New Year's Resolutions

I never usually make resolutions, but this year I decided I might. I turned my back on the usual, standard resolutions like losing weight, eating better, drinking less - because hey - I'll just break 'em. So I thought I'd set myself some more achievable ones. I meant to only make one, but then I decided two.

1. Wear less black.

I don't know if I recently watched Four Weddings and a Funeral and the still single chick at the end (who ends up having an affair with Charles) - once having make the decision to give up on Hugh Grant's character (can't remember his name, but who cares...) decides to never wear black.

Now, since I had decided on setting achievable resolutions, I couldn't just go to 'never' black, but I decided 'less' black was appropriate. For a couple of reasons: 1. because all black in this country in summertime is just too damn hot, and 2. because I think I wear too much black (it's my comfort 'skinny' colour) and it's time to maybe break the old mould a little bit. (Who says you can't teach an old dog new tricks?)

2. Stop beating myself up about money.

Now for those of you who don't know me, you don't know what a big deal this is. I set completely unrealistic budgets (the wealthy barber suggested saving 10% of your gross income as an achievable goal, but I've been doing 30% lately because I'm trying to save for a downpayment - hard to do when you're single, but I digress....) and then nearly kill myself sticking to them. (Now, you do realise that I've managed to basically stick to my budget for the last year and in that time have gone to Vietnam and Canada (twice) - never mind the other frivolous ways I spend money - so don't feel too badly for me). But what does end up happening is that - say I get paid on a Thursday (I do) and I get my next 'allowance allotment' for miscellaneous items, but on the Wednesday prior to pay day, I have a meeting with my staff and we go out of the office for a change of scenery and I have no money to pay for coffee. (This happened once, and I did pay by credit card, but it 'should' have come out of my cash spend...) Anyway, I had to change the meetings to Thursdays so it never happens again. So for the day before payday, I really can't do anything.

Now see, I do have money in the bank, but won't let myself touch it. It has to be an emergency. Really.

I truly am a freak about money. Or at least a freak about the way I worry that I have foolishly spent it and not saved enough....

So why this year has everything changed? Well, I used to laugh about what a freak I could be in regards to budgets, but it wasn't until two of my friends out here decided as part of their New Year's resolutions that they needed to set budgets and start saving, yadda, yadda, yadda that maybe I go too far.... Budgets are good really, but these two people make a serious ton of cash (so don't need to worry about the pennies so to speak) and have always been loose and fancy free about spending (mind you, they've always managed to pay bills etc). The problem isn't that they want to make budgets (although, it is strange..) it's that hanging out with me has turned them into spendthrifts!! It's like they're completely different people.

And ya know? It's not pretty.

Now, in my own defense, although I'm conscious of budgets - and I will screw myself over a few dollars - I am not a spendthrift when out with friends or my mother. (My brothers, a different story...) Ask my friends - they'll concur.


So how am I doing on my resolutions?

Well, today I went to the mall and bought a bunch of shirts to wear with some suits (all my stuff is too hot for summer working) and let's see - the shirts were: aqua green, chocolate brown, peach and a purple maroony colour (wearing it right now and I love it!! goes great with jeans). What else? Hmmm.... Oh yeah - white and navy towels (got a guest coming - need new towels.....)

So NO black!!!

And what's even better? I'm not stressing at all about what I spent. I needed it. They were not only practical purchases, some of them are even pretty.

I think I've been possessed by aliens.