Do you ever feel as though history is repeating itself? I had the pleasure of giving a talk in Hamilton's Garden Place on Friday and we were having a good old chuckle about some of the things that trigger us into spending money. You know the sort of thing; you treat yourself because you're having a thin day and feel good about yourself. Or you splurge because you're having a fat day and feel bad about yourself. Or you're having a bad hair day, or a rotten day at work... or just because! I think we all do it to a certain extent, just some of us more than others. I've always had that tendency and at the moment I'm having to fight it REALLY hard. I shall endeavour to explain!
I've described myself before as an emotional shopper and like many people have to fight the urge to splurge when under stress but over the years I've managed to steel my resolve when the fat days and bad hair days hit and talk myself out of being so daft. However every time my marriage hits a bump it seems that the latent Sad Sally in me rears her ugly head and heads for the nearest shop. Which is particularly rubbish timing considering we've just enjoyed the most frugal festive season we've ever had and were feeling fantastic heading into the New Year.
It's pretty funny that in years gone past I've actually headed to Whangamata and spent up a storm at times like these but now we're actually living here it's proving to be my saving grace. There's really nothing for this non-tourist to buy and even on my worst days I couldn't be bothered driving two hours to the nearest shopping mall. Besides, we all know no matter how miserable you are, throwing away money unnecessarily on more needless stuff doesn't make you feel better; it just makes you feel worse and then you have the extra guilt to carry around with you on top of everything else! Two wrongs don't make a right as they say!
I should really stress that over the past 20 years the number of bumps in our marriage has been extremely small. I suppose it's just that fact that 90% of the time we're so good together that when things do go a bit pear-shaped it just hits you even harder. In case you're out of the loop or just wondering, basically we're still struggling with the same issues as I first revealed in this blog two and a half years ago which has led us to the conclusion that perhaps we should really get some professional help rather than going round in circles and getting nowhere! Which we probably should have done from the start rather than being of the daft opinion that if we needed to resort to counselling we had failed at marriage. I know - duh! Still, better late than never eh? According to the information on the Relationship Services website, we're looking at almost $100 per session, eek! But if that's what it takes to smooth out the bumps I reckon it's a worthwhile investment, even if it means we have to tighten our belts in other areas.
So we've got a couple of major goals to work on! Obviously we need to get our marriage back on the right track but we also need to get our lives back on the right track and take up where we left off back in Te Kauwhata. We've been so busy enjoying our new easy peasy beach life that we've lost our SS focus in some areas. For example, we didn't get to pick runner beans from our own garden for Christmas because we were too busy clowning around at the beach or doing other fun stuff to actually build the new raised vegetable bed we had planned. Sure we've had heaps of fun but it doesn't put food on the table! And I confess the tumble dryer goes more often than it should, which is crazy when half of our washing line is under cover! But all our SS knowledge is still there. Once you have it, it never goes away. Just as you sometimes have to work a little harder at marriage, sometimes you also need to work a little harder at being a Simple Saver too!
