June 18: #15 Splurge and buy yourself something you’ve put off for a long time

Phil: Well, I still count this damn Macbook Pro as part of my splurge. But I did splurge some more -- this one, more practical and not nearly as fun. I’ve been skimping on my groceries for a few weeks and letting supplies dwindle. I’ve been supplementing this by eating out more or just not eating at all. So I went online and just splurged on all the things my apartment was slowly lacking more and more of. Boring stuff like toiletries and plant-based protein powder for my daily smoothie. But hey, it was a splurge. I used this program called Instacart. It’s getting delivered to my apartment tomorrow and will last me pretty much the whole summer. So, take that, splurge day. This one is far too easy. The real challenge is trying to figure out a splurge that can serve you, or serve some sort of real tangible and CHANGING purpose in your daily life. I think my splurge yesterday, and then today, both did that. Maybe we can get a sponsor to fund our next splurge day, though. Because I am cleaned out.

Bruce: This is sort of a funny prompt to have especially in our hyper – commercial society we have to battle constantly to save and stave off our impulsive purchases. I dreaded this a little bit when I got it funny enough because I'm very broke, but I did recently treat myself just the day before to plane tickets for a cross-country road trip with a friend! Today while I was playing guitar I was looking up tabs and ran into a block where I needed to buy an app for three dollars and so I decided to treat myself, it was not expensive and it will hopefully encourage me to grow and learn and is more about experience! I have been thinking a lot about materialism and collecting that we seem to do and I've been listening to the minimalist podcast a lot and trying to invest more in my goals and experiences as opposed to acquiescing to my impulses in the thousands of advertisements and encouragement to spend our money on hopefully each day. I hope you got to treat yourself! Today was a reminder that value comes from something that is useful and helpful rather than something that is gaudyor tawdry.

Tomorrow's challenge: #29 Say “no” more often. (But not to this challenge.) Refuse things. Decline offers and requests