This is not a drill, this is shopping

Back in the days when I had a bit more spare money, I wasn't so great at shopping. By that I mean I often bought things I only kind of liked and would wear a handful of times. I was a silly girl and I don't have a single one of those things now. French Connection cardigans at €80 a pop or that one Ted Baker dress for €110, were among some of my more frivolous purchases. Things have changed now though and the thing is while it mostly sucks to not have much in the way of spare cash, when I do have the money I am much better at shopping. It's almost  as though my ability to shop has been streamlined to the extent where the one time a year I go on a proper shopping spree, I usually manage to impress people with the spoils of my labour. Although I will admit I do get a bit stressed when in full shopping mode so I'm not entirely sure there's all that much to the notion of retail therapy.
I do usually feel better when I buy myself one or two things so perhaps its just when I cross the line between maybe buying myself something if I see to it must buy ALL the things that things start to get a little bit tense.

 To give you an idea of my buying prowess we will take today as an example. My mum and sister were having a day out in Cork and because I'd managed to come up with some money plus somehow had a shortage of suitable clothes, decided to join them. Including two gift cards I'd gotten for my birthday I had a total budget of €230. We arrived in Cork City at 12am and the plan was we would get a bus back at 4 plus have lunch in between.  I was pretty edgy to get into shops and start looking by the time I got on the bus. I was a woman on a mission, I was going to come home from Cork with my spring/summer wardrobe mostly complete or die trying. Now I am aware that sounds a tad ambitious given my budget but I didn't let that stop me. I did make the mistake of sticking with my sister for most of the first hour who was in an altogether more browsy, take her time sort of mood while  I was trying not to panic about the fact that I hadn't actually brought anything yet. Because that's just how I roll. I spent far too long in Debenhams trying to find something I actually wanted and not just spend my voucher on anything just for the sake of it. I think I probably tried on most of the clothes in there before starting to despair and then finally found a blazer that I  really liked. This left me with roughly 40 minutes before lunch and I went off on my own at this point because I had shopping to do. Normally the reason I do so well on these shopping blitzes is that h&m rarely fails me. When I go in there and try on 30 different things I come out with 5 or 6. I only managed 3 tshirts today and then went for lunch and tried my best to not tap my foot impatiently thinking of all the shops I hadn't been to yet. 

 After lunch I had a far more successful time. I hit New Look and came out minutes later with a jumper, vest and tshirt. Then the gap and came out with Jeans, two tshirts and two vests. Finally I got a really cute Nike Hoodie in Lifestyle. I had been hoping to use my voucher on 3/4 length running pants for the warmer weather but I think I need to try shift some of the extra fat I have first so I am not displaying my wobbly ass to the gym in painted on leggings. Just because I'm sound like that and I'm pretty sure no one wants to see that.

Once I had that over with, I started to calm down a little. I had not failed at shopping. In fact I think I might have won at shopping and it's nice to win sometimes. 
In summary I came home with a blazer, a jumper, 3 vests, 6 tshirts, a hoodie and a pair of jeans. Not too shabby especially considering a few years ago I probably would have come away with a fraction of that for the same money and not looked half as good ( I was fatter then) 

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