Hanging With the Boys

Last night I had a great time playing my favorite Nascar 2009 Video Game with my best friend Rob. I realized that I was having all of this fun, when I looked at the clock and I saw that we had been playing for almost two hours when it had felt like 20 minutes. All day I had been telling all of my friends that asked me about my plans for the evening that I was going to be playing Nascar with Rob. They all looked at me like I was crazy, but I just had a huge smile on my face like I was about to go shopping. When I was younger, video games were never something that I got into, but whenever my brother got a racing game, I was all over it. Now that I am older, my love for racing games is still quite prevalent. With all of the adrenaline pumping through your body, trying to get to first, its just a great way to relax after having a hard week. Now I'm not saying that for me playing a video game is a better form of relaxation than shopping. However it is a lot cheaper and you do not even have to leave your house and it is a great group activity.

Hell Week

So this week is Hell week and luckily it is almost over. So far there has been no time for anything other than studying for tests and writing papers. I have had very little time to talk to my boyfriend or my parents and some of my friends think that I have fallen off the face of the planet. Getting good grades is very important to me because the better grades I get, the better I do in school which leads to the possibility of a better job. Also getting good grades doesn't hurt, especially because it means that my parents will buy me better gifts i.e. more expensive gifts, for Christmas and my birthday. While Hell Week means that there is less time for shopping online and in-store, it also means that when it is over, some serious relaxation will be needed in the form of retail therapy. I only have a few more days until break and when I finish with finals, the mall better watch out for me back home. I know that since it is the Holiday season, there are a lot of sales, but I need to do my research first and make sure that  am paying the appropriate amount for the merchandise. School really does come in handy because it teaches you how to shop. You already know how to do research so when looking for the best product for the best price, you will be able to do so with ease. When it comes to trying to figure out how much you will save before you get to the cash register, math will be used to decipher the  what the price will be after you get that percent off. Finally, having the drive to get the best grades and making sure that you have done your best on a test is easily equatable to making sure that you got all of the things you needed and for best that  money can buy. School actually is useful in life and I'm glad that I payed attention.

Online Shopping

So I kind of missed Cyber Monday because I was in the midst of trying to get back to school from Thanksgiving Break and I also had a lot of work to do. For once I had my priorities correct, according to my parents. On that Tuesday, I talked to my friend Justin who had taken advantage of Cyber Monday and he said that he did really well with it. He said that if you could get past all of the store’s websites crashing and the extreme slowness of the Internet, it is a very useful day. While I am more so a fan of Black Friday than Cyber Monday, I personally feel that next year I will make the attempt to try out Cyber Monday as long as I am not traveling or have school work to do. The deals on Cyber Monday are just as good as Black Friday if not better and you do not even have to leave your house. Cyber Monday is one of those unofficial holidays that you should take advantage of. For those of us who have class or work, it’s a great way to get our holiday shopping done all in one swoop. Now that I get emails from all of my favorite stores about their deals that they have for the online inventory, it makes me really want to take part in Cyber Monday next year. Online shopping does have it’s Pros like its easy to access the merchandise and sometimes you can get special deals online that you can’t get in store. You also save gas, which is nice because gas prices are getting to be quite expensive. All in all, online shopping in general is a pretty good thing as long as you know your exact size and you do your research. 

Personal Shopping

So I have been heavily shopping for other people so much, that I completely forgot that I need to create a list of things that I want for people to buy me.  After being reminded of this multiple times by my mother and father, I decided to create a specific list for different people. My list for my brother includes jewelry from my favorite jewelry store Tiffany and Co., while my lists for my parents include more expensive things like coats, shoes, blazers and any and everything that is way too expensive for me to buy myself. I have recently re-fallen in love with J.Crew and my top things on my list are a coat from my new favorite store. The great thing about making a christmas list is that it is a list of things you want and not necessarily things that you actually need. As I get older, I have noticed that I tend to more or less ask for things that I actually need, but these things are better quality than what I would buy for myself. On my college budget I would go to less expensive stores like Forever 21 and H and M to buy my clothes, but since my parents have a lot more money than I do, well and a steady job, they have the resources to buy me the things that I want from the stores that when I am by myself I tend to just look in rather than buy something. The holiday season can be very stressful, for some people when it comes to shopping, but if you remember to take a deep breath and buy yourself or ask for something you like,  you will be able to get through it successfully and stress-free.

Holiday Shopping

So now that it is the holiday shopping, there are sales everywhere. Stores send you emails and letters in the mail. You see commercials on TV and even hear them on the radio. For shopping addicts like me, sometimes it is hard to ignore these messages. I went to the mall the other day with my friends Rob and Justin with the only intentions of helping Rob find Christmas presents for his Mom, Sister and Girlfriend. We walked to the mall to go to specific stores, only because Rob does not like to shop. I saw a sign outside of Express saying that there was a sale. I walk in because we could get a present for Rob's Girlfriend there, however I somehow manage to walk over to the men's side. I realize that I need to get my boyfriend a birthday and christmas present so I buy both gifts at the store. I got the items on sale and I even got my younger brother a present too. I rationalized that because the items were on sale,  it was ok to buy them. I am on the Express email list, so I already knew that they were having a sale. I am proud of myself because I set a budget for myself on how much I will spend on people and I stuck to the budget, well for now. I have decided to to do my best and even if I know someone will love something, if I say that I am done shopping for them, than I will not buy them another gift until their birthday. This will be hard for me because I love to shop, but I know that I can stick to goals that I set for myself, no matter how hard they are to accomplish. Here's a video on more tips for holiday shopping.

The First One

My love for shopping comes from my Grandmother. She was quite a fashionable woman and her and her sisters loved to shop. When I was born, I was always in the latest fashions. My family always made sure that I had more than enough of what I needed and needless to say this led to me being a spoiled baby. Ever since then, I have had a need to always have more than enough and to always be updated on the latest fashion. During my younger years I had some rough patches. My parents wanted to make sure that I looked good, however my mother's fashion sense wasn't on the same level as my Grandmothers so needless to say I some days where I would look very close to being straight busted. Luckily my mother did have sense enough put together nice outfits for me when I actually did leave the house. Now that I am older, I have the ability to pick out my own outfits and do my own shopping. When I lived at home my parents would pay for most things that I wanted. However now that I am out of the house, I am more or less on my own, even though there are times when my parents do contribute. Luckily my parents taught me how to save money, not just when it comes to not spending all of the money I earn or receive money as a gift, but also when it comes to bargain shopping, using coupons and looking for the best sales. Shopping with a limited amount of money is an art and also a necessity. For people out there like me, you have to shop and in this economy you have to do it smart.