How to shop till you drop without buying anything new

(little shopper in training ...
remember, darlin' - never pay full price!)

As you may already know, my New Year's resolution is to go a whole year without buying anything new.

Why would I do that? Well, it's sort of an experiment to see, first of all, what types of challenges that will present, and second, how much money I spend mindlessly on a regular basis.

I have always used shopping as a recreational activity. In fact, over the years I developed a variety of shopping techniques:

Therapy Shopping - Y'all know what this is. Come on, admit it.

Inventory Assessment - Some call this window shopping. My title makes it sound more worthwhile, don't you think?

Stealth Shopping - This technique is for the periods just before the really super duper sales begin, such as late January when the Stealth Shopper knows the stores will soon be desperate to clear out the winter stuff. She scours the sale racks for cute items, hides them amongst items of a different size, and returns in a week or so to score a big bargain. Not that *I* would ever do this.

Full Price Shopping - Don't do this! Ever! You will regret it immediately, because the next day, guaranteed, you will see a sales ad in the paper with the item you just bought marked down 50%. Then when you go back to the store, full-price item in hand, to demand your 50% refund, you will realize that you accidentally brought the wrong receipt and the snooty saleswoman will inform you that she cannot issue a refund if all you have is a crinkled receipt from Target for three bargain bin movies, a can of coffee and two bottles of wine. So sorry.

And now, this week, I've been working on perfecting a whole new category of shopping! (drum roll please) ....

Ebay Shopping - This is surprisingly fun! I will tell you all about it next week. Hopefully I will have actually succeeding in buying something by then. In the meantime, I am very busy shopping. But not buying. And definitely not buying anything new. Of course, the year is young.

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