Boy, have we had a lot of snow lately. To a person who lives in the northern part of the United States, I'm sure we seem like wimps. But down here in Jackson, TN, we're just not equipped to handle the snow. If we got this much snow every year, the city might just buy several snow plows, and our streets wouldn't be impassable 4 days after the snowfall. But we don't have snow plows. So we find ourselves stuck at home. For days on end. Don't get me wrong.....I am a home-body. I like to be at home. But I don't like to be stuck at home.
I guess it's the psychological difference of being somewhere because you want to be versus the perception of not being able to leave. When I feel like I'm stuck at home, all I want to do is get out. And where might I go? To someone else's house to visit them? No thanks. I want to go to a public place, and I'm not talking about the library. There's something about being stuck at home that makes me want to go shopping!!!
I guess retail therapy is a real means of soothing oneself. Or is it? I have to admit, when I was younger and much worse at managing money, I used retail therapy for whatever ailed me. Bad day at work? Go shopping. Weekend with no plans? Go shopping. And I almost always had buyers remorse after an outing like that. It was awful. I spent more money than I should have on useless junk that I'm now trying to find a way to get rid of. I know I have several options - I'm contemplating them. Anyway, I guess all those years of going shopping out of boredom became somewhat of a habit. And not a very healthy one, at that.
It's a good thing I realized all of this before I just walked out the door with my billfold in hand. I knew that I was itching to go shopping, but that I don't need to mindlessly buy things I don't need or can't afford. So I decided where I was going to go and pulled up the sales ad online. It was Walgreens, by the way. I could have picked a much more inappropriate place to go, where I would only have the option of buying clothes - my favorite!! But I was trying really hard to meet myself in the middle, if you will. So I found some items that were a fantastic deal, and I searched for coupons, which made them an even more fantastic deal. I had my list in hand so I knew what I was planning on buying. I let myself wander around the store for a little while to kill some time outside the house and feel like I'de been out and about for longer than it would have taken to run in and get 4 things. And it worked!! I came home with a few very low-priced items, some Register Rewards in hand, and a relief that can only come from getting reprieve from that which is haunting a person.
Sometimes the things that challenge us take us a little bit by surprise. I know that, for me, these snow storms have.
Walgreens Ad & Coupons: 10/4-10/10
6 hours ago
