It all started when I bought this grey bag with faux fur at the shoe store which I used to work ... That was in October of last year ... I had just started working for about two months, and at the time felt a little down in the dumps, so when the new stock of bags and shoes came in, I saw this bag ...
... and fell in love with it ... Well, maybe that's a rather strong emotion, just for a bag, but it felt like it ... So, I bought it with my second paycheck ... Luckily got it on staff purchase, so it wasn't too expensive ... So, used it as my everday bag ... Took it work, took it when I went out to town, and so on ... But after about three months I think, I started to feel like I wanted another bag ... So, you know what happened ... In the space of about six months, I bought four hand bags ... FOUR HANDBAGS IN SIX MONTHS ... Now, I know I'm a compulsive buyer, but this was going too far ...
One of the four bags, I gave to my sis-in-law, after finding it a bit too bulky ... It's actually a nice shade of red, but just like that, I gave it away ... The second bag was more like a satchel, in a nice shade of brown ...
It's from MNG, and like the grey faux fur bag, also cost less than a hundred bucks, which to me is still reasonable ... What wasn't reasonable was this growing addiction for bags ... What can I say, I'm a woman after all ... Anyways, I replaced the grey faux fur with this a large satchel in a dark shade of green, which I bought at an Isetan sale ... It wasn't too bad, but somehow, it just didn't feel like the right bag for me ... Men would scratch their heads at this, asking "What the hell is the right kind of bag?!" ... I can only say, "It's just not the right kind of bag" ... But rather than give or throw it away, I kept it, so that I can have an inventory of all the bags (note: different inventory for other stuff) I own ...
Then I saw another bag, this time at a Vincci sale ... It was in this delicious shade of brown, and the surface material felt like it was leather ... In fact it looked like shiny leather ... It was a tote bag ... But, after using it for about two weeks, I noticed that the material came out at the side where it made contact with my body, sort of an abrasion ... I became unhappy with this ... I mean, I know I got it in a sale, but I, like most creatures who love shopping, do not expect inferior quality even if they were on sale ...
So, naturally, I went out looking for a new bag ... Then I went into Zara, saw this beautiful suede tote bag in a dark, rich, chocolate shade, and this was by far the most expensive bag I bought (close to two hundred), I just felt like I gotta have it ... By the way, it was a sale item ...
The picture doesn't do justice to its texture and colour ... Anyways, was loving every moment that I used the bag, and I love the smell as well ... but that, along with my love for it, faded away as time passes by ... (I also noticed, perhaps a tad too convenient an excuse, that the bag wouldn't allow me to go through tight spaces i.e. people standing closely together ) ... It was at this point, which coincidentally at also the time when I spotted this dark red, faux crocodile-skin bag at M&S (which thankfully I didn't buy), that I realized, like most women out there, I will never stop buying ... Items of fetish, be it shoes, bags, clothes, whatever, are an extension of our identity, I would say... But unlike men, who buy things for their utilitarian purposes, we women buy for the sake of variety and fulfilling the good bargain fantasy ... I even surfed to find why women love shopping so much, and found out that it has to do with years of evolutionary process from the days when men were hunters and women were gatherers ...
But, as much as shopping affects trade economy on a good level, it has the opposite effect on my personal economy ... I found to my dismay, the ever steady dwindling of cash in my account ... Luckily I cancelled my credit card a long time ago, but now am thinking of getting a new credit card, so am not such an astute shopper after all ...
Then just yesterday, went out just to get my trousers altered, but along the way, went into this store which sells items at bargain prices, chanced upon this gorgeous cream-coloured shoulder bag with faux matted wool and chain straps, and straightaway bought it ... Hey, it only cost 29 bucks, and that my friend, is a very good bargain indeed ...
Posted 01 April 2013
I know I'm harsh, but haven't you ever felt like saying
"Screw you, Michael Kors" every time you see a favourite Project
Runway contestant gets grilled over their fashion sensibilities by the very
direct judge? ... Anyway, this isn't so much about the show as it is
about my shopping addiction ... Well, in the first place, I'm not so sure that
it's an addiction .... Unlike my lack of self-control over junk food, I'm not
gripped by a sense of helplessness and an overriding sense of pain plus
pleasure every time I go out window shopping ... Yes, I do admit that whenever I look at an item that holds
instant attraction for me, the instinct to just take it to the register is
overwhelming, to say the least ...
