When Will and I were in the final throes of wedding planning and tearing our hair out over how expensive everything was I would comfort us by saying “it’s okay, we’ll pay it all down.  We just won’t buy anything after the wedding.”  And to be sure, we had a plan: No Superfluous Purchasing until it came time to do holiday shopping.  We’d buy food, pay our bills and find ways to entertain ourselves that didn’t involve the spending of money.  Instead we’d put that money aside toward, again, BILLS and saving for next year when we wouldn’t have Will’s student loans to cushion us.

People I am here to tell you that this? has been an EPIC FAIL.  We had to buy him some shirts for school because he didn’t have any long sleeved shirts that weren’t super old and close to falling apart.  And we kept finding reasons to go out to eat (there’s not much in the cupboards and I don’t feel like getting groceries, where do you want to eat?” and then he renewed his (insert however many swear words you want here) World of Warcraft membership (seriously, as many swear words as you want–the air in my apartment was blue for a couple of days after finding this out).  And then last weekend we bought a couple of movies and seasons 3 and 4 of Bones.

And today?  Well let’s just say that one of us had been given a guest pass to the Columbia employee store and was allowed to bring as many people as he liked along.  So we loaded up the car with ourselves and our friends S & L, (I’m pretty sure they wouldn’t care if I shared their names on here but better to be safe than sorry) and off we went.  To the Columbia employee store.  Where Columbia merchandise is marked at least fifty percent off.  And a certain person who is not me brought the credit card.

I meant to just buy a winter coat.  The last time I bought myself a winter coat was, I swear, 2001.  And I wore it, or a coat I stole from Will, until last winter when the zipper just plum(b?) broke off.  Was it warm? No.  I usually had anywhere from 2-4 layers on under that coat, which meant for a lot of extra laundry loads, but it was still a coat.  Until I couldn’t zip it up and then it became a black, irritating, not warm thing that kept sliding off the hanger.  So I donated it to Goodwill inthe hopes that someone who knows how to fix such things would buy it for $1.99 and give it a good home.  I spent the rest of the winter (which lasted until June) wearing an old coat that I stole from Will a few years ago when he got his own new coat.

So yeah.  I needed a winter coat.  And I found one–and it is actually TWO coats that work in tandem to create the perfect warm and cozy and well fitted winter coat.  And it was on sale.  And then we remembered that I needed boots–warm, water resistant boots for the cold months that hopefully will not be as cold as last year but if they are I would like to be prepared.  And we found a pair.  A pair that fit me and do not have Hannah Montana or Dora the Explorer on them.  They are brown with pink soles and stitching.  They are super warm.  And cozy.  And soft to walk in.  And they have enough room in them that I can wear thick winter socks without having to worry about cutting off my circulation.  And then Will found some shirts he liked.  And a couple pairs of pants he liked and we bought jeans for him a few months ago, but he needs pants that will be work and interview appropriate.  And then we found long sleeved shirts and nicer button down shirts and a couple of cozy sweaters and people? I haven’t purchased a new cozy sweater since January of 2008.

And the whole time I kept saying “but I don’t need this.  I have clothing that fits.  And then Will would say “you’ve just about worn through everything you own.  It’s 60% off! Get it!” and take it out of my hands and put it in our cart.  Or “Damn it, can’t I spoil my wife once in a while?  It’s a t-shirt for chrissakes.”  and put it in the cart.

The good news is that, because everythign was on sale we did NOT spend more than four figures on new clothing, coats and boots.  The good news is that, because this stuff is made by Columbia it’s a pretty solid bet that it will last at least through this season if not a few more after that.

The bad news?  Is that this totally annihilates any hope I had of being able to proudly say “yep, we just stopped all that extra spending altogether!”

I chalk this “no spending” thing up to an EPIC FAIL.

I’d be pretty frustrated about it if I didn’t have pretty new things to wear that will keep me warm and toasty without the aid of our thermostat.