It feels right on the heels of a post talking about how awesome I still am with some frugal moves that I reveal the other side of my nature too –

I make some weird impulse buys.

And I am super susceptible to Facebook/Instagram marketing.

Besides the fact that they are on to my candle addiction, they somehow always know what else I’m thinking about and sometimes, it just wins.

I’ve had a good week financially and I just click the stupid link.

Or I’ve had a terrible week all around and I click three links.

Anyway, the point is that impulse and emotional buying is real and apparently it takes more than eight years of building up personal finance muscles to figure out how to really combat it.

And I thought I would use this post to regale you with ridiculous things I’ve bought part two (because we’re been in this semi-quarantined socially distanced home bound hermit life for quite a while now and I wrote a post about my first wave of weird impulse purchases last spring).

On the more recent docket of “did I really need this?”:

2 Different Pair of Earrings

A dangly green bohemian looking set and a pair that look like moon phases. Both bought from questionable internet stores that Facebook shoved in my face.

On that note, I’m pretty sure Facebook knows when you literally even just slow down a bit when scrolling past ads because the moon phases took like four or five ads before I clicked to look at them, but I do think I must’ve slowed just a bit on my scroll past each time I saw them before that.

A Pair of Winter Boot/Heels

I saw them. I liked them. I bought them.

I have since realized they are coming on the slow boat from Timbuktu and I will likely receive these chunky, warm winter boots around my birthday. At the end of July.

Also, did I need a pair of winter boots? I don’t go anywhere!

Also, they look a lot like two other pairs of boots I have. I mean.. the heel is definitely chunkier on these.

To counterbalance this though, I have two pairs of sneakers (running and black) that both have holes in them and I keep thinking about maybe buying a new pair but it seems like a waste of money right now since I am neither running or working on shows these days. Yet I still wind up wearing these sneakers a lot – with all their holes.

Life is about balance, right? Or about irrational purchases and non-purchasing decisions.

Books

I talk a lot about the library and what an amazing, frugal resource it is, but I’ve got to admit I don’t always walk the walk on that one.

I have bought a lot of books this year. There are literally piles all around my bedroom. Quite a few are obscure books on theater ethics, theater and computers, and audience theory. eBay and I have really gotten reacquainted.

I also have a large number of children’s books about time travel because I wrote a children’s book about time travel and when I start trying to send it places I need to be able to talk about comparable titles.

There were much cheaper ways to do this and the vast majority of these purchases were definitely impulse buys.

Harmonica

I recently bought a harmonica because… why not? Also one of those aforementioned books was about kids playing harmonicas and I was like, I bet I could do that.

It’s not as easy as I thought it was going to be. Of course.

NUDE Breath Mints

Total impulse though they actually work very well and they are probably the purchase am I least disappointed in.

Rainbow Cloud Bath Bomb

Which sadly broke in half during shipping and did not make the amazing, pretty water rainbow that the Instagram video promised at all.

Asari Earth Tones Facemask

Will it open my pores and make my face super soft? Or will it leave my face burnt and red? Apparently I just have to try it myself and find out. So I will.

A Kite

I was bored.

Soccer Ball

I thought I might get some exercise using it. I have not.

Ransom Notes: The Ridiculous Word Magnet Game

Kickstarter ads are the worst. My brother and I both play a lot of games and I often get his birthday or Christmas gifts from Kickstarter – but I get endless emails from them too and they are far too tempting.

Hello Fresh

This was a borderline impulse buy but I’ve been curious for… year, at this point? I am the laziest cook. Like… I enjoy nothing about cooking. Baking is a little different, but cooking? Ugh. All the years on tour have only made it worse because I barely ever have to cook.

Then there’s all the different kind of companies. Anyway. I just pulled the trigger one day and decided to give it a go for a month. They had a $90 off (across 4 boxes) coupon and a Rakuten $20  cash back coupon too, so I figured it would never really get cheaper.

*****

You’d think assessing this would help me see how ridiculous some of these choices are – and it does – but yet…

I can’t even lie, I’m pretty sure I might impulse order those Evive smoothies too one day – or middle of the night.

What I have clung to this year though is that getting stuff right like 80% of the time really does let you mess up 20% with minimal ill effects.

Have I fallen short of perfectly optimizing my finances? Yes.

But what even is that? Anyway, perfection is stressful.

I made some smart money moves in that 80% – hitting retirement savings and investing goals, moving in with my dad when the world was crumbling and my lease ended, picking up extra part time/side hustle work throughout the year.

They more than make up for the 20%. Do I look at the kite sitting in my trunk and think – do better, Mel? Yes.

I also look at that kite though and see 8 years of personal finance work can’t be undone by a $20 impulse buy – or even 20 $20 impulse buys at this point (though my end of the month spending update would be pretty embarrassing if that was all in one go – accountability is a solid part of the 80%).

So you’ve made some ridiculous impulse buys this year but are still paying your bills and hitting (at least most of) your saving and investing and debt payoff goals – you’ll get no judgement here when a Facebook or Instagram ad gets ya.

Actually, I’d love for you to leave a review of the product that got you in the comments so I know whether or not it’s worth it on my next late night splurge ;o)