What does Michael Kors have to do with it?
Well, I splurged on a handbag of his at the Michael Kors boutique in Pavilion
KL in January 2013 after I got my bonus .... Despite the fact that the bag
was at a 60% discount, it was by far the most expensive handbag I have ever purchased
... But it is a good buy ...
So. how did it all come to this? ... When I received my letter of
confirmation some time early in 2012, I was, in a word, ecstatic ... It was
the happiest feeling I got in a long time ... Like all my troubles were all
behind me, and nothing but promising thoughts for the future ... I was so happy
that after work, I headed straight to Debenham's, which wasn't that far from my
workplace ... There I saw this bag by Jasper Conran ...
It
wasn't the most pretty bag I've seen, but it was on sale, half price if I'm not
mistaken, so just like that, I bought it ... I should have realized there and
then that I was on a path of self-destruction ...
In the months that followed from that fateful day in early 2012, I
didn't buy that many things, but one day in March 2012, I applied for a credit
card ... Like I said, self-destruction ... I reasoned with myself that having a
credit card would make buying certain stuff easy, such as online purchases ...
Don't forget that my trip to Australia in October 2012 was possible because I
purchased reasonably priced tickets online ...
I made a significant purchase somewhere in June, I think ... It
was a purse/wallet from MNG/Mango ... The significance did not lie with the
value of the purse, but with the sentimental value of the wallet that would be
replaced with the new one ...
I bought the Comme Ca wallet sometime in late 2003 I think, of
happier times before I fell into the most hellish abyss ... The
wallet held sentimental value so much so that I clung to it like how you would
cling to a memory that you just couldn't let go ... until you realise that you
have to let it go ... I had a hard time convincing myself that I should get a
new wallet ... It wasn't so much the wallet I was hanging onto, it was the
memory of the time when I was "normal" ...
After I purchased the MNG wallet, I started to buy a lot more
stuff, culminating in my three-month spending spree that started in December
... Prior to that, I bought this Julien MacDonald bag at Debenham's ...
Now I'm not too sure why I needed to buy the Julien MacDonald bag
... It's bulky, for one ... I get pushed around in tight spaces when I'm using
the bag ... (Why am I in tight spaces in the first place? Well, there's the
full LRT train, for one, sheesh) ... I think it was just simply because I
wanted to have an item designed by the British designer ... So, now I have a
Jasper Conran bag and a Julien MacDonald bag, that sort of thing ... Like the
famous Sex & the City quote: Labels and Love ...
All this was compounded by the fact that September 2012 marked the
arrival of H&M in KL ... OMG, I go to that store almost every month now
... But at least I don't end up purchasing anything on every visit ... This of
course is an outright lie ... My favourite item from H&M is this
floral-printed jacket which I wear every Casual Friday ...
I don't care that this jacket does not go with a lot of outfits
... I just love it ... When I first saw it on the rack, I immediately grab one
in my size ... A similar jacket was sold at Zara, but I didn't buy that one
'coz the price was quite steep ... The H&M jacket was within my budget,
so I never gave it a thought ...
Anyway, the nightmare started with the purchase of a pair of
Adidas trainers ...
There
was a sale going on at the time ... I had been comparing prices at other retail
outlets, but unfortunately I didn't go to that many retail outlets, so for that
pair of trainers, I paid slightly more than what I had paid for my old pair,
which was a pair of Nike I bought in 2008 ... Too bad that pair did not
last as long as my New Balance trainers (Refer to my post entitled Spring Cleaning on Christmas) ...
... Anyway, I bought the Adidas pair in during the December 2012
sale, but the spending spree began about a month before, I think .... I don't
know, I just started buying like crazy ... It reminded me of the time
when I stopped eating junk food for a year and then crashed, really bad ...
