19/31 Minty goodness

[darkemeralds]

In an effort to stop making useless purchases, I've added a "Uselsss Purchase" tag to my Mint account. Mint can't (yet) accurately analyze online purchases via Amazon or Paypal, so it lumps them into the bland, meaningless category "Shopping". I then have to review my receipts and re-categorize these purchases into morally unassailable columns like "books" and "groceries" (well, okay, coffee beans), or more puritanically-dubious columns like "shoes and accessories" and "entertainment".

But whichever column my online impulse buys wind up in, some of them deserve the tag "Useless Purchases," and I review those from time to time, hoping to learn something which, at the age of 57, I really should have learned much sooner in life.

Here's what's currently tagged Useless Purchase, along with my reminder notes:

• Red leather jacket, custom made and non-returnable. Color not like shown in photograph, arrived poorly packaged and wrinkled, wrinkles haven't hung out in five months, keep hoping the color will work for me but it doesn't, too big for H, too expensive to give away
• Magenta belt
• Sherlock S1 and S2 DVD sets to take to the beach, but we didn't have time to watch them and I could get them on Netflix Streaming so here I am...
• New clothes for Dressing Your Truth. A bunch of t-shirts that turned out to be not quite right that I've since given away
• Black "Hale Pack" hoodie *eyeroll*
• On Fire (TW tie-in novel, too bad to read)
• Writing with Clarity and Style (for JFM's writing class). Ended up paying to give it away (mailed to student in Toronto)
• Grammatically Correct (for JFM's class) I KNEW I DIDN'T NEED THIS STUPID BOOK
• Dumbass "writing course" by Joshua Fields Millburn. The only takeaway was "Sit In The Chair." Not sure that was worth four hundred bucks

The moral of the story is...try not to make useless purchases, I guess.

Comments

[pinesandmaples]

Are you able to consign that leather jacket? Can leather jackets be steamed? (Second question is definitely my "don't feel like falling down the Google rabbit hole" question today.)

I'm starting to sell some stuff on my local CL/consignment circuit so my brain is firing on all sorts of "get rid of things in a way that might make money" circuits.

[darkemeralds]

Ooh, consignment. Good idea! I've never actually done that, but there are several shops in my neighborhood, and even a few bucks back would be better than zero. Thanks for the suggestion.

[darkemeralds]

PS I think leather can be steamed--carefully.

[sasha_feather]

Some of these things could go to fandomgaragesale, which seems to be a low-traffic community, but I've seen people do "garage" sales in their own journals too. I think everyone makes useless purchases. :)

[darkemeralds]

I didn't know such a community existed. Thank you. The Sherlock DVDs, at a minimum, could go there.

[chordatesrock]

Could you have guessed before purchasing any of these things that you would later consider them useless purchases? Not, did you know? (unless you did), but could you have guessed?

[darkemeralds]

Yup, in every case. The trick, of course, is guessing before I hit the go button.

I'll admit that I kind of enjoy the Teen Wolf-themed hoodie, though.

[chordatesrock]

What information available to you at the time could have allowed you to guess?

[darkemeralds]

In most cases, past history. There's a certain gonzo feeling behind these variously regrettable purchases that I should know by now not to indulge. Not sure what's behind your question.

[chordatesrock]

I'm just thinking that if there's a consistent pattern where all or most of these purchases are preceded by something that consistently signals that they're bad ideas, the correct course of action seems obvious; on the other hand, if there wasn't any particular pattern to it, if you were failing to take into account different information each time, that would be a more difficult problem.

On the other hand, if "just don't listen to the certain gonzo feeling" doesn't work, then the problem might still be complicated, or at least not as straightforward as it looks.

I'm a fail!Socrates.

[darkemeralds]

Ah. Socratic. Got it.

Of course my whole purpose in applying the "Useless Purchase" tag to things is exactly what you're saying here. There probably isn't a single clear indicator, but acknowledgment of past mistakes is probably a good starting point.

[ranunculus]

Ok, I might buy the Sherlock season 2.... but only if you can't sell them as a set.

[darkemeralds]

If I can find 'em, they're yours. Email me with a mailing address and I'll get them to you.

[tehomet]

I love the idea of having an Useless Purchase tag. I have the highlighter of mortification when I get my credit card statement and give all the unwise purchases a big green swipe of shame. Embarrassing myself into wiser decisions in future (I hope).

May I ask what you're going to do with some of these things? Stick them on eBay or Etsy or similar?

[darkemeralds]

OMG The big green swipe of shame. Perfect!

The Sherlock DVDs are going to ranunculus (assuming I can locate them) and I'm keeping the Hale Pack hoodie since I actually have worn it quite a bit (it's my little fannish statement for when I have to work on Saturdays). I can't quite decide to part with the red leather jacket...you know? But I expect I will eventually get it down to the resale shop.