Excuses, excuses

What are your shopping excuses? I'm sure that you must have some too. You know, the lines that you throw out when trying to justify an extravagant purchase to your mother/sister/boyfriend/friend/yourself. I read a piece by Maggie Alderson explaining hers and it reminded me how silly we can all go over buying things. Here are my top five excuses:

1. "I study journalism, so I actually NEED to buy all these magazines."
After clothing, magazines are probably my biggest expenditure. I am voracious when it comes to new reading material. My sister doesn't often complain about me filling the house with magazines, probably because she gets to read all the magazines for free when I'm done with them, but Cam does sometimes raise a questioning eyebrow when I say "Oh, I just have to stop at the newsagent's quickly... again..." Some people agree with me (fellow journalist students, mostly), while others (mothers) claim that reading magazines doesn't actually count as studying. Pfft.

2. "It was on sale, so technically, I saved money."
I am (in my opinion) a great bargain hunter. I haven't paid full price for anything from a chain store for about a year. However, it doesn't really count as a bargain if I didn't actually intend to buy it in the first place. Recent items to have fallen into that category have included a pleated back dress with horrible, unflattering spaghetti straps, a 70's looking maxi dress that's too low in the front AND the back, and a great big pair of earrings shaped like birds. But who can resist fifty percent off the sale price?

3. "I bought it online when the Australian dollar was doing so well."
Well, the Australian dollar IS doing well. Remember a few years ago when it was something like 60 cents to the US dollar?! It gives me great pleasure going on currency converters and only seeing a few dollars difference between the US price and Australian price. This is not so much a justification as it is a happy fact.Well done dollar.

4. "I have a fashion blog, so I NEED some new stuff. To, um, write about."
Probably the weakest justification ever.

5. "Well, at least I'm not spending the money on crack and heroin."
Actually, I stand corrected. THIS is the weakest justification ever.

So, I'm sure you must have excuses that you use. Especially after the craziness of Black Friday and the soon-to-be insanity of Cyber Monday. Come on now.

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