I don’t know if it is age, or maturity or the fact that 90% of the stuff in the mall would look ridiculous on me.  But I’ve gotten to the point where a few nice things give me more joy than many things.

I would rather have a comma in the bank statement at the end of the month than any other thing.  My dream, one day, is to have two commas.  Actually my dream one day is to GIVE two commas.

Other than getting my nails done, and my hair cut, I don’t spend a whole lot of money.  I do have one lone hold out.  If something is purple, it is the universe’s way of telling me that it is mine.  I have a purple phone, purple shoes, many purple tops, purple blanket, purple pillows, the list goes on and on.

One of the things that makes it easy for me to avoid purchases that would have historically been difficult to resist, is that nothing costs less than $5 for me.  A single Coke is $5 – a candy bar – a magazine.  I only spend cash.  I never use change and only in the most dire of circumstances will I use a $1 bill.  The bills go into hiding for emergency pizza’s or impromptu dessert dates.  Each day I empty my purse of change and put it in the piggy bank that we feed when the littles do their chores.  We empty it  out monthly and split the money between the littles for their “allowances” and their money training.  The change usually adds up to about $45/month and the kids are quite happy that they “earned” a $15 toy.

Other things I do to save money?  Extreme couponing, for products I always use.  Stocking up when things are on sale.  Our car is paid for, but I’m making the “average car payment”  which according to Dave Ramsey is $484 – we round up to $500.  We also pay ourselves an extra house payment.  When we get a well established emergency fund, we’ll start making the extra payment to the bank.

I pay bills in the order of priority.  I don’t know if this matters financially speaking, but it has some sort of spiritual affect on how I view money.

1. Tithe or charitable giving – but we tithe.  We put others first, realizing that no matter our need, others need too.
2. Household expenses – mortgage and utilities.  We take care of our responsibilities.
3. Savings – retirement of 15% gross, saving for car, saving towards emergency fund, extra house payment, necessary home repairs, vacations.  We plan for our future.

After those priorities are taken care of, I take the rest of the money out bank.  Leaving only money for gas, as I love to pay at the pump, and $1,000 as a mini emergency fund.  The remaining money is split up between food, allowances, and miscellaneous day to day items.  Because we know we have excess, we have food here.  If it were questionable, I would put food at number two.  What good is a vacation if you are starving?

We put all of our day to day expenses into envelopes and spend that money only on what the envelope was intended for.  Things like kid clothes and car maintenance/repair.  We add money to these envelopes every pay check.  Ideally, Hubby and I don’t need to discuss day to day money events any further.  If he needs a weed eater, and there is money in the “outside” envelope to cover it, no discussion needed.  He just writes on the envelope what he spent the money on.  The same with kid clothes.  I don’t need to discuss whether or not I can get one of the kids a new pair of shoes.  If the money is there the answer is yes.

The only other money decision that has had as big an impact as the budget, has been the cutting up of the credit cards.  Working without a net requires your attention and diligence.  When there is no net, you are forced to create a cushion.   I will clarify, as I always do, that we have ONE card in my husband’s name. We use it exclusively for online purchases.  We have been burned twice on fraudulent debit charges.  It’s in his name only by my choice.  He is not keeping me down.  I trust that he has more interest in my well being than Mastercard.

Doing things this way has been very beneficial to our marriage and to our finances.  Hubby and I give ourselves a fairly generous allowance.  I don’t care about how much he spends on Frisbees, he doesn’t care that I spend too much on my hair care.  We have three budget meetings a month when we get paid and I can’t remember the last time we had a fight about money.

Disclaimer:  We are only talking about my main closet.  We are not discussing the other closet, or the hall closet, or the dresser, or the laundry basket full of clothes.

I managed to get rid of a few things, mostly shoes.  Shoes were easy, if they weren’t fuhreakin’ awesome or fuhreakin comfy, they were gone.  With one exception.  I have a pair of Enzo Angiolini’s that I bought when I lived in Montana.  At least 8 years ago.  When I put them on, my feet felt like they were home.  They were cute eight years ago.  They ceased being cute shortly after 9/11.  But dang, I might start wearing them around the house, although a 2 inch heel does not fit well with preschoolers.  I’m getting rid of them.

