My Shopping Adventures

I know I haven’t done much of anything with this blog. But my shopping adventures has been really a roll coaster of emotions. In the last three years I developed a shopping habit to the point of recurring debt.

I never thought I would fall into the credit card trap but now I am in a hole. A hole that depleted my savings & left me at square one again. Especially during a time where the economy has triple everything. And my dream of owning my first property seems even further away.

It’s actually started during my last job. Five years ago I was in a good place with my job, my relationship (well at least I hoped) & my finances were stellar. Not anywhere over middle class but not broke either. But I had a budget, I was occupied being happy & when I did shop it wasn’t out of control. If I didn’t need it, I knew how to walk away. For travel & special occasions I saved then spent. Also I was in an balanced economic & situation where I could save & spend.

Then in 2020 I got fired because my job was laying off people & putting all the work on the rest of us & I couldn’t come into work without the look of pure unhappiness. So three strikes of mistakes & they wanted me to quit & give them two weeks but I told them to fire me instead.

Next month my ex girlfriend broke up with me, officially anyways. And it devastated me. I was so in love with her. I was disrespectful to her at the wrong time but she didn’t really love me to begin with either. So during that wrong time I lashed out. I should have left her after our first lease was over. After the first break up. #Lesbiandrama

When all that happened back to back, Covid was still present & annoying; I decided to fuck off a lot of things. I had a nice saving & decided to live in my car. I didn’t want another boss. I was fed up with corporate America. So fed up with having face to face with management & corporations that could care less about you. Our lease was also ending & I didn’t want to pay rent for nobody else. I didn’t want another relationship. I was tired of falling for someone that didn’t never love me in return. It was a waste of my time & I don’t want to feel heartbroken ever again.

So I made the leap to be single & houselessness in my car. I didn’t want to go back to my mother’s in my home state. I still had to pay my car note & insurance & didn’t want to leave Atlanta. Even though I wanted to travel. I thought I just travel in my car. But I ended up taking money from my 401k & saw all that money all at once in my checking account & I went crazy shopping. Emotional shopping.

I took a lot out to pay off my car note. But I decided to stay up North at the time & I needed to get a check to pay my car note in the amount of more than $5000. But I ended up buying food, shopping at Windsor & bought mostly ever summer dress they had on the rack. I just went on a spending spree like I had just won the lottery.

I tried to rationalize with myself that I can make the money back once I got a job I liked. I told myself the dream of getting a rental property was over. I was with my old company for five years & it disgusted me that I had to start all over again. To get any kind of home loan you have to be on the job at least two years. I said welp. I am not ready for a job right now. So I spent my savings.

Then I reopened my credit card. I started for one reason, I needed my car’s tire changed. I got a blowout. At this time I didn’t have the money & I lived in my car so I justified it as I needed the work done to live in my car. Then I used it for a rental car because I didn’t want to put miles on my car to Florida because at this point I have been constantly driving for Amazon.

I didn’t remember how fast money goes. I developed a habit/high of walking into a Marshalls or TJMaxx everyday because either I was bored in my car or didn’t want any people to see me in my car or I didn’t know where to go. I created a daily shopping habit for months. And it adds up, $20 here, $80 there, sometimes over $200. It was bad.

Since then I finally gotten a position of employment I enjoy. But it came too late. I depleted my savings. Still hadn’t paid off my car & I have two huge credit card debt. And now I am paying rent which I avoided for two years & went shopping instead. In fact I used that excuse. I said to myself “Well this money would have went to rent anyways”.

Living in my car didn’t have me save for anything. It’s one of those harsh life lessons that I wish I could go back & change. I definitely have to start from rock bottom again. Now with debt.

One would think to be smarter or doing better. But addiction mean addiction. I don’t need a therapist, I just have to believe & change my behavior. I have to want to save & build up my finances!

To start this off, I believe, I should began with my attitude of shopping at this time. I am no fashionista. I don’t have any amazing talents to show. This blog may at times praise my own fashion sense, my own joy of shopping, my lack of joy, my highs and lows of shopping, new avenues and smart choices and above all my emotional wasteful, happy bouts of shopping. (That’s a long run- on sentence but I am not an english major nor a fashion major) So, this is just another girl with a material/fashion blog much like a youtube haul channel. (Which I am thinking about turning my current channel into.) Hell, everybody doing it. Just another way to pass the time and have fun.

Background Info. (It is a blog..) As a child I loved my dolls. As a teen I was totally into black everything & grunge of the 90′s. My hair was always in a bun and my black choker was my calling card. I wore that everywhere. In my early 20′s I did scene and an anime look before the tweens today thought it cool. As a black girl wearing pink, purple hair in Chicago at that time I got looks everywhere. I remember walking into a White Castle in the south suburbs with my purple wig and this guy asked “Are you really walking around with purple hair?” I love & miss my uncaring attitude back then, & replied “Fuck, yeah!” 

It wasn’t until after 25 when Forever 21 came out and I had a social circle of mini-skirt, stiletto heeled, make-up sculptured faces girlfriends. We loved to dance, party, take rich men money & make money. Shopping became an addiction, my emotional crutch, something to do, burning extra money for the little things. It just became a huge part of my life. I was/am one of those losers that spent the best part of all the money I earned into material things. I didn’t want debt I just wanted to have a good time, travel, while hot & younger & looking fab doing it. I became a girly woymn. 

Now, I am in that fab. lane of my late 30′s and the party for me isn’t over but its time to think smarter and  unfortunately I have to acquire some debt in this “American way” country to move forward. But while I deal with that I still love shopping. Its easier to buy a shirt for ten dollars, instant gratification than to buy a 10,000 car. Debt always scared me. Recently with the new shopping goals that has a list of big ticket items I want now requires debt. Or til I win the lottery. Someone once told me “As a middle class American you have to owe something to get ahead. Don’t be afraid.” 

I am starting pretty late but I had to gain a sense of work ethic. And since I already have a strong fear of debt, passion for shopping I guess I gotta work for the big ticket items. In the meantime, saving will apart of new plan and buying down my newly acquired debts. I have none as of now. 

Ok, then. In meantime and as a way of entertaining fun. I will make this blog to pass the time. I can’t honestly say I will stop shopping for clothes, make-up or shoes. Even hair extensions. In a way it does make me smile. Most of the time. It can be my therapy and I will like to share my adventures here.