First-ever Purchase Day

I took Friday as Purchase Day because it is 4 full weeks after the start date and because Pants told me to take Friday evening for myself.

I've making a list of everything I wanted and, in truth, it was actually pretty short. I was mentally adding a ton of things in my head, but I paid the bills before I went, which nipped that in the bud. I decided to basically stick to the list.

I purchased a trellis at Fleet Farm as planned, but added a garden bed edging for an additional $15. So Fleet Farm came to about $27. Check card.

I went to Lowes to get the thingies that would make my closet not stupid, but they didn't have a closet rod to fit them that was 5 feet long. They had 4 feet and 6 (too long), but not 5, and the rods weren't adjustable. So I just bought an adjustable closet rod instead and I'm pretty sure we have rod brackets in the garage somewhere, so I will use one of those. Plus, I bought a new number 5 for the mailbox. Mine fell off this winter. $10.23 total. Cash paid.

I then went to Target. Eep! I bought a little something for my mother for Mother's Day, a book for my cousin for her impending graduation, some nail polish for my toes (which goes along with my attempt to dress better), sunblock for the children and one for Pants to carry with him, plus some aloe for the inevitable sunburn (Pants, not the children), an outside toy for Kitten for her birthday coming up ($14.99 for a wagon and several sand toys, not bad!), and the May Real Simple. It was a bit more than I wanted, $72, but I thought I stayed pretty close to my list. I even put the cute shoes back because they weren't on the list and I didn't think I would wear them enough. Cute sandals did go on the next list, however. Check card on this one, too.

I did look at a weeding tool that I didn't buy, but probably will, even before the next purchase day. It dawned on me in the car on the way home how to use it and how easy it would make the weeding. And we seem to have a dandelion problem in the side yard and every time I try to pull them up, I just behead them. And it's a super-cool tool for only $5.99.

Plus, we broke the rules and bought blinds online Thursday night. If you have been here, you might remember we have BLACK aluminim blinds in the livingroom on our beautiful bay window. They do almost nothing to block the sun from beating in during the day and heating the upstairs up to 80 every afternoon. For the little they do, they completely shut out the sunlight and we have to turn on the lamps to see anything in here. Yet, there's still sections where the sun peeks through and blinds us. So not terrible functional, and not at all pretty. And not energy efficient either. The air conditioner was pretty much running nonstop this week trying to cool the upstairs. So we did some looking online and such and bought a set of blinds for each section of the window at nobrainerblinds.com. I will let you know how they are when they get here, but I would already recommend them. They had a sale on double-cell 3/8 inch cellular blinds, plus top-down/bottom-up option for free this month. So we got really nice blinds for the whole, huge window (all three sections) for $215. Shipping was also free unless we wanted them overnighted or sent 2-day (for $125, we don't!). So we made this purchase outside the bounds of the No Purchase rules, but I figured it was one day, I had been given the Pants blessing on it, and it will save us money and energy over time.