Crafting season is coming to a close, which I feel deserves a moment of silence for all of the money spent during this crucial time in every sorority girl’s life. Whether it was your own cash or you were lucky enough to have parents fund the effort, we all know how much money goes into crafting. I wish I could warn all the PNM’s that they might need to start saving now if they want to have any extra to spend on themselves next summer, but I’ll settle with an educational recap of how I literally spent more money in one summer on crafts than I did in one semester paying dues.
My crafting season started out innocently enough. My mom needed something artsy to decorate with and as I am perpetually bored in my hometown I tagged along to our local craft store. As we walked in I noticed a sale on canvases, so I fixed her with my best “favorite daughter” pleading stare and asked if she would buy a few for me so I could work on some of my crafts. I think she just wanted me to have something to do besides follow her around on her errands, so she agreed and even threw in a few paints for me as well.
By the time I got home I already had a solid Pinterest board going of every possible canvas I could paint. You can say what you want about my many “talents” (binge-watching Friday Night Lights and avoiding people from my high school at Target to name a few) but if there is one thing I am undeniably good at, it is cultivating fantastic Pinterest boards. This turned out to be more of a curse than a blessing because before I knew it I had so many things I wanted to make for my little that I didn’t even know where to start. I did know that my measly paint supplies at home weren’t going to cut it, but I was not prepared for the amount of trips I would make and amount of things I would have to buy over the next few months.
Every few days I would head back to the store to grab supplies. As this holy grail of crafting supplies is in the next town over, the gas money alone was killing me. And then there were the supplies themselves. I realized I was spending as much money as I had made that day every time I waltzed in, somehow always drinking Starbucks (another cost) and wearing my letters (as if I wanted the purple-haired cashier to hate me). I eventually got fed up with all the driving and the one-too-many awkward encounters with the aforementioned cashier so I decided to turn to a closer place that I felt much more comfortable in: Target.
BIG MISTAKE. I love Target. A lot. To this day, I spend more time in Target than the average suburban mom of four. I embrace that. But Target is hella expensive, and definitely doesn’t make up for the gas money I saved by staying in town. I spent a week or so paying more for Target supplies because that is the type of pretentious person I am. But I also pay my own dues, so after a few debt-inducing trips, I decided I needed to switch back, for the sake of still officially having a little to spoil. I spent the rest of the summer racking up the coupons to my craft store as a dedicated rewards member, and never stopping to think maybe I had already made enough presents. By the end of it I was curious, so I made educated guesses on the gas money, went through my bank statements, and added the cost of a Starbucks run into every trip. Sure enough, the total cost amounted to just over what I would be spending in the next semester on my dues.
My little is going to be so spoiled next semester, so I’d say it’s worth it..
Nice Move164
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