I found many shirts while purging shoes.  My “Unicorns keep poking me in the butt” shirt that the kids got me for Mother’s Day several years ago.  Before I started getting tattoos.  I love it.  Yes, there is a story.  And I got it from Brad Stine.  He’s a comedian.  Doesn’t he look like that guy from Rescue Me ?  It’s not verbatim, but we were working in the confines of a shirt.

• There are people, who don’t believe in God, who are clogging up our court system with lawsuits because someone else does believe in God.  They say that because someone believes in something that they don’t, they are being harmed.  HARMED.   Harmed is a stretch, inconvenienced maybe.  But HARMED?  It’s like being poked in the butt by a unicorn, but only if you don’t believe in unicorns.

Where was I?

Oh yes, I found the “unicorn” shirt.  I also found my Route 66 shirt.  Long time readers will remember my vacation day from hell.  For my new friends, here it is.  That day was not the fault of Route 66 – just to be clear.

I have also come to realize that I buy really cute clothes, this is going to be difficult. Two shirts were rescued.  I’m really tempted to rescue a skirt.  I know I reportedly have 15 skirts.  I think that may be a gross underestimate.

I eventually redirected my energies.  I cleaned out a drawer, or six.  I purged about 100 items from there.  Old receipts, dead batteries, pieces to shoes that I no longer have.  Makeup and medicine past their prime.  A bracelet I never wore, pennies, contact cases, you know all the stuff that collects in ones drawers.  Not necessarily tossing everything, but also putting things where they belong.

Day one was not a total waste.  So far, 100 things have been purged from my drawers.  10 pair of shoes, and two bags of clothes.  Not big ol’ trash bags, but progress. Day two is going to be even better.  When I put all of those things in the car to get rid of them I’ll already be half way to my 100 thing purge.  Yes, I’m double counting.  Sue me.  But so you know, I don’t believe in the local legal system.

While waiting, I picked up a really old Time Magazine, where they were discussing the prospects of Hillary becoming the first woman to become President.  I think it’s been over a year since that was even in the cards.  But, tucked away inside was an article about paring down our lives.   Limiting our possessions to 100 things.

I’m intrigued.

Could I pare down my life to 100 items?

First, we need to define the parameters.  There are some purists out ther that count each sock, each shoe, and every pair of underwear.  I am not one of them.  Socks are one group.  Undies are one group.  Shoes are to be counted by the pair.  Because if I get down to 99 things plus a pair of shoes, am I really going to toss one shoe?  No.   Community items, such as the kitchen table and living room couch do not count.  Neither do the dining room chairs, because lets be real, if I incorporate this into my family and one of the kids has to choose between their Gameboy and a dining room chair, we’ll have a mismatched set of folding chairs. Towels will be considered community property, as will sheets, but I’ll probably have to count some of my blankets, because Hubby would jettison many of them, he thinks I might have a “problem”.

I think I’m going to give it a try.  I’ll need to first do an inventory.  So, let’s start with the closet.

25 pair of shoes.

6 purses.

5 bags, computer and overnight.

15 skirts (at least)

8 tank tops

4 pashmina/wraps

2 trench coats

1 fleece lined windbreaker

2 pair “gnome” jammies

1 bowling shirt that belonged to my grandmother.

4 dresses

1 dress that I haven’t worn since before I was pregnant, but it’s really really cute.

1 wedding dress.

1 Magic Eight Ball

1 Ski sweater

1 pink flip flop (left foot)

1 green flip flop (left foot)

25 tshirts

3 short sleeved dressier shirts

13 sleeveless dressier shirts

3 pair of Lucky Brand jeans.  (that may count as 1 group

2 laundry baskets full of undocumented things

Calendar from 2003

5 bikinis

2 well worn full swim suits.

Hoodies?  Yet to be determined.

1 down coat

2 Z100 hockey jerseys

OK – I get the point.  I have a LOT of crap!  I’m going to go work on paring down the closet.  I have at least 140 things in my closet.  That’s not counting what’s in the laundry, on the floor, under the bed, hanging from the ceiling fan….Do you think I can get rid of 40 things today?  I know that I will have to pair it down further in order to keep the computer, the jewelry box, and yes, to answer your question the jewelry box and its contents?  One item.

I may have to get into the whole E-bay thing.