I might have loosened them a little less if I hadn't made a mistake in Quicken. (For awhile, I thought I had about $500 more available than I actually did!) Grand total was $615. It's a lot to spend the first month of working full-time, but I thought about each purchase and don't regret any of them. I shopped sales and used coupons. Some of the clothes were almost Goodwill-level prices.

New (to us) TV through Craigslist $200
New throws for living room chairs $20
2 prs winter pajamas $38
4 tubes Revlon lipstick $12
Sneakers, one pr black and one pr white, $62
Bra $24
Nylon knee-hi's for work $22
2 velour track suits $72
6 long sleeve tees $22.50
1 sparkly henley tee $7.50
Black stretch corduroy jeans $15
Navy polyester slacks $15
Route 66 DVD set $37
Black leather purse $34
6 cloth napkins $7
2 computer books for reference at work $10
2 battery lanterns for when power is out $17

My body is changing, due to lots of walking, and I'm now wearing a 16W on the bottom. A lot of my older pants are baggy 20W's. The vinyl purse I bought last year is crazing and not repairable. We gave our lantern to my mother when her power was out, and decided we actually needed two at our house. The napkins I really didn't need, although they may help us cut down on the use of paper napkins. It was either spend the $7 on the napkins and get free shipping, or pay for shipping and get nothing else.

I need more decent casual clothes for running errands, in order to reserve work outfits for work. If I take my mother to a doctor, lawyer or stockbroker or we go out to lunch, I don't want to look like too much of a schlub. My old jeans are not only baggy but getting faded at the knees. That's where the track suits, tees and sneakers came in.

The "new" tv is digital, so it gives us a whole new range of channels on cable that we couldn't get on the old one, for no extra monthly fee to Comcast. It's a larger screen. It's a model that we like, but it's been discontinued, so we wanted to grab it when we could find it. And the picture on the old one kept shrinking every so often.

The new throws replace old ones which have numerous holes, pulls, and stains. The extra PJs are to help stretch out how often I have to do laundry.

I know the spending has to slow down. Next year, my ceiling for discretionary spending like this is the $40 a week being direct deposited into Electric Orange checking. But for now, it feels really good to be catching up on things and ridding my life of some shabbiness. Next project--bathroom towels.

Just saw a headline about November having the worst monthly jobless figures since 1974. Yikes, in some ways this headline bothered me more than recent talk of another Great Depression. I lived 1974. If that's where we are now and it's going to get worse before it gets better, uh oh.

For instance, in 1974 we still had these fashions to look forward to!

15minutelunch.blogspot.com/2007/10/strap-in-shut-up-and-hold...

But seriously, my 1974 involved--

Seeing adults in my family unemployed, in federally-subsidized CETA jobs, or getting on social security earlier than planned because they couldn't find work.

Going to school in the dark in winter because of the energy crisis (daylight savings all year). Being cold in school all the time because they turned the thermostat down. Having our senior trip to Washington instead of Disney World because it was cheaper.

Knowing that going away to college for one year would have been a waste, if there wasn't money to continue. Attending community college instead, to learn a marketable skill, and dealing with the odd/even gas rationing system as a commuter student.

We were still going through Watergate, and Vietnam was still on people's minds. I just checked, and the term stagflation was coined in 1974. It just wasn't a very happy or optimistic time.

I've been there, done that, and I really don't want to be there again! I mean, you adjust, you shop at K-Mart instead of the mall, your world gets a little smaller. You tell yourself a lot of other people are going through the same thing, but it still isn't fun. Enough already, I've already been economizing for the last 3 years!!!