If I Buy This, I’ll Be Happy

One year ago this week, I was laid off and introduced to the quar. Like many other people, I took this as an opportunity to better myself. Or at least told myself I was going to better myself because, let’s be real, I’ve spent the better part of the past year horizontal with my dog on one side and a bag of sweet chili Doritos on the other. None the less, my intentions were good. And like, I’m sure, so many other people out there social media made me even more blindly confident in this. That inspiration was always fleeting, but for a solid 3 or 4 days a month I was committed to this new healthy lifestyle! I spent many a 3 a.m. on Tik Tok inspired to begin my new life the following morning! Cut to waking up at noon, seeing there’s a Roseanne marathon on, and grabbing those Doritos instead. In some small ways, though, these influenced purchases were helpful and did help me become a better version of me who now doesn’t judge myself for eating a Little Debbie brownie for breakfast. Let’s get into it!

Classes

One thing I’m a sucker for is a class! Over the past year I’ve taken a class to become a life coach, a meditation teacher class, a chakra cleansing class, an aromatherapy class, and I got my basic life support certification. If targeted ads don’t recommend them, I’ll see someone online post about how wonderful whatever class was for them and how life changing it was and I’m hooked! So much so that I was one phone call away from dropping thousands on classes to become a certified health coach. Who could blame me? These beautiful people all over Tik Tok and Instagram are raving about it! It must be life changing! In hind sight, I'm really glad I didn't spend that much on any type of class since the most I've done with my other classes is email my dad my certificate of completion so he can hang them by my sister's Master's degree.

Personalized vitamins

If you’ve ever watched a YouTube video or listened to a podcast, you’ve absolutely heard of CareOf, the personalized vitamins that come monthly in cute little pouches with your name on the box. So cute! I was sucked in through one of those, who can remember which, all I know is there was a discount code! I love a discount code! I took the assessment which was actually very painless and they advised which vitamins were best for me and my goals and they were on my doorstep soon after. I have always wanted to be the kind of person who takes vitamins (I have a cabinet full of them!) and I thought having them in little single serve pouches would be helpful. Turns out, it’s just like having bottles of vitamins for me. I still have over half of the box. However, when I remember to take them it is very handy! If you actually take vitamins everyday it’s a pretty great system.

Books, books, and more books!

Anybody else have an emotional support pile of books? It just keeps growing and growing and by the time you actually read one of them you’ve added like 12 more to the pile? This was by far my most purchased item over the past year! I somehow found my way into the reader’s section of Instagram and then that was my whole explore page for months. I’m extremely ambitious when it comes to books. When I buy them, I buy them in bulk. I think I read 4 out of the absolutely ridiculous amount that I bought over the last year. My favorite book purchase: Matilda by Ronald Dahl in Italian. Do I speak Italian? Of course not.

Resistance bands

Pinterest has to be my favorite app maybe of all time. Somehow it makes me feel like I could have my life together if I just put my hair in a nice high pony, throw on a billowy sweater, and make some zucchini bread. It's lovely! After spending an afternoon perusing cute athleisure, my home page had more and more exercise content that I was not prepared for. One of the things that stood out to me was resistance bands. I thought it was so cool that you could get a full body workout with a rubber band built for Mighty Joe Young. I hadn't used one before, so obviously I bought a five pack from some ad. I spent the next few days making a YouTube playlist of resistance band workouts and looking up different exercises on Pinterest. When they arrived, I'll be honest, they sat on the kitchen counter for a solid week. I was thoroughly intimidated by them. Once I mustered up the courage to use them I did one workout and felt so great for the rest of the day! And then was so sore for the next four days that I haven't used them since. They're still hanging out on that corner of the kitchen counter just waiting for me to get my next rush of blind confidence.

Crafts

Have you stumbled upon small business Tik Tok? If you haven’t, you are missing out! It is so wholesome and lovely; everyone supports eachother. It's wonderful content! Anyway, I was so inspired by these incredible entrepreneurs that I picked up some of the crafts that they had turned into successful businesses. I embroidered t-shirts, I learned how to make stickers, I even knit a sweater. That's correct! I knit a whole ass sweater! The only problem is I went in to each and every craft I tried completely blind. So the t-shirts are a little wonky, most of the stickers have air bubbles, and the sweater (while gorgeous!) is huge and such an odd shape. I'm so glad I did all of these things, though. It gave me something to occupy my time and I learned so much! I have so much respect and appreciation for those small business owners who do these types of crafts and thrive!

Overall, I'm not too upset with my purchases. While I could've saved a ton of money if I had stuck to the TV marathons, I wouldn't have learned as much as I did. And yes, everything was pretty much a flop, but I still an incredible time! If there's something I'm going to take away from all of these purchases is it's fun to try new things even if you don't commit to it long term. The end result isn't always what's important. Sometimes you just need to be able to say "I'm a certified life coach with who can single handedly open a library and has knit a sweater." And I hope one day I can whip out that exact sentence.