Weekly Update: Week 20

WHAT, IF ANYTHING, DID I SPEND MONEY ON THIS WEEK?

I went to another free concert with my husband this week. This week’s concert was free due to the Ticketmaster settlement.  I was one of those lucky people who was part of the settlement and got free ticket voucher codes. A concert I actually really wanted to see finally came up in our area (well, within driving distance to a neighboring city). The myriad restrictions on using the codes had rendered them unusable up until this point so I was really excited to get to use at least one of the codes before their 2020 expiration. We spent way too much money on “premiere parking” and a $6(!!!!) lemonade. It was 80 degrees, even after the sun went down and we had been sitting in the lawn section, uncovered for hours at that point. I was hot and drinks were not allowed in the venue–Trust me, I considered bringing a bottle of water from home. I was glad I didn’t, though, as there were groups of people standing by the entrance, chugging drinks from their bag after security told them they were not allowed inside with them. I consoled myself that at least we didn’t pay for tickets, and I chose a $6 lemonade instead of a $15 cocktail. Despite being a fan of this band since before puberty, I didn’t even look at merch, which I was proud of myself for. I know I would have been too tempted to buy a shirt I would have worn once or twice.

This weekend, we prioritized relationships.  We had an impromptu Netflix-and-chill movie night at home with close friends (another married couple) and on Saturday we went to a friends’ son’s birthday party and caught up with people we haven’t seen for awhile.  We did give a physical gift, but skipped the card (kids hate those anyway…)

On Saturday, I also prioritized health and had a 90 minute massage. When I previously signed up for the membership, they gave me a coupon for $10 off an upgrade for my next massage, with upgrade options of aromatherapy, foot exfoliation, scalp massage or extended time. I chose to extend the time from 60 to 90 minutes.  This normally would have been $30, but with the coupon it was $20. I spent $20 on the additional time, plus a tip for the massage therapist.

I was informed by a mechanic friend when he heard of the recurring issues with the windows in my car that this has to do with the heat causing the rubber around the windows to stick to it, causing the window mechanism to break. This can be resolved by using a silicone spray to keep the rubber lubricated to keep it from sticking. I finally bought some from Amazon, in addition to some new windshield wipers (the heat also causes windshield wipers to wear out faster this time of year.)

Also, we replaced lightbulbs in the living room and a nightlight in the bathroom, which both happened to burn out in the last week. (Mercury is in retrograde, for those who believe in those types of things.)

WHAT ELSE WOULD I HAVE BOUGHT?

Love 41 came out with limited edition rose gold leather items, including a set of rose gold leather pouches. I wanted them, but they were pricey due to their “limited edition” status and sold out fairly quickly. This made me reconsider the Koch Leather pouches I had previously talked myself out of buying. I managed to talk myself out of buying them again. I use a pouch daily to transport work essentials in my work bag. Using pouches keeps the bags organized and makes it easy to switch between bags. The pouch holds my notary stamp, a few pens, eyeglass wipes, a mini stapler, my bluetooth headset and my headphones. The $10 fabric pouch I got from an Aeropostale store closing sale about a year ago is starting to fray and the zipper is starting to stick. The cheap, plastic-y fake leather handle won’t last long, either. I can hold out on replacing it, though.

Total amount I saved that I would have spent this week: $0

Running Total: $2582

Take Your Stinking Hands Off My DVDs, You Damn, Dirty, Minimalist

Each of us has a handful of things we have a hard time letting go of.  For me, one of them is my DVD collection. 

Not even my autographed ones–just the regular ones!  I had no problem letting go of my CD collection, once I made sure they were all downloaded on my computer. (After the corruption of my entire music library recently, I wish I hadn’t).  I got rid of quite a few of the books I own as well.  My DVD collection, however, has been presenting a challenge for me.  Now that we can stream nearly unlimited content at a moment’s notice, why do we need to re-watch movies?  No matter how much we love it, there’s too much content out there to watch the same thing twice, right?

When there are things we are having trouble getting rid of, we need to ask ourselves why.  What does it represent to me?  Why have I given it so much meaning?  For example, a crystal paperweight with the scales of justice I kept on my desk for the longest time, despite some chips in it, was hard for me to decide to get rid of.  Why?  I purchased it from a discount store, deeply discounted because of the chips that were already in it.  I look back and think, why did I want it anyway?  I thought about it and, despite the chips, it represented something to me.  I bought it while I was in law school, young and optimistic about my future and my career.  I am still young, but not always as optimistic about my future or my career.  It’s been a rough start.  So, I let it go.

I realized that many of the movies I have on DVD are available to stream on one or more streaming services.  Why is it so hard for me, then, to get rid of them?  Part of the reason is the fact that this collection I’ve amassed, while not huge by any standards, certainly cost me a lot of money over the years.  Somewhere between $5-$20 per DVD, plus the cost of the DVD organizers we purchased last year to hold them.  I know this is just the sunk cost fallacy.  Those DVDs served me well when I bought them, watched them and enjoyed them.  That was when streaming wasn’t widely available, live TV (maybe with a recording service) was the only option and re-watching favorite movies didn’t seem so absurd.  I was a poor college student that didn’t bother paying for cable, so DVDs were my main source of entertainment.

Furthermore, I picture growing old, watching and enjoying old movies I love but haven’t seen in decades.  It seems romantic and nostalgic.  Intellectually, I know this is ridiculous.  I tell myself that the DVDs no longer serve me and the whatever costs I have sunk into the collection were already sunk when I purchased it.  (Unfortunately, old DVDs are not the easiest items to re-sell.  I’ve tried.)  Now that video streaming is widely available and fairly affordable, there will never again be a shortage of new content.  Will I really be watching those old movies, like my grandparents did with those John Wayne movies?  I doubt it.  Something stops me every time I try to get rid of them.  I write many of the posts in advance and, believe it or not, a few days after writing this The Minimalists posted an article about getting rid of your DVD collection.  I will have to contemplate and work on this.  Maybe soon one of my updates will triumphantly announce that I have finally minimized my DVD collection.