All I know is that I started spending heavily since late November
2012, I think ... In one month, the amount I spent was equivalent to three
months' worth of shopping ... Surprisingly, I have managed to meet my bills so
far with some balance in the account, thank God ... So, that means that I'm not
so much a compulsive buyer as I am an impulsive buyer, I guess ... Still, it is
kind of worrying to an extent ... Maybe I'm filling a void ... Despite the
recent re-discovering of my faith, deep down, there is still this
emptiness at the bottom of my heart ... As much as I want to draw myself close
to God, I wish that I was in someone's arms right now ...
Of course, there were other stuff I bought in the last three
months that included tons and tons of stuff at Daiso, the Japanese
almost-every-item-goes-for-MYR 5 store ... I just couldn't explain why I was so
hooked at buying stuff from this place ... But then, I remembered liking a lot
of cute stuff back while I was in Japan ...
I've started to buy a lot of t-shirts as well ... It's like
I have t-shirt fever ... I could put up a collage of all the t-shirts I've
bought in the past year, but do you really want to see them? ... The latest
t-shirts I've bought is this t-shirt of Snoopy jumping up and down in a happy
mood and a t-shirt of a theme picture from Up, the Walt Disney movie ... These
t-shirts are of course from Uniqlo, and they were reasonably priced ...
Shopping, like my addiction
to junk food, is something I cannot cure, no matter how much I try ... Right
now, I'm planning to get a new wallet, coz the MNG purse I got, well, the gold
material is starting to come out, and not even a year after I bought it, sheesh
....
Of course, I know I have to limit myself ... I even put up a copy
of my credit card balance statement with all these sarcastically
confidence-shattering remarks that are suppose to remind me not to splurge ...
Remarks like "What, you spent 200 bucks on a glammed-up toilet plunger?!
What the hell, man ..." ... Okay, so they may not actually work, but
seeing my statement highlighted in such a way to shame me of my guilty pleasure
on the corkboard in my room does have its effect to a certain extent ... I know
I'm way beyond saving when it comes to my junkfood addiction, but I know I have
power over this, God-willing ....
Posted 31 October 2013
It should be made known that I have managed to cut down on my
credit card spending without discontinuing the service and cutting up the
blasted card ... I simply leave it at home ... In fact, it is the reverse of a
certain credit card giant's motto ... So take that! ...
Not using my credit card sort of had a spillover effect on my cash
status initially ... Actually, it still does up to this day as my bank balance
has dwindled from a relatively safe margin to something close to zero ... Okay,
so I exaggerate, there's still a couple hundred bucks left in there by the end
of the month, but I still feel I'm living dangerously close to penury ...
Well, as long as my outstanding credit card balance is manageable,
which thank-Allah has fallen to about a third than what I used to pay per month
... I'm hoping to bring it down further to nil by end of this year, which
coincides with my year-end bonus, heheheh *devilish wink* ... I have a couple
of ideas on what to buy with my bonus, which Allah-willing I will get in early
January 2014 ... A new phone perhaps ...
Oh, btw, the other day at the shopping mall near my place, there
was an Adidas and Puma sale in the gallery, with markdowns of 50% to 70% ...
When I had a close look, the price of the trainers after markdown were very
reasonable ... You know the Adidas pair I bought? Well, it was cheaper by
almost 50% than what I had paid for ... No, I did not go moaning on and on
about it for days .... No point, is there? ...
I don't think I'll ever stop buying stuff on a whim ... That's my
two cents ...
Update
And my two cents has held up ... Up to today, I still buy stuff on a whim, but my addiction to shopping has somewhat abated ... That is because I have been out of work for more than a year and I have no regular income ...
I don't remember when, but I have cancelled the credit card ... It is pointless and only adds to unnecessary shopping ... Now I used my debit cards to shop ... Don't ask me how many debit cards I own, but one of them was issued when I had to work at this restaurant and they used a different bank than the one I have ... I find that shopping with debit cards not only convenient, but kind of a saving feature because I spend exactly the amount I shop ... If I use cash, there seems to be some money lost in transaction ... I think it's because with cash, you can't keep an exact account of how much you have spent ... Now people use their phones to shop, namely their digital wallets ... Though I have yet to make this transition, I am not adverse to the idea ...
