NakedSushi

When I was in my “No Buying Stuff, Stop Being So Material” phase (hah, how long did that last?) I made a joke about how I was actually buying more stuff than I did when I actually still bought stuff. Now that I’m no longer in that phase, I can say that I bought less stuff when I wasn’t supposed to buy stuff than I do now, which makes my wallet unhappy.

It makes me feel a little better that some of the things I bought recently fall more in utilitarian category than frivolous.

My biggest purchase was my bike: a Kona Smoke. It took longer than necessary to get this bike because the shop that I wanted to buy it from only had one of them out on the floor and someone had already put a down payment on it. They had to order me one from some factory in Washington and said it would take a week. A week passed, no bike, I called, they had no idea why the bike hadn’t been delivered yet. After another few days, I called again, still no bike, but they told me I could come pick up the bike on the floor since the girl who ordered it weeks ago still had not come pick it up. Of course, as soon as I go over there to pick it up, I find out she called right before I arrived and said she would be picking it up. To make the story short, I ended up picking up the bike a few days later anyway because the girl still hadn’t picked it up.

Add to the bike purchase a helmet, some lights, some locks, and a rear rack and it became a lot more expensive than I thought. But now that I have all the essentials for bike riding, I’m hoping I’ll do it more often and save money on gas as well as get more exercise.

After riding around a bit on my bike, I noticed that the usual medic bag that I carry around didn’t really do too well on the bike. The long strap made it flop around if I wore it on my side and it was a bit too small to hold my things (DS, keys, wallet, etc.) as well as my lunch. I thought about getting some panniers to put on the side of my rear rack, but most of the ones I found were ugly, expensive or both. Then there’s the issue of whether or not I could balance the bike with one side loaded or not.

In the end, I ordered a Crumpler messenger bag (Barney Rustle Blanket colored) to stuff all my stuff in. I was resisting doing so because I don’t want to look like a posenger/FAM but hey, at least I’m not riding a fixie, right? Hopefully the bag will be big enough to carry groceries and maybe stuff a sweatshirt in.

I know I just bought shoes (chucks) not too long ago, but something weird happened to them or my feet. They felt fine when they were new, but lately, the right shoe has been pinching my pinky toe so that my pinky toe was rubbing a sore spot on the next toe. It’s odd because I would have thought as shoes get older, they get more comfortable and worn in. Apparently not the case with these shoes. I tried switching to some old shoes to let my feet rest for a while and then wearing the chucks again, but it still rubbed my toe the wrong way.

Since people say shoes are definitely something you should spend money on, I didn’t feel so bad about buying another pair of new shoes so soon. I didn’t want something too athletic looking especially since I’m not always on the way to or from the gym. The new Puma Easy Riders were almost exactly what I wanted. They’re a little too bright, but hopefully that goes away. I never really liked Puma shoes because I thought they were too faux-athletic, but I guess it works in this case.

I haven’t even started buying stuff for our new place yet, but hopefully after that, I can go on a “No Buying Stuff” binge again.

I feel a little better thinking of the things I could have bought but didn’t. I tried on a pair of jeans that had just got in to Self Edge when I went to SF but luckily they didn’t fit right. The sizing was so weird. The waist was too big on most of the sizes I tried and I kept going a size down until I couldn’t even fit my legs into the leg openings anymore. Maybe it’s a good thing I couldn’t find the right size. Even though the square gold buttons bugged me and the price was ridiculously high, I don’t know if I would have had the willpower NOT to buy those jeans if they fit perfectly.