And in unrelated news, a DePaul student is niqui! — I’m officially registered for my first SNL class, which is a mandatory mini-course, sort of an orientation for the program. It only meets twice, and the first meeting is next Tuesday — for four hours. Then two weeks later, we meet again, after which point I get to go register for summer session, and pay up like $3500, plus books. Fortunately, next Wednesday, I have an appointment with the nice people at Financial Aid so they can tell me what the hell I’m supposed to be doing, beyond filing the FAFSA, because I haven’t honestly got a clue. Have to go get my transcripts, again (kind of now wish I hadn’t bothered going through all that rigmarole for HWC, for just one lousy semester. Ah well. At least I got math out of the way).

The weirdest bit of all this is, though … DePaul?? Really? A private school… a private Catholic school?? This is not my beautiful house. This is not my beautiful wife! — I dunno… maybe I’m just too much of a prole at heart to be able to conceive of a situation wherein I would have enough privilege to afford a private school. And I’m certainly way too agnostic to have ever figured on choosing to attend a religious whatsis of any flavor. It’s a bit weird. I do not “feel” DePaul the way I used to (still do, a bit) “feel” UIC. That said … I’m wayyyy not able to deal with my fine colleagues at Harold Washington, so maybe it’s all a matter of degree. Or maybe I just need to lighten up — your choice.

i am going to go ahead and spend $30 registering for the annual ohio soapers gathering — my spring trip out to ohio that i’ve done every year for about the past 8 or so, which i was going to have to cancel this year because my bio class had a mandatory test scheduled that day. but today i was talking about the class to some friends (and how, frankly, i don’t see how i can get a C based on how awful i am doing on his tests — i don’t get it; i’m not accustomed to failing, and frankly it’s pissing me right off, but apparently i can’t cope with his tests), and as the rest of the class is basically a test a week from here on out and there’s no credit /but/ tests … although i feel a bit like a failure for giving up, it seems like torturing myself to continue on going if i’m not going to pass. so i’m going to go in tomorrow and, before my math class meets, drop the bio class, which if nothing else frees up my saturdays so i can go out to ohio and see my friends. and technically, that’s not til may so i won’t even have to buy gas for the trip this month. ;)

i haven’t entirely stopped buying things, though, to be perfectly honest. i had to register for my first depaul class, which was $300, on top of the $25 fee to process my application. plus i had to pay for my car insurance this month, which was almost $500. these are not discretionary expenses, though, so they don’t count against me… but they are moderately disappointing as, to be honest, i was kinda going in to this thinking that at the end of the month, i’d have the vast majority of my monthly funds left in my checking account ready to be ogled. i had put aside money for the insurance — i actually have what i call my “irregular expenses fund,” which is basically an accounting of annual/etc fees i have to pay (car insurance, sox tickets, amazon prime fee, consumer reports subscription, etc — stuff that comes up in chunks once a year, basically), all averaged out, and i save a monthly “bill” towards paying for that stuff. so the car insurance was covered by that, not my regular monthly spending money, but still, $500 in expenses is a bit sad to have coincident with, … pretty much trying not to spend $500 chunks.

i have been able to successfully avoid a bunch of other spending i normally wouldn’t think too much about, though. i’ve been really wanting to go on a perfume hunt — i have a gardenia scent that i really love, but it’s by Crabtree and Evelyn and they discontinued it several years ago (i actually picked this bottle up while browsing through shops in brighton, so that’s been a while now), and i’m running low and want to find a replacement, but i know if i go in to macy’s and find a saleslady to help me find a replacement, i’ll be dropping like $100 or something. so i’ve continued putting that off even though i really miss being able to wear gardenia. (curse you, C&E, you always discontinue my favorites! i’m still mad about Veranda!) and now i’m out of iTunes credit so i’m stuck without being able to buy any new music, and i really want to pick up an album by this one indiepop group out of Montréal, so that’s annoying. also i really frigging want to be able to buy coffee on my way to work again. i know it’s a horrible waste of money, but dammit, i like dunkin donuts coffee!

i guess it’s a useful exercise. i do like feeling a bit cat-who’s-got-the-cream about my magnificent self-restraint. and i do like not having my quicken insights page have increasing red-print amounts on my credit cards (not carrying a long-term balance, but still, i habitually make all my regular purchases on my cards, so between pay-periods they accumulate charges which i have to stare at and feel guilty because it’s red-print numbers next to a credit card account name). and i definitely like not acquiring more stuff. i spun up a bag of louet pencil roving i’d had for most of a year, and started on a second, so that’s almost like being able to buy yarn, kinda, i guess… except it’s way more awesome yarn because i spun it up by hand — ha, take that, Lorna’s Laces. (just kidding, Lorna’s, you know i love you!) that’s even a net loss on the stuff front, since the finished yarn takes up less room than a bag of roving – win! i was kind of thinking, actually, of trying to continue Buy Nothing Month into may. it’s not so bad really, not having the coffee, i guess. and next month, hey, no car insurance due, so i might actually save money…

at the end of the day, though, madonna just bought a $40m townhouse today, so all things being equal, i don’t feel so bad about my $35 groceries.

