No such thing as a free lunch

I’m one week in to my ‘no shopping’ challenge and I think I might have found the secret to my ongoing success: bringing lunch from home. Ok so it’s not rocket science and I think my colleagues might have already twigged, but after a few days of eating boring old soup and homemade sandwiches (no offence Steve, my wonderful boyfriend who makes them for me), it has dawned on me that by avoiding Covent Garden and its enticing array of shops I have been keeping a few extra pounds in my bank and losing a few from my waistline (that second bit is just wishful thinking).

Boring £-saving sandwich (not representative of Steve's efforts).

This groundbreaking theory was confirmed yesterday, when Steve failed to make my lunch in the morning, having been ‘forced’ by his friends to stay out in the casino until 4am the night before. As such, I had to venture to M&S for my back up roast beef & horseradish sandwich (Charley that’s for you) and cheese tasters (Sal that’s for you). I just so happened to wander past a rather bulging sale rail (I’m such a liar as the food is downstairs and the clothes are upstairs) when out jumped a cute little black jacket, down from £39.50 to a mere £19. I tried to resist, but began thinking about all the outfits it would go with, and how great it would be for both work and nights out. Justification complete, off I trotted to the till. But, disaster struck; I’d left my wallet on my desk at work. There was no way I was losing the jacket now, but the mean shop assistant refused to hold it for me, mumbling incoherently about the shop’s policy for sale goods. She then tried to take it out of my hands (probably to have for herself) so I did what anyone else would do: panicked and ran out the shop with jacket in tow. Joke! Actually, in a much more dignified fashion I grabbed it off her, walked briskly to the corner of the shop and stuffed it at the back of a rail of really ugly tops, before sprinting back to the office to get my wallet.

I know this is becoming one of those long rambling stories that my family loves but no-one else does, but bear with me, it gets good! You’ll be relieved to hear that on my return to the shop the goods were where I had left them, so I jubilantly made my way back to the till, proud of my quick-thinking and happy to see a different lady serving. And now for the best bit. As she rang the jacket through, £12 popped up on the register. Awesome I thought, it’s even more of a bargain. But, wait, she wasn’t finished yet. She then typed in some code, and down the price went to £3. Result! Must-keep-straight-face-and-not-look-surprised-at-major-mistake/deal-of-the-century. Turns out my jacket was cheaper than my sandwich.

And here it is: the super-soft, day and night, waterfall-style jacket, that went very well with my work outfit today.

Posing in my £3 purchase: this kind of shopping is allowed right?

So the moral of the story: bringing lunch from home is bad; shopping at lunchtime is good. Ah, not quite what I had in mind for this post.

A good place to start

Hello, and welcome to the first Consumer Cravings blog post. I’m going to start at the most logical place—the beginning—with an explanation of why this blog came about and how it is going to solve all of my shopaholic tendencies. So here goes:

There are two clear signs that summer has been well and truly relegated to the memory bank. These are:

1. An umbrella has become an essential everyday item (if you also have a wayward fringe you’ll understand the necessity).
2. Seasonal Addiction Disorder has set in. The symptoms:  a) Morning anxiety about the lack of suitable clothes to put on despite possessing a bulging wardrobe and having coped perfectly well last autumn. b) A combined sense of glee and panic created by all the new autumnal clothes filling the shops and magazines (glee due to the greatness of the goodies and panic for the purse).

Last weekend during a flat tidy up, it came to my attention that these autumnal signs are actually problems that need resolutions.

Problem 1: Over the summer, during a period of reduced use, my three umbrellas (functional & black, handbag sized & patterned, and elegant & long) appear to have formed a union, gone on strike and then abandoned me for a more loving employer, leaving me umbrella-less and curly fringed. Thankfully,  the conundrum has been cleared up with a trip to H & M, where I picked up a cheeky £5.99 leopard print number.

Problem 2: S.A.D, is less simple to solve. I am a girl who loves to shop, but the arrival of this season’s gorgeous collections (think sheepskin and leather, camel and greys, pretty blouses and masculine brogues) has left me all in a tizzy. Why? My bank balance and my wardrobe aren’t big enough to cope with the onslaught of new purchases. So, on Saturday, with the assistance of my Mum (who I might add, loves tidying and was not forced to help) I managed to fill four big black bin liners with unwanted clothes and shoes to be shipped off to the charity shop she works in. Great I thought,  room for a few new choice items. My Mum however had other ideas. “Don’t think that the purpose of this clear out is so you can buy new things. You can’t afford it,” she said.  Unfortunately, she has a point, and that is where the idea for this blog came from.

Shopping and I are trying out a temporary ceasefire (aside from buying the odd “essential”* item of course). Instead, I am going to document all the unnecessary, but oh so delightful things I am craving, in the hope that writing about them will give me the same buzz I would have got from actually buying them. This extends to clothes and stuff for my flat. It’s wishful thinking, but worth a try. At the very least it’ll give me lots of items for my Christmas list.

So first up on my autumnal clothes wish list, that are not to be bought, we have:

1. Mannish brogues or boots because they go with everything from skinny jeans to ladylike dresses, and last year’s shoe collection just isn’t doing it for me anymore
2. A shearling aviator waistcoat or leather jacket, crucial to take me through that tricky in-betweeny phase when it’s chilly, but not quite wintry enough for my cape to come out

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(photo credits: www.topshop.com and www.office.co.uk)

*Disclaimer:  The definition of “essential”  is open to the author’s interpretation and may well be expanded in the coming months as the ceasefire runs into difficulties.