Consumer Cleanse: The Challenge

Being an adult is expensive. It's especially expensive when you have the self-control of a klepto in a store run by a blind person. While discussing cleanses last week with a friend, I vetoed the vinegar variety but decided to challenge myself to a consumer cleanse instead. The goal is to save money, of course, but also to realize how much I have that I'm not utilizing.

60-Day Consumer Cleanse

Coffee

Side note: Penelope Trunk suggests that bloggers take one thing they know and stick to it. By this logic, I should surely turn this blog into an epic saga about my steamy (see what I did there?) affair with the world's greatest beverage. I write about coffee more than almost anything. The thing is, I don't really know anything about coffee other than how much I love it. I think this cleanse could help with that, as I'm going to test out some different home brew combinations until I forget how much I love soy lattes. My addiction is expensive in the fall/winter, thanks to something called the Pumpkin Spice Latte. Once September hits, I simply can't drive past a Caribou or Starbucks without stopping for the good stuff. Picture Heidi Montag passing a Restylane factory. It's bad. Here goes the home brew... things could be worse.

Clothes

I am terrible at shopping and tend to buy the same things over and over again without realizing it (I currently own 3 pairs of black patent leather flats and 3 orchid colored tank tops). It's time to do a wardrobe inventory, start layering some unexpected combinations, and realizing that the answer to a bad day at work is not always "New Gap V-neck sweater". Also, I think I might start attempting to not wear jeans every single day to work. Trousers never killed anyone.

Paper

This shouldn't be an issue but I have what you might call... a notebook obsession. I keep a tiny one in my purse, several at my desk, one by my bedside, others in my car. I recently created journals for my team using cast-off materials I found at work. To the untrained eye that doesn't wander Paper Source and Papyrus weekly, they were even kind of cute. My new goal is to lay off the notebooks, which are tiny and adorable and sometimes look like this:

in favor of the homemade variety. God that's going to suck. I'll probably just stop writing stuff down.

Week Night Wine

I don't want to talk about it. Red Guitar, know you are loved.

Things I'm Not Giving Up

as they would require giving up my social life and friends: Dinner with my Wednesday night crew, beer on the weekends, and matinees with Emily. It's Oscar season, people. How am I supposed to text my celeb-obsessed BFFs with fervor for six consecutive hours on March 7th if I haven't seen most of the movies in question? People need me during awards season.