Celebrating Small Wins

…and I mean small!

Last week I made several impulse buys: new clothes (for me), books (for me), face wash, hair treatments, etc. It was all stuff I didn’t need and wasn’t on our lists. They were just purchases I made without thinking and, duh, on impulse.

Because they were impulses, once I got home I suffered from “buyer’s remorse” and was able to return them. In the course of two days I returned over $200 of impulse buys. Things I didn’t need and didn’t even really want. (I don’t know why they even ended up in my basket!)

Unfortunately, I think a lot of our debt was due to this: mindless shopping!

I would love to adjust my spending habits to have more mindful spending.

Another small win this week was when we took my mom out to dinner for her birthday. She turned 77 this past week and when we went to dinner, only her meal came out correctly. (I guess if only one was going to be right, I’m glad it was hers!) My meal, called the triple dipper, came out without any dipping sauces. The Husband’s came out without any avocado, and The Daughter’s took forever to come out at all; and all she ordered was soup and salad. I complained to the manager and “for our trouble” we received 50% off all of our meals and a free dessert. Complaining to the manager, in a civil manner, saved us $40.

The Boy is promoting from 8^th grade to high school at the end of this year and as a surprise, his school had him take pictures in a cap and gown. The printed pictures then get sent home with an opportunity to purchase or you can send the whole package back and get nothing. That is, of course, how they get you. I was proud of myself for two reasons though: one, I only bought one sheet (instead of 5) of pictures and we had the money to pay for it out of our “school” envelope. That was nice to have some money set aside to pay for something we were going to need.

I don’t know if this is financial win, exactly, but I’m putting it in the win column. As the temperatures have been heating up, The Kids have spent more and more time in the pool. One night, we also heated the spa and the “bubbles”, or jets, on the spa weren’t working right. They have two speeds, low and high; well, high stopped working. We have a home warranty on the house, purchased for us by our realtor, which covers the pool and spa. We filed a claim and only had to pay our $75 fee. The end result is “it needs a new blower”, which is covered under the warranty…YEAH! I don’t know how much a blower is but I’m assuming it’s more than $75. (It’s only sort of a win because who wants to have to use their warranty?) I’m not happy the blower went out, but I am happy it went out before our home warranty was up and that it is a covered issue! A quick search on Amazon came back with an average of $150 for parts, plus we would have needed to pay for labor if we had to pay for this ourselves, so $75 is a deal.

(*In our first house, which was much older than our current house, we only made one claim on our home warranty policy, for an electrical issue. In our current house, we’ve made three claims: a pipe/shower issue, a problem with our oven, and now with the spa. I’m very glad we had the warranty this year and feel the $225 we’ve paid out total (in consultation fees) has been money well spent and I’m very thankful to our realtor for the gift of the warranty!)

None of these things are “big” deals, except maybe the spa blower, and still none of them make a huge impact on our finances, but they are wins. Wins should be celebrated, no matter how small, so that you recognize them when you see them!