So, what is there to update? Firstly, I have bought a few wallets after the Mango one ... The gold material did come off and I was quite upset about it ... So, I bought this imitation Burberry wallet ...
There is absolutely nothing wrong with it, except that it is bulky and I have a lot of cards ... As evident in the pix, it is still in good condition, which is why I haven't gotten rid of it ... I had a really nice-looking Red Herring wallet, which I think I got before the gold MNG one, but the material it was made of came off ... I still keep it, though, but only for the reason of sappy sentimentality ...
But the worst wallet purchase happened sometime in 2018 ... I wasn't working, hence no salary ... I didn't have much money save for the savings that I have set aside for a possible Hajj pilgrimage ... But, I went out and bought a Kate Spade wallet ... It was at a 30% discount, but the price was still too steep ... I don't know what made me purchase the wallet, but something about what happened to Kate Spade stirred something inside me ... Maybe I bought it for posterity, or maybe deep down I'm just as opportunistic as the rest of them ...
I have altered the H&M bomber jacket into a coat ... It looks rather weird, but I like it ... As for the trainers, well, the Adidas pair had become worn out since one of its soles nearly came off ... Hmmm, let's see ... I bought that pair in December 2012 ... I think it lasted as long as the Nike pair ... I've bought a cheap pair of trainers and have no intention of getting another branded pair (unless I land myself a good paying job) ...
Okay, when it comes to bags, well, I still buy them ... Now I have a compulsion to buy shopping bags - those that are used to carry your shopping ... I think I have one too many that I am not doing any favours to the environment ...
All the bags in the post above are no longer around ... I even gave away that beautiful Zara leather tote bag ... But what is different now than eight years ago is that I am critical of the kind of bag I would purchase ... Not big, not small ... Must have the exact kind of design I like ... No one-tone, two-tones, or monochromes ... It has to look a specific way (which is arbitrary, of course) ... Must be bargain-worthy ... Must not have a long shoulder strap and/or sling, or if it is long, can be adjusted (which not all bags have this feature) ... and so on ... Now I am hunting for the perfect handbag ...
For now, I will look at an item in a store, and then I will walk around the store mulling over the item, and then I will walk out of the store and sure enough, I will put that item behind me ... It is a strategy that I am trying to put to full use ... So far it has worked, thank God ... Like, the other day ... I went into H&M and they were having their DEALS thing, and I saw this pair of trousers, or pants if you like, and it was going for 40 bucks ... That is very reasonable, but the trousers was a printed one ... I'm not so keen on printed trousers, even if the print is beautiful (unless it's houndstooth, which I will buy and have bought) ...
You see, I make up excuses for not buying an item ... It used to be that I would tell myself how cheap it was, so that was a good enough reason to purchase the item ... Hence, despite the fact that I am still a compulsive buyer, I have become a wise compulsive buyer ... The fact that I am without a job is also the reason ... I have had a hard time dealing with my unemployment, but I guess it has helped toughening me up a bit ...
Another strategy is keeping all the receipts and then calculating how much I have spent for a period of time ... Actually, this is a habit I instilled when I was young, except it hasn't really worked in all the years I have been spending ... But, at least I have an idea of how much I have spent for a given amount of time, and try to spend less then that for the next few months ... I have even divided the receipts into categories: Food & Drink, and Shopping ... Items that are part of my daily needs i.e. groceries, toiletries, etc, are excluded ...
All in all, I think I can never stop myself from dawdling in a shopping mall, and as proven by my posts here that shopping is indeed my Achilles heel ... Has anyone ever managed to stop dawdling at shopping malls 'coz I want to learn their secret ... But, at least I have learned to check myself when it comes to my shopping habits ... It's all part of growing up, or rather, growing old ...
Note: This post is a combination of two previous posts, and the reason why the pictures look iffy is because I don't have their original source and I had to resort to Word and Paint to transfer said pix from those posts to this ...
No comments:
Post a Comment