Plans for 2013

After much thought, well, about 15 minutes but it’s still taking shape, I have come to the following conclusions for 2013:

• For the last few years, I have started every day on Woot! Sometimes the deal was great, sometimes not, always snarky and interesting. If I have spent 10 minutes day for four years that’s 10*365*4+10 (for the leap year) so it’s a total of 14610 minutes or 243 1/2 hours, or more than 10 full days. I have different ways to waste my time (this blog perhaps).
• With the exceptions below, I am not buying anything in 2013. I don’t need anything. I have everything I need. This year, I bought a new computer, dog (extremely cute picture to follow), wireless speaker, iPad, lots and lots of stuff that plugs in. (Archie, being the informal of Archimedes,  is the exception of plugging in.)
• Exceptions:

These things I will buy:

My phone contract is up early this year (1 month and 1 week to be exact) and I have suffered with a crappy android phone to the point of frustration. Best Buy says it’s wort $52.18 on a trade in but I may have more than that in satisfaction if I throw it at a wall. Because of all the money I pay to the three-letter devil, I will upgrade to the latest (at least for 6 months) iDevice that works with all my other iDevices. $199 – trade in.

Guitar strings: notice I said strings, not guitar, six sets will get me through the year. Probably under $30 for the year.

Running shoes (anything that costs that much can not be referred to as sneakers). The stipulation is that the ones I have can only be replaced iff (if  and only if if I remember 11th grade math) they are worn out.

Items that benefit the family, are fine. While it would fit my zitegeist to say that I’m not buying flowers for the front yard, it is really a cop out and it truly means that it’s too hot and I’m too lazy to put them out. We are in serious need of some mulch this spring.

Clothes: minimal, if the running/eating goes the way I plan, on 12-27-13 my clothes will look terribly baggy on me. I’ll cross that ridge when I come to it.

• Things I will not be buying
  • Camera equipment, I have a DSLR. There is a new one out that is better. There is always a new one out that is better and always will be a newer, better one out. I don’t need a more compact one, more mega pixel one, more anything one.
  • Camera lenses. Lens lust is an incurable disease but with the proper treatment, it can be managed. I need to manage mine for 370 days. And they are darn expensive!
  • Books, music and the like.
    • There are a gazillion books and books on tape at the library. They are all there for the borrowing. I have 1/2 a gazillion in the house. That goes for magazines too. Anything that expires this year (except Mad) will just have to wither. I throw out more magazines without having read them than I can count.
    • I have 2 gazillion CD’s full of music. I’ll have to renew my Music Match so I can get all my tunes all the time but that’s it. There is also many, many internet resources where I can listen. (Pandora, Spotify and the like.)
  • Electronic stuff/computer stuff, don’t need it – I’ll use the pioneer spirit, make do or do without.
  • Software: unless there’s a new program that will make gold out of dust, I don’t need it. I can’t use all the stuff I have now. Meaning I can’t use it, I don’t know how. Did you ever count the buttons in Photoshop?  A gazillion…I have Photoshop elements 9, two generations behind the present one.  I still am not proficient. There is also a ton of freebie software around and I can always make a linux (free) box out of a computer I have laying around.
  • Kitchen gadgets. Kitchen gadgets either cut, combine or cook something. With my present supply of stuff, I can cut, combine and cook anything I am likely to need to.
  • Watches: I love watches! I have four of them: blue, black, two brown. I have one wrist (and I don’t like a watch while on the computer). (Disclaimer: in my defense, none of these cost more than $80, and most less than $60, so it’s not as if I’m deciding which Rolex to wear.)

Updates:

I plan on tracking my spending each day on this blog. I doubt if this will be of any interest to anyone but me but it’s a necessary step.