Oh well, I can't pet new tires...

I mean, you *can*.

It's just a little weird.

It takes special inanimate objects to inspire that kind of affection from me. Though the Galavant DVDs I just ordered might qualify...

Feeling slightly better. The bonus card had some money left on, so I paid half my insurance bill. I decreased my 401k contribution so paychecks will be a little bigger going forward. I'll send in the paperwork on the totaled car today and should have that money in my account by Wednesday and then payday on Friday again. Ok I can do this. No purchases for a week.

I'm sorry that I have opposite money problems: I hate when, as a fundamentally cheap person, I splurge once and then learn it's really worth it. I have some boots I want to replace and my main reaction is, "I paid that????" Question: do we think winter boots will go on sale in the spring? Because I could wait it out.

I hate when, as a fundamentally cheap person, I splurge once and then learn it's really worth it.

My dad and I were just talking about that last night! And, for real, about boots. He needs new boots because he has no intention to quit the grocery store (which I totally approve of: I think the interaction and physical activity are good for him), but he remembers paying $150 for his current boots over 3 years ago. But then he decided that amortizes to less than $50 a year, and foot health is worth it.

That's not even a lot for boots!!

He's notoriously, cheap, though.

I hate when, as a fundamentally cheap person, I splurge once and then learn it's really worth it.

I am trying so hard to switch to that mindset. But the Hong Kong fast fashion companies have swung around to offering Victorian-styled clothing, and I worry that if I don't snag stuff now, I'll never see it again.

(Shush, I do so need more frock coats and ruffly blouses.)

Anytime anyone talks about paying good money for boots, I think about the Sam Vimes Theory of Economic Unfairness

"The reason that the rich were so rich, Vimes reasoned, was because they managed to spend less money.

Take boots, for example. He earned thirty-eight dollars a month plus allowances. A really good pair of leather boots cost fifty dollars. But an affordable pair of boots, which were sort of OK for a season or two and then leaked like hell when the cardboard gave out, cost about ten dollars. Those were the kind of boots Vimes always bought, and wore until the soles were so thin that he could tell where he was in Ankh-Morpork on a foggy night by the feel of the cobbles.

But the thing was that good boots lasted for years and years. A man who could afford fifty dollars had a pair of boots that'd still be keeping his feet dry in ten years' time, while the poor man who could only afford cheap boots would have spent a hundred dollars on boots in the same time and would still have wet feet.

Sam Vimes is very wise.