Saturday, February 14, 2009

Budget Cuts :(

All right, this is going to be a bit of a rant, so bear with me...

As many of you know, I buy a lot of books. A lot. Part of it is because I don't have much of a choice if I want to read romance novels in English. Another reason is that's just part of my personality. I like to own things that I like, collect them.

Quite frankly, yes, the amount of money I spend on books is quite considerable, but it's my choice. Books are pretty much my only expense. Beside books, the only thing I can think of is food - I eat out a lot and have difficulty resisting buying snacks to complement my lunch. I go out with my friends perhaps once every two weeks... but it's not like we're doing anything special... Again, just more eating and hanging out... So yeah, besides books, my life is pretty boring.

Thing is, yes books are my only expense, but my initial salary is not very high either. Oh I can manage just fine and it helps that I don't have much bills to pay or a family to support. However, with the economy being what it is... Well, let just say I got a complaint from my mom yesterday when she found two packages from Indigo in the mailbox ^_^;

My parents would like for me to buy less books and save a bit more money... and I totally understand what they're saying... I have to admit I'm not saving much money from each paycheck (I give my parents half my salary for living expenses)... but buying less books? I've tried to limit myself in the past, either with a budget or a list, and it just doesn't work. I have no will power... Add to that I'm an impulsive buyer, especially when I need cheering up ^_^; If it's not new books, then there's always UBS ^_^; Then, there's manga also - although, that's going well because I have completed many series...

So what to do? LOL - eat less comes to mind! That might help me lose some weight :P

Probably doesn't help that I have a few trips to the bookstore planned for the afternoon right? I have to go to the UBS to pick up a book that they put aside for me. Plus, I have a few 25%-off coupons on ONE item only valid today. I guess if I'm still going to buy books, it's good that I'm able to save more than usual on them, right? Right?

Also, I was trying to gauge what were the new releases in the upcoming years and how many were going on my TBB list. Of course, the list is probably incomplete, because you're never sure of what is coming out till it comes out... anyway, while making that list, I realized that the CDN prices for books had increased :( Booooo. Seems like publishing houses have re-adjust the CDN prices of books based on the de-valuation of the $CDN and let me say, it sucks! Seems like the changes of prices are going to start in April. Sigh, I understand why they're doing it... but still T_T Guess I can only hope that the $CDN will go up again in the next few months and that the prices will drop down again.

Oh! By the way, Happy Valentine's Day!
Sorry to troubling you my troubles...