A Friday Chat About Podcasts and Furniture

We can’t have everything we want all at once!

MEGAN: Hello! Happy Friday!

NICOLE: Happy Friday! I am excited to find out what happens next in Shit-town.

MEGAN: AHHHHH SHIT TOWN. I started the first episode when it came out on Tuesday and I got distracted and was unable to give it my full attention. The main dude sounds like Foghorn Leghorn and I’m intrigued. That’s my takeaway thus far. Is it good??

NICOLE: It’s… like early in the first episode we learn that this guy has a hedge maze, and the podcast is also kind of like a hedge maze. You think you’re going in one direction, and then it takes this turn and you’re going in an entirely different direction. Also, the view can get a little dull at times but you trust there’s going to be something at the end.

MEGAN: Right, ok, yes. I got to the hedge maze bit and was like……okay, so he’s just a weird eccentric? And then I had to stop listening and was mad that I did! It’s so rare that a podcast interests me instead of making me angry, like the Richard Simmons one did.

NICOLE: Or the newest Bad With Money about the cost of healthcare. (Spoiler alert: too high.) Even though it was a really good week for healthcare, comparatively!

MEGAN: Given how badly it could’ve gone, yes! Healthcare “won.” And since everything else is blergh, we might as well take it where we can get it. One thing I did want to discuss today is the winding down of our Wants series, only because I read your update and was inspired to purchase towels.

Checking In With My List of Wants

How do you feel at the end of this thing?

NICOLE: I was thinking this morning about how spending $122 on new stuff felt like “nothing,” comparatively, whereas five years ago it would have felt like a lot of money. So I kind of felt lucky. And grateful.

MEGAN: That’s amazing! It’s funny how stuff like that changes. When i went on my towel/bedsheet/stuff I need from the drugstore spree, I spent around the same, in total. And maybe six MONTHS ago, that would’ve made me throw up quietly in a trash can. This time, I didn’t. It was just like, “Yeah, those towels are disgusting. Here’s a new one!” I threw away the receipts and moved on. Grateful is a good way of describing it.

NICOLE: How do you feel?

MEGAN: When I revisited my list to see how I did, I recognized a pattern that I’ve always known to be true but am becoming more and more aware of: I am much, much more willing to spend medium dollars on stuff than anything else. Like, I should buy a new desk chair. But the desk chairs are like $100+, also require assembly, seem annoying, etc. That’s not news to me, but now that I see it happening time and time again, I can at least try and prioritize the shit I actually need.

NICOLE: Oh for sure. Towels are nearly always going to be a more affordable splurge than furniture. And furniture takes more time. I keep thinking about how I want to put a few vegetable boxes in my window, like a tomato plant or something, and I think about the time and effort that might take and I’m like “nope.”

MEGAN: OMG PLANT THE VEGETABLES! But…yeah. I think about like, repotting a plant and I lay down immediately and look at my phone. I get it. Speaking of furniture purchases, though……how are things on the couch front?

NICOLE: Reclined.

MEGAN: Haha, fair enough! Thinking about buying any furniture right now seems insurmountable. If what you have works, then it works. Also, couches will not suddenly disappear. Neither will desk chairs for that matter.

NICOLE: It’s also fair to say that I have spent all my disposable income for March, so even though I could put the couch on the credit card and theoretically pay it off in April, I’d rather not. We can’t have everything we want all at once! And yeah, maybe we constantly buy the little stuff we want/need, like socks and towels, instead of the big stuff. But that’s how money works sometimes. You can afford more little stuff.

MEGAN: I find little things also hush the beast much, much quicker than a big purchase would. Like, if i buy a shirt, it checks off the want and the need and it also doesn’t put a huge dent in my finances. And it’s not like a desk chair is out of reach for me right now, it’s just my mind.

NICOLE: When we want it badly enough, as it were.

MEGAN: ExACTly. I also think that I’ll get a freaking desk chair when the one I’m sitting on collapses. That’ll be my sign!

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