I have bought some things — I had to buy a replacement toilet handle lever thingie because the little lever that opens the flappy bit in the tank broke, and that’s a $7 expense that’s not really optional. I mean, I could have hacked together some solution, probably involving paperclips and a chopstick, but let’s not be silly. I did pick up some stuff on iTunes — Glasvegas’ self-titled and The Baseball Project, Vol 1: Frozen Ropes and Dying Quails — but I had had credit remaining from a previous gift card so those were “free,” not to mention they weren’t “stuff” since they’re just downloads (and part of the reason behind this was to not acquire any more “stuff”), so I don’t count them. And of course I had a stated exemption for Opening Day at the ballpark, so I did buy a couple beers for me and a friend today at the game but those were totally permitted; don’t judge me.

Grocery shopping yesterday was interesting though. I had a $20 budget, and I went in with a list, which I prepared based on needs (milk, “fruit and veg”) and the weekly sale flyer. I came out slightly over budget, at $21.05, which I blame on the fact that I didn’t actually know how much a head of lettuce or milk was ($3.69 for half a gallon? Really?) and also, I grabbed an impulse purchase of $3 worth of baby carrots. Actually, I hadn’t really paid a lot of attention to how much anything was before this trip, which probably explains why I was always shocked by how I could spend $150 just by stepping foot in the Jewel. I think the $20 budget is a great exercise. It’s not practical for every trip, obviously, since just buying one thing of chicken breasts would set you back a third of that and you still need veggie accessories before you can turn that into, you know, food, but that was actually sort of eye-opening. I am going to have to noodle a bit over turning on a real ongoing grocery budget — I like the idea of having less stuff in my fridge and cabinets just as much as I like the idea of having less non-foody stuff elsewhere in my apartment, not just because if I have little food around, I’m less likely to waste it. (I read somewhere that an average American wastes like half a pound of food a day. Stuff we throw out because it goes bad before we can eat it, or because we make too much food, etc. Isn’t that ridiculous? It seems stupid to be so wealthy in goods just in order to pitch it out for no good reason. So I’m thinking about how to lessen food waste and maximize food usage, with possible portion size attitude side benefits, and that ties in to the budget as well.)

I have not bought a few things, though. Obviously there’s a ton and a half of coffee (welll… probably like 5 coffees) I haven’t bought, or any muffins or bananas or lunches at work. Tons of yarn has gone on sale (YARN SALE) which I have not bought any of. I did not subscribe to a for-pay advice for American expats web site, despite the fact that I’m really wanting clarification on this whole taxation thing (…waitaminute here, you mean I have to pay income taxes to both nations simultaneously? THAT BLOWS). And today I wanted to buy some lanolin for my poor sad dry-skinned hands, since I’m apparently out, but I didn’t. Actually there’s been a couple things I’ve passed up on, though I can’t recall what all they were, which says a lot for how badly I wanted them, I suppose. I’d be sad except I’m really not. I might actually even make some serious inroads into my spinning fiber stash since I am not going to replace any of the stuff I’ve done. No real danger of that same benefit for my yarn stash, at the rate I knit, but hey. It’s sort of liberating to just sort of ignore my RSS ‘Shopping’ sales feeds, too — though poor Amazon must be in danger of having to close up shop without me going “oooo” weekly. So I have basically shut off for-fun purchases, and it’s more or less working out all right for me.

So, anyways, here goes another week! Wish me luck!

But I haven’t yet figured out the dry cleaning issue. I have some stuff I need to take to the cleaners, but … does that count as buying something?!?! I don’t want to! But, otoh, I would like nice clean sweaters! Help me, Intarwebs!

[poll id=”2″]

Also, I upgraded WordPress (and broke a bunch of stuff in so doing) specifically to be able to install that poll plugin, so this had better get at least like one vote or I might cry.

In other news: WOOHOO SPRING BREAK I LOOOOVE YOOOOUUUUU!

i go all the time without buying anything. entire days! but today temptation was everywhere and it was frustrating.

two days a week, i work an earlier shift at work — 7AM til 3PM. it is my custom to stop by the ex-White Hen (now 7-11) and get a coffee, plus optionally a banana (love) and maybe a muffin for breakfast, on my way in on early days. today? no white hen. no coffee. i sulked all the way in to work (where i got a coffee, but it wasn’t the same). then lunch, which i had brought, and which was kinda boring. then i went to depaul to meet with an advisor about transferring and so forth, then off to class. no coffee from the Dunkin Donuts on the way to class, either. then i was starving on my way home — i mean, really hungry and i had to walk past like 7 restaurants, two of which have DELICIOUS SUSHI — and i didn’t stop to buy anything. it was deeply frustrating.

this might be a little tougher than i originally anticipated.

Starting tomorrow, April Fools Day (a good day to start out a goofball exercise just to see if you can), I will avoid purchasing anything, with a few exceptions: kitty litter and insulin purchases are non-negotiable (some things it’s not worth finding out the hard way that you can’t live without them), beers and polish sausages with onions (OF COURSE) at the ballpark opening week (HELLS YEAH IT IS ALMOST THE BEST DAY OF THE YEAR!!). I’ve also added a $20/week budget for groceries, because I thought about it and while I probably do have enough food in my kitchen to live on for a month, that doesn’t mean I actually want to go without fresh produce that long.

I am totally excited to start buying nothing. How lame is that — it’s not like I’m even going to actually do anything. I’m going to not do things, and I probably won’t even really notice except when I’m telling myself no. Still, I’m really eager to find out how enforced stufflessness works out for me. And to clean out my freezer….