What Doesn't Work For Us (A Meandering WFMW List)

I have really been pondering exactly what to write about for this week's themed Works for Me Wednesday posting. You see, the theme for this week is what DOESN'T work for me.

And, while I have had plenty of things that have not worked for me, it just feels funny to take the time to write a good post about any of them that I could think of. So...my meandering thoughts of a few things that don't work for me, or at least they haven't in the past.

Shopping at Walmart / Target / anywhere with lots of stuff: I do it anyway, but it doesn't work for me. I am a visual person with very little willpower when it comes to spending. I am the kind of sucker that they love. I'm the one that thinks you're not allowed out the door of one of those stores if you haven't spent at least $50, even if you just went in for a loaf of bread.

Lots of Specialized Kitchen Gadgets: This is not to say that I don't love kitchen gadgets. Darn it -- I do. I actually really like them from a certain company that sent me a cease and desist email but what I also love (maybe because of being so visual) are all of those really kitchy kind of things -- the hot dog warmer, the cotton candy maker, the s'mores maker, the quesadilla maker, the maker maker...okay, that last one wasn't really. (And no, I haven't owned all of those, but I have owned some of them.)

Anyway, I have realized that I need to be a whole lot more picky about what I will bring in to my kitchen. It's okay to have things I don't use often -- a trifle bowl, a punch bowl, a bundt pan, etc. But, it's not okay to have the Betty Crocker Bake and Fill just because the commercials looked so neat, only to have it sit in the box and take up space in a cabinet until being carted off to Goodwill.

Buying Lots of New Clothes: Here, the emphasis is on the NEW part of that phrase. I used to buy everyone in the house brand new clothes. Now, I spend a fraction of what I did before, and we all still look nice. I do the majority of our clothes shopping at consignment sales and second-hand shops. I do still buy new clothes, but usually they have to be on sale (like when I just got a lot of great clothes for the kids on a trip to the outlet mall.)

Spending Money Without Planning/Budgeting: Here's the thing...I'm still not good at this. I *still* spend money that I shouldn't and I still sometimes come up short. But, it has really helped us to have a budget that we can look at. It's still a work in progress, and part of that is working on our attitude about money. I just can't help but wonder how our finances would have been different throughout the years if we had started with budgetting like this much earlier in our marriage.

Growing Food that You Won't Eat: Gardening is great, but don't plant things you won't eat (like, oh, I don't know, eggplant or something like that...you know, if one was apt to plant something like that when they didn't really like it), just because you can plant them. If you have something to do with them, fine. But, food grown simply for the sake of growing it is wasteful. I hope nobody else is a dork like me a friend I know. (For the record, at least, we only ended up getting two teeny tiny eggplants, which was for the better anyway.)

Working Outside the Home Full Time: Yes, it works for an awful lot of people in this world. And, there a whole lot of people that have no choice. I am thankful that I do have a choice, and thankful that when I did take a full time job several years ago, I recognized when I got the very first paycheck that it wasn't even close to being worth what I was giving up for it. (In interest of full disclosure, I will say that I do work parttime as an independent contractor through the state I live in, and I do work approximately 5 - 10 hours per week where I set my own hours. So, this isn't me saying that *working outside the home* doesn't work for me, just not full time or anywhere near it.)

Trying to be the do-it-all Super Mom: It's not like I haven't tried from time to time, but it doesn't work. I can't be everything for everyone all the time. By pretending that I can do it all, I steal time from the important things in my life and I make myself miserable.