Money for Nothing

We waste - waste - money. We don't mean to and it sickens me but clearly we spend. I get manicures (maybe once a month?) I get pedicures (6x a year?) perhaps more. I pay to belong to a gym, as does my husband. We have FIOS, cell phones, a blockbuster online service (but we don't watch movies) two cars (gas and insurance) plus myriad plug and play devices leading to a larger electrical bill. We have label makers and headsets, and ipods and handsfree bluetooths. GPS for one car, Sirius Satellite for another.

It's awful.
I stress.
A lot.

We just finished a relatively expensive homerepair (siding and porches).

And yet.

We continue to spend.

We supplement his parents income monthly, I just wrote a check for gymnastics. I called a landscaper to fix the final piece of the home repair/renovation (unlevel side of house rendering planned for storage space useless)

I try. I try to contain things.

I don't allow bottled water (environmentally bad + waste of money. Use Brita) I try to recycle EVERYTHING (extremely stress inducing). I don't shop for Ellie (secondhand from cousin, friends or Walmart) nor do I shop for myself (oh but I should b/c my clothes are horrendous). Food I buy basics, fresh and onsale only. Takeout, we limit. Vacations? we never. Yet we spend. And spend and spend and spend.

Before I met my husband I spent 8 years in a 450 sq foot apartment. I had one set of dishes, one set of pans. Only three things plugged in - the microwave, the alarm clock and the tv. I didn't have cable, a computer, and my cell phone was considered newfangled. My Honda was 13 years old, and my tpass was well used. I was frugal - not cheap - and everything I owned could be stored, comfortably, in my apartment.

Here I am at wits end. I am like a dog circling before bed. I am George Carlin forever looking for a place to put my stuff. I am two hours into sorting a bagful - a BAGFUL - of papers. Of receipts, of invoices, of statements. Two hours in and in can't make hide nor hair nor head nor tail of half the shit I'm sorting through and it's causing my grave - and terrible - anxiety.

I am Lily Tomlin in search of a bathtub to sleep in.
I'm sure that reference is far to obscure. Even Google couldn't back me up.
What I mean is I am so friggin anxious that I'm about to break into a million pieces of glass shards if someone taps me on the shoulder and I'd feel a lot better if I could just hide in the bathtub.

The tub full of alphabet letters and special boarshead bristle shave brushes and razors that vibrate and a mirror that lights up and gets am/fm and three types of shave cream and two types of shampoo - none of which are mine because I don't believe in shampoo as the Sodium Laurel Sulfate isn't goofd for my aging coarse hair or the planet.

I blame myself but oh I want to blame Doug.
Because the more he buys and the less he takes care of things, the more I panic and try to establish order and contain things.

And lest you think me OCD and controlling, that's not it. I simply can't imagine why we have so much, need so much when it doesn't make life easier, me happier or either of us richer.

So I'm going back out.
To the office.
To continue sorting,
and filing, and stressing.
to reveiw the tangible reminders of money wasted.
Not well spent.
And to cancel Blockbuster.