Hi everyone! I hope you’re all well. Today is Wednesday, and it’s time for another post in the Wednesday Weekly Blogging Challenge hosted by Long and Short Reviews. If you would like to participate in the challenge, you can find the list of topics for 2024 here, and if you would like to read other people’s thoughts on today’s topic, you can do so here.
Do You Enjoy Shopping? Why or Why Not?
I grew up with a mum who loved to spend money, and she liked to spend it a lot. Even money we didn’t have leading to her getting into quite a bit of debt.
Now, she wasn’t selfish — she never bought things for herself. In fact, she would buy things for everyone else, be they family, friends, or even occasionally distant relatives.
Growing up with such a spendthrift for a parent taught me to be responsible with money. I abhor waste of any kind, but especially where money is concerned. It’s the one thing of which most people I know are in short supply. It irritates me when I see people with no money buy stuff they generally don’t need, though I think this is a much bigger societal issue.
People often spend money to make themselves feel better, or at least I think that’s why my mum did (the world is harsh place, and we all need a release) — and it can become a vicious cycle of spending and accruing debt and spending more to feel better.
So, the shorter answer to this week’s question is, no, I’m not a fan of shopping. But at the same time, for those who can comfortably afford to shop… I say go nuts. So long as you aren’t hurting anyone or yourself financially, then more power to you!
Well, that’s week 28 done. I wonder how many of you enjoy Shopping
Thank you, as ever, for stopping by and reading my words today!
Until next time,
George
© 2024 GLT
Categories: life, Wednesday Weekly Blogging Challenge
GEORGE L THOMAS 
I have a relative who does the same thing. I get it.
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I do all my shopping online. It’s much easier, especially since I do not have to queue. I’m also retired and still can not understand why some retired people shop weekly on a Saturday when the supermarkets are usually at their busiest.
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Hugh, my mum would wait until 9 am. on a Saturday, thinking that she would beat the crowds. The trouble was, that’s what everyone else thought, too.
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Yes, my stepmother still goes to Tescos at 07:00 on a Saturday morning and still moans at how busy it is. When I asked her why she didn’t go during the week when it’s quieter, she told me she likes bumping into all her friends doing their weekly shopping. The thought of them chatting with their shopping trollies across the aisle so nobody can get past sends shudders down my spine.
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Good answer! What some call “shopping therapy,” an economist friend of mine called the “hedonic treadmill” – the Sisyphean exercise of chasing pleasure through consumption.
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I hate shopping — both of my parents tended to get and keep things just in case, and as a result I’m a minimalist who’s always trying to get RID of things.
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I’m a bit like that, too, Stephen.
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In a popular series of novels for girls, mid-twentieth century, the protagonists were nice girls who had only one parent earning a good income and trying to support six or eight people on it–big Irish Catholic families plus a few adoptive family members who were so needy no Irish person could fail to bring them home. So they always had after-school jobs, scrimped to buy the groceries because they could keep what they saved, hoarded their quarters, and when they had scraped up five or ten dollars they rushed out to buy some “fashion” fad item. It wasn’t shopping, though. They were too serious to shop in the fashion boutiques, and malls as we know them hadn’t been invented yet. Either they wanted what everyone else was wearing at school, or they wanted what some especially stylish person was wearing…
I always thought that was sad. I bought books and records, and junkfood of course…I also gave money to causes and treated kids who weren’t earning their own money yet.
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My mom like to shop too but, it always when something on sale. Sometimes the items on sale are there to get you to buy more.
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You’re not wrong!
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Loved this article! My mom would take me to the store and take FOREVER so I grew up hating shopping unless I was by myself but in general I don’t really buy clothes. I like online shopping better I have to say 😀 But in general, I don’t go to stores much becasue in Germany they close at 8pm and it’s super stressful going after work or on Saturdays (because they’re closed Sundays too).. Thanks for sharing this !:)
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Thanks, Andrea! Yeah, I much prefer online shopping, I’m not great around hoards of people, especially the inconsiderate kind we tend to see more of these days.
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