I’ve mentioned this in the past– about how I shop in spurts. Part of it is time– it’s hard to find hours to mill about the mall with a job and a family. But part of it is also keeping temptation at bay. I love to shop and know I’ll find plenty to buy if I give myself the opportunity. Which leads to guilt. Which leads to returning items. Which leads to more buying. Which leads to a stern conversation with myself about wants and needs. And then I inevitably end up on Monday morning with a pile of new clothes and nothing that seems to go together.

So on my most recent trips, I’ve spent maybe $100 on my kids for several outfits and a couple pairs of shoes and multiple pairs of sunglasses (why do I even try with a 2 year old? I don’t think I owned a pair until I was in high school…then again, they were only $2.50).

On myself I spent in the ballpark of $150 for three shirts, two pairs of pants, some jeans, and an $89 sweater I never would have bought but did thanks to $125 in gift cards at Banana Republic that I earned through my rewards credit card.

And still I found myself second-guessing whether I really should have bought much of it –even the $3 and $4 sweaters at Gymboree. My daughter would be happy to wear the same skirt every day of the year if I let her (and maybe I should). So what drove me to buy any of this stuff at all, except that it was cheap? And it was there?

But then I popped on over to MSP-Magazine and came across the tally that accompanied this blog entry about shopping with toddlers and I realized that I didn’t even go close to overboard.

Shoes at Nordstrom, $78. Summer wardrobe additions, $400. Ride at MOA, $20 pass. Lunch in sunny courtyard, $19. Photo booth, $5. Shopping with my daughters, priceless.

I’d revise the shopping with my daughters phrase to include the words annoying, distracting, frustrating, and expensive. I know when I’m with my daughter I tend to spend way more than I do when on my own because I listen to her opinions and find myself raising the threshold for how much I’m willing to spend on kid’s clothes (usually, no more than $15 on anything– going above $10 makes me cringe). And then we get home and she refuses to wear what I bought her anyway.

In other retail news, the latest survey from the National Retail Federation found that 40 percent of Americans plan to spend some of their rebate money, although much of that will go for necessities. But I’ll bet that when that money appears and people see that puffed up bank account balance, at least some of that money goes to buying that ump-teenth pair of toddler sunglasses.

Being a consumer in this country is an identity that’s going to be tough for many to shake.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, May 13th, 2008 at 2:07 pm and is filed under shopping, spending. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.