Financial (ir)responsibility

Well, the title is actually a bit misleading. I do have savings, and a tiny mutual fund investment. I could do better, but, well, sometimes you just have to have some things.

One of the biggest hurdles I have to overcome when it comes to my spending habits is my ability to rationalize things, e.g. I need that hairstyler so I will never have to go to the salon to get my hair done again. / Ooooh, I need new flats. / Ooooh I need new heels. All my latest shoe purchases are flats. / Mom said books don’t count as expenses. I could go on and on and on. Seriously.

Well, it’s been raining cash over here since October, but the money flows in and then flows back out again. Just to illustrate, I racked up something like 2,000 points on my SkyMiles Mastercard just this Christmas season. And that doesn’t even include my phone and my new, errrrr, capital investment of new jeans and tops for casual Fridays. I was able to set aside 30k, but again, I could do better. But the Kenneth Cole watch was just too cute (and too cheap---it was on sale) to resist! Same thing applies to the Longchamp bag. And the three (yes, three) satchels---camel, light aqua, and a cross between navy and royal blue. And the carpet bag. And the three pairs of flats, three pairs of heels, and three dresses. And the dvd’s. And my Kindle (plus accessories). And my phone. And a lot of other things. Oh brother…

I always say that I don’t know where all the money goes. Aside from the Php24,000 for basic overhead (rent, bills, amortization payments, etc.), that is. Well, I was going over my receipts yesterday, and I kinda figured out where all the money went. First of all, I ended up spending somewhere between Php10,000 and Php15,000 for Christmas gifts. My Excel file says that I spent a bit more than Php10,000 as of the end of November. And I’m pretty sure I spent more. That’s the problem with early Christmas shopping. I always end up buying double or triple gifts for people (and therefore, for myself too).

AND. Good Lord. I was compiling receipts, and when I added everything up, egad, I spent Php20,000 this year at Powerbooks alone. No wonder the sales people are so nice to me. See, all those glossy Impressionist books went on sale during the third quarter of this year, and I just could NOT resist. Art books. Architecture books. Travel books. Interior decorating books. Cookbooks. Spanish books. History books. Comic books. Biographies. Autobiographies. The first AND the second World War. The Cold War. Spies. The American Civil War. Philippine History. The classics. JFK. Nixon. Carter. Bush. Obama. You name it, I probably have it. I even have one on Persian carpets, for crying out loud.

On top of my Powerbooks purchases, I also spent quite a bit at the Manila International Book Fair last September (or was it October? I forget.). Again, trivia books. The Beatles. The Forties, Fifties, Sixties and Seventies in Pictures. Elvis. Lost Civilizations. Famous battles. Wildlife. The Uncanny. I could go on and on and on.

I blame my mother for this. She always said books don’t count as expenses. Well, mother, you have created a monster. I spent two nights after work just trying to figure out how to arrange all of my books given my muy muy muy limited shelf space at home. But hey, they make me happy. And mother knows best. Wink wink.

So anyhow, to counteract my purchases, I started cooking and eating dinner at home. Yes, seriously. I think I’ve been doing the whole housewife thing for six weeks now, and I am very proud to say that everything has been edible. I might even say deeeeeeelish, but I need someone to confirm. So eggziting. I’m going to the grocery later to stock up for when I get back from Baguio after the holidays. The whole domestication thing is fun. I just really really hate doing the dishes. I’ll clean the bathroom, vacuum and wax the floors, but I seriously vehemently detest doing the dishes. (Insert frown here.)

So there. I aim to become more financially responsible next year: increase my mutual funds investment, maybe finally work on my stock portfolio. We’ll see.