Retail Therapy

The last several days have entailed a lot of nothing. After another discouraging house hunt on Monday, I had to reevaluate. Granted, I am not really doing everything I can to find a place to live, because, let's face it, I hate moving. Its always been fairly painless for me. I look at a couple of places, apparently get really lucky, move in a weekend and viola. So, the decision is to commute 40 minutes (on good days) each way and pay almost $400 less in rent each month, or move. Seems obvious, right? Well, let's weigh the options here. The $400 a month savings would go to the increase in gas, which based on the distance to my previous job, is actually exactly twice the distance. I would add and additional 36 miles per day. Plus additional wear and tear on my car (which is four years old.) Its about 13,000 miles for the 180 days of school. I typically get my car serviced every 3-5,000 for oil and stuff and 10,000 for the big ones. So, let's say that 4 oil changes and one and a half service per year. I just got new tires (and we're only talking about commuting for a year here, as a start.) Its approximately 3,700$ per year, providing no major break downs or accidents. Now on the rent side. $400 per month by 12 months. You do the math, $1000 dollars. That's a plane ticket the heck out of here to just about anywhere. Which, technically, isn't entirely correct. I didn't factor the increase of car expenses, just the total. I was paying half that per year, previously. Add five, carry the one, borrow from the tens column, plus or minus...okay, so more like $2800.

Is it worth it?

On the flip side, you know how I feel about exercise, so you can probably guess how I feel about sitting in my car for long periods of time.

Which one will win out? Savings or sanity. Screw it, Hawaii here I come!

So, in trying to come to my decision, I continue to avoid it. Yesterday I needed new make-up (but you're gorgeous, you say, you don't need it...Please, we aren't gettin' any younger here people,) so I went online to see if it was free gift time - indeed! And the Nordstrom anniversary sale! Darn. I did so well these last months trying to save money that I decided to treat myself (right, because I needed it...) Well, there were these really cute wedge pumps (see below) and my black shoes seem to be falling to pieces one by one, and they were on SALE. (My, how we justify.) You gotta love that there is an entire industry just to make us gals happy. I'm not super materialistic, but man do I love my shoes, any kind: running shoes, Keens, my comfy Simple sandals, the gold strappy sandals I wore to my bro's wedding, a few pairs of kooky espadrille wedges, my Franco Sarto knee high black boots...Some girls dye their hair, I like to put on fun shoes. It could be worse.