store-bought cake (pawned off on us after nobody ate it at someone else’s party) into the trash, but it was brief hesitation. The only person who would eat that junky store bakery cake with its shortening-based icing is me, and not only do I not need it, but I would be regretting each bite even as I shoved another one into my mouth. I have that sort of relationship with sugar - a relationship I’d like to work on in 2014, but that’s a different blog post. This one is still about savings.

I woke up this morning to an inbox full of end-of-year sales on everything from Hanna Andersson kids’ clothes to Harlequin holiday books. I won’t lie, I clicked on that up-to-60%-off link to Hanna Andersson and I browsed. I even added a few things to my shopping cart before I came to my senses and reminded myself of these things:

It’s not a savings if it’s something I (or my son) doesn’t need.

It’s not a savings if it’s the wrong size next year (in the case of buying for next season).

It’s not a savings if I buy now and put it away for safekeeping, only to forget I bought it.

Buying just because something is on sale is not saving, period. It’s spending.

And I’m trying to lead a more frugal life in 2014 so I don’t have to stress as much about the income I’m bringing in. The less I spend, the less I need to earn, the more I can work (in my case, write) for the joy of it instead of the gut-knotting necessity of it.

During this week after Christmas, I’ll be taking stock of my habits and forming goals for the new year, but I think saving will be a foundation block right beside writing and loving, which I will write more about over time. Today I have saving on my mind, so here we are.

Now I’m off to make a batch of homemade hummus for my son’s lunches and snacks because I have the ingredients in my cabinet, which means there’s no point in buying a container from the grocery store. Saving instead of spending. It’s like magic.