Emotionally spent. Emotional spending.

When i’m emotional, I spend. It took me a long time to realise it, and even long to admit it, to myself & others. Emotional spending is one of the things that goes hand in hand with my mental disorder, but out of the list of negative things, for example drug use, unsafe sex, gambling and crazy driving, I’m glad that this is the one that I have the most problems with. That being said, I’ve certainly learnt to handle it better.

Simple things. I don’t own a credit card, and honestly, I don’t ever want to. This means, I can only spend what I have. I have a separate savings account, that I can’t access with a card. If I plan to use that savings, I have to transfer it to my other account. This really deters spur of the moment purchases. I have a system set up with my bank, that when ever I spent, they round it up to the dollar, and transfer that to my savings account. It’s amazing how it all accumulates.

For someone who could never save money, I finally have some savings! It may be petty cash to some, but for me, someone who would often have less then $40 in her account a few years ago, it’s something I’m rather proud of.

This was my haul yesterday. I’ve been emotional, working through ‘feeling’ with my psych. In the past year, I’ve locked my emotions down tight, it actually reminds me of that kids rhyme “In a dark dark wood, there was a dark dark house”, except in the box is my emotions. Some of these feelings had the worst timing of hitting me right in the face whilst doing grocery shopping. So here I am, walking down the isle at Woolworths, crying. I couldn’t stop it either. I felt super crazy, but I guess it’s process, in the fact that hey, I’m feeling something!

On the way to a detour to the bathroom to clean myself up, an elderly lady stopped me, to ask if I was okay. I nodded, said I was okay, just emotional. She patted my shoulder and told me that I was too pretty to be crying. It made me smile, there are still some amazing people in this world.

Sometimes though, you do need to spend a little money on yourself. Some people treat themselves to a mani/pedi. Some take themselves off to lunch or a movie. Myself, well, I love stationary. When I was younger and would get depressed, my parents would take me to office works. The above is what I walked away with yesterday, though I only bought the DVD and Cosmic top. The rest my parents bought me. Yes, I’m lucky to be blessed with some amazing parents. Looking at these pictures though, I’m a bit of a nerd!

Are you a bit of an emotional spender too?