Sobering Years

It was the move to a tiny apartment with a “closet” in Beacon Hill and my socialist llama-farm raised practical cousin that first started the shift. 

“You and I spend our money on very different things,” my cousin Sarah laughed as we were in Whole Foods one night. 

I had just returned a few of my ‘fancier’ ingredients (read: above $4) in the menu I was planning for the weeknight. 

“What do you mean?” I said.

“I spend on things I use everyday, like nice spices or high quality warm socks. I feel like you save your money for the glamorous. You opt for fun clothing you wear once in awhile over elevating your everyday basics.”

It was a quality I got from my mother. She would purchase discounted designer clothing, but only buy socks from Costco.

While I didn’t disagree with my mother, 8 months of living with my cousin (and a tiny apartment) began to rub off on me. When I decided to move across the country to San Francisco one year later, I shed more than 50% of the clothing I had spent my first two years of salary on. Everything had to fit into my 2013 Impreza Subaru. I was too cheap to afford a moving truck and my goods weren’t valuable enough to justify a shipping cost.