I have a confession. I’m a little bit of a hoarder. Not in the sense where it’s possible to the point a TV crew can come around and make a good show out of it sort of hoarder. I definitely have a sort of impulsive tendency to buy things, buy them in bulk and then… keep them aside for “later use”.

confession time

Now the biggest weakest all my life has been… stationery.

I can’t even begin to tell you how much I LOVE STATIONERY, especially all the cute and functional stuff coming out from Japanese brands.

During my schooling years, it was absolutely justifiable buying all that stationery because I had legit uses for them.
It made writing notes and studying easier when the stationery were aesthetically pleasing to me.

Just like any millennial, our childhood obsession stuck with us through adulthood. Coupled with actual spending power as a full-grown working adult, living out our childhood desires became an actual reality. The long-standing hook that stationery has on me never went away but I know I couldn’t just keep buying and not use them. I continued to buy and buy, and because there was no real use case for them as a working adult, they just sat on my shelves like a collection. At some point, the guilt of the purchases became more prominent than the joy of buying them, and that’s when I started to rethink buying any stationery just because of they were cute and I could.

The Awakening

I came to a fuller realisation at the end of last year as I reviewed my spending for the whole year. I realised if I really liked an item, I would consciously “bulk” buy the item, especially if it was discounted or it came in different colour ways etc. Then I realised, I was just spending because it was how I had been spending all these time. In fact and very often, I usually bought something and either never used them or under utilised then. I was basically just buying for the sake of owning it, but not actually using it. I’m pretty sure there’s some relation with childhood trauma but we won’t get into that here.

This year, I decided that I want to be more conscious of my spending habits.

It’s more than just cutting down on unnecessary spending; it’s also putting emphasis on practical spending and actual utilisation.
If I’m not planning to use the things that I’m buying, I probably shouldn’t even be thinking of buying it.
If I want to buy a new pair of pants, I should revisit my closet and take a good look at all the pants that I’ve bought but haven’t yet worn them.
If I want to buy a new pair of shoes, I should take a good look at the shoes I already own and hadn’t worn in the last couple of seasons.
You get my gist.

I personally think this is the best way to keep myself accountable and not be so easily tempted by the online ads that keeps flashing at us, telling us that we need to be spending and getting new stuff all the time. I’m tired of spending frivolously, and end up feeling more empty than before. I would like to think that retail therapy could actually work if we were already desensitised to it, and it’s not just something that we do to fill up a void, temporarily. Our purchases should truly feel us with joy and even more motivation to want to create meaning into our lives. I know how fluffy that sounds, but I truly believe in that.

I wanna see how much less or more spending happens this year while adopting this buy-only-if-using mindset. I really hope I stick to it. Let’s make this a monthly thing and check in again next month to keep my accountable!