The Secret is Out: I like to spend money

It’s maybe not a secret that I love to spend money. I like to think that I hide it well, but if you read through my blog, especially lately, it seems like a never-ending chorus of I bought I bought I bought. It’s true; I like to buy things. I can’t help myself. And what does help me is the small amount of money I have put aside in to my own personal checking account each pay period. This money used to go for things like lunches out, morning coffee and my work wardrobe. I’ve been home a year now, and those expenses have drastically decreased. Yet I keep my stipend. It’s the Saly fun fund! This is the money that allowed me to buy the hair pins, and the new Uggs, the Bath and Body stuff, and my Clinique order. I use this money for my Birchbox as well. And for contests here, pay it forwards, and now, my Crappy Day Package.

More than spending my own money though, I love when the household budget allows for us to buy some things off of our want list. We’ve done pretty well lately, and the holidays are always a good time to spruce the place up a bit. (For the record, we do not use credit cards. At all. We only buy things when we have money to buy them. The end.) We went shopping on Friday night to eyeball some sectionals. We have a sofa and a love seat now, and they are in poor condition. We’ve wanted a sectional for years, but have never taken the plunge. I was planning on something simple; maybe spending about $1500-$1800 for it, and calling it a day. Then we saw this. It is beautiful and so comfortable. And we are in love. It is large; it would fill our living room for sure. But all 5 of us love this sofa like no other.

We left the store on Friday, because weHub isn’t one to make rash spending decisions. We are still mulling it over. It is a lot to spend when we have cats, small children and a psycho dog. But the recliners. And the microsuede. And the beverage holders. We’re still mulling though. There is only one spot it could go, and it would be a tight squeeze. We have a small house, but a large-ish living room. So we’ll see. Hub has a big check coming from a big job he does twice a year. Maybe then.

We spent all day Saturday cleaning and getting ready to rearrange the living room in to the normal winter set-up. Hub rearranged our bedroom, and decided that we just could not live with our bedding another minute. And never mind that we reside in the former nursery/kid’s room that still has Winnie the Pooh prints on the wall, but we need some decent freaking curtains. So off we went to Wal Mart and Target to pick up some things. Curtain rods, curtains, pillows, a new comforter and so on. And as we had a cart full of crap, and 4 children who were getting hungry in tow, we moseyed over to the electronics section and were mesmerized by the TVs. Hub and I like TV a lot. In our down time, after the kids go to bed, we curl up on the couch and watch whatever we have on the TiVo. We’ve been doing this with a 32 inch flat screen for about 5 years now, and Hub has said over and over lately that we need a bigger TV. We looked at a bunch, and ended up deciding on a 50 inch plasma that was on sale for less than smaller TVs were running. There was an issue with my debit card (apparently, I only have a $500 spending limit—we have to call the bank) and Hub didn’t bring his, so we had to take everyone home, and Hub went back. He called me from the car to say that he’d gotten a better deal on a 52 inch 3D TV. Plus 3D glasses. You guys, this is the biggest TV ever. This photo doesn’t do it justice, but just look (don’t mind the crap on the floor; we were still rearranging and tearing things apart):

It’s a really nice TV, but we both feel kind of ridiculous now that it’s here. I mean, who needs such a large television? As a bonus, we can now use the HD service we get for free with our cable package, so there’s that. But man that TV is big. A perfect excuse to buy the giant furniture, in my opinion.