Waste Not

One of my strongest, most significant identifying quirks (of which there are many) is my extreme frugality. I've always been thrifty and sentimental, the result being that I spend carefully and infrequently, and when I do, I try to hold on to those possessions for as long as humanly possible. 

I second guess nearly every purchase (from toothpaste to tomato sauce to clothing to vacuum cleaners) and feel guilty whenever I spend what seems like a lot of money on something, especially when I don't really need whatever it is. I try to buy everything on sale and use coupons whenever possible. 

That's how I was raised, for one thing. My family was never poor, but I'm not sure if I knew that as a child because we shopped at thrift stores, my mom spent hours clipping coupons, my parents seemed to count every penny they had, we made few if any big purchases, aside from  a new car every few years and a satellite dish, and Thou Shalt Not Waste Food was one of my family's staunchest commandments. (If we didn't eat it, it went in the fridge as the following day's leftovers. Try as I might, I'm still, 20 plus years later, unable to waste food unless it's spoiled or moldy. I'll eat something I don't enjoy, gritting my teeth as I chew and swallow each awful bite, before I'll throw it away uneaten.)

Those thrifty practices have not only stuck with me but been reinforced by years of college-student poverty and post-college underemployment as an adult. Thankfully, I'm now on firmer financial footing, but I'll save a buck wherever and whenever I can. Ninety percent of my wardrobe is thrifted, and I drive a 10-year-old car and watch 15-year-old TVs. (Obviously I live by the rule of not fixing something that isn't broken.) I own nothing of any real significant value, but I'm ridiculously sentimental about what I do have. 

Last weekend, for example, I stopped at Goodwill (my idea of shopping heaven) and purchased two gently-used handbags ($5 each!) to replace a two-and-a-half-year-old purse with a torn zipper and frayed handles and a stained, worn-out two-and-a-half-year-old beach-type bag that I used as a lunch/assorted crap tote. Both selections were a huge stylistic upgrade over their predecessors. 

But when the time came to chuck the old bags? I was nearly in tears at the prospect. I tried bargaining with myself by reasoning that perhaps I could get a little more use out of them. Maybe I should keep them in my closet just in case. But I knew what needed to be done (and I knew I didn't need any more junk cluttering my closets). So I did what needed to be done. It was painful, but I think it built character (isn't that what we always tell ourselves in a futile attempt at solace?)

I'm glad I'm almost pathologically frugal, and I probably wouldn't alter that quality of mine even if I had a choice, although it does occasionally dampen my enjoyment of life's finer things (or negate it altogether). 

(Perhaps I should add making an expensive unnecessary purchase or throwing away uneaten food without guilt to my list of 2014 resolutions?)