What Have I Done?
A quick and dirty mid-month update.
Y’all.
The new quarter started, and somehow I’ve already almost surpassed last month’s spending. We’re talking about an eight cent difference. HOW?! I was so confident at the end of the last post!
I planned the purchases ahead of time, but I’m not sure I expected them to take up so much of my budget. It feels like I lost my mind.
Illustration Taipei
My friend Judy went to Illustration Taipei and did a personal shopping service for a group of us. To save money, I split the three PET tapes I wanted with friends. I also bought single loop sample rolls of the other two tapes I wanted, which saved a significant amount. Last, I picked up a stamp and a sheet of stickers. I tried to focus on things I knew I would use and tried to be frugal with those purchases. Everything adds up quickly though, and I had to remove a few sticker sheets from my list to make sure I didn’t blow my budget.
It helps to have a spreadsheet to track things like this, especially with fees and currency conversion. Shopping in another currency sometimes makes it harder for my brain to comprehend how much I’m actually spending.
There were SO MANY tempting things, so many new artists, and a vast array of beautiful art and stationery. Once I surpassed my budget, I stopped looking. I couldn’t torture myself anymore. If I ever find myself at an event like this in Taiwan, I’m going to be in so much trouble. The photos I included in this post are only a portion of the damage our group did via Judy.
A few non-stationery items made it into my package, but I decided not to include them in the stationery budget. I also left shipping out, because I feel like I would have purchased these items even if I hadn’t bought stationery. So by that logic, I would have had to pay for that shipping regardless. I split the shipping with a local friend, so it wasn’t too bad, and it does still fit within the budget if I decide to include it later.
The items have shipped, but it will probably take a few more weeks before I receive them, but I will share when they arrive.
TRAVELER’S COMPANY
The TRAVELER’S notebook TOKYO EDITION preorders also launched, and while I knew I could resist buying everything, several items spoke to me. I picked up the three items on my list. Can you guess which ones?
Sadly, I have none of these items in my hands yet, so it feels a little anticlimactic. Part of me feels like it was a bad idea to spend my budget on getting these items in the first wave, since there will be multiple waves of these product releases throughout the year. I could have saved the $40 for something else in this quarter and used a different quarter’s budget. But another part of me was worried certain items might not get restocked and if I waited, I might not get them later. When nothing is guaranteed, FOMO rears its ugly head. And as strong as I thought I’d become, I continue to be its victim.
So where does that leave me?
Totals
I’ve got a whole $10.98 to last me until the end of June.
I do still have some money saved from the California Pen Show, but I’m holding onto it and trying to reserve it for August. There will be no treating myself on my birthday, but I have put some stationery on my Amazon wishlist, so maybe my family will help me limp along.
As always, you can monitor the tracker here, or copy it and use it yourself if you’d like!
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If we lived in the same state, I would gladly allow you to shop my stationery stash Toasty!