Dear Readers– Some of you know this already but I am a HUGE Sex and the City fan…. let me quantify that for you.. With a glance at a frame of the show, I can tell you the plot, season and title.. and even give you a line or two.. If that wasn’t enough to prove the statement, I can also tell you whether Sarah Jessica Parker was pregnant at the time of filming.. Yeah, I am a fangirl.. and in fact.. My wedding shoes were majorly inspired by the shoes she wears in the movie.. so we have now firmly established that I am obsessed.. Okay..so that’s done.

In 2008, I was working at Dell Computer in the sales department and I said to myself, I am going to be making some serious money.. so I am going to buy myself some Manolo Blahniks.. (they are the black ones pictured below) and of course I didn’t pay cash so I paid 500.00 (not the 485 quoted for them using a Nieman Marcus credit card that I opened just for the purchase.. I also spent more money on my other credit cards that day with the same mentality. I wound up making mediocre bucks at Dell because while I am good at sales, I HATE IT. I am ashamed to tell you it took me almost three years to pay off that purchase and while I definitely enjoyed those shoes….. but they were not worth what I paid.. especially when you consider that after interest I probably paid almost 1500.00 for ONE PAIR SHOES!

So I couldn’t help thinking about that when I returned to the “scene of the crime” this Sunday for the long awaited “Debt Free Shoe Shopping”– What is that, you ask?

Well let me explain, much like Carrie Bradshaw, I LOVE shoes. I have a lot already.. so much so that when we started really getting intense about eradicating our debt last year in March, I made a promise that I wouldn’t buy shoes or movies until we were out of debt. I will be brutally honest, I really thought we would be out of debt sooner.. but as it turned out.. we didn’t get debt free till November *see here for more details on that* (https://jenniferhastonsays.wordpress.com/2015/11/17/we-are-debt-free)

So it was a longer wait to go shoe shopping than I thought. Even more so when the car decided to have issues in December and I had to be a grown up.. (groan, when did that happen?) and pay for my car repairs instead of using that budgeted money for the splurge of shoe shopping.. but at long last I did in fact go shoe shopping with some close friends and it was great.. We started at Nieman Marcus where I had fun pretending that I was rich (s0meday!!) and after trying on hats.. I love hats and purses too… Then I went over to the Gucci counter and looked at 500.00 purses (on sale even!!) but did not feel tempted at all.. then meandered to the shoe department, the smell of new shoes was intoxicating and the carpet felt lush under my feet, and I thought back to all those years ago when I bought the shoes in the first place. I remember feeling like, this will be turning point for me, I will start making good money and be able to shop like this all the time… oh and I have a wedding to wear them too, oh and hey since I am here I will buy a dress too.. really scary how fact that thinking can get you into trouble. You can justify anything, if you try and I really did justify those shoes.. But back to the present, Fun fact, the Manolos that inspired my wedding shoes were there.. but they are now.. 8 years later.. 1000.00 not 500.00.. so we moved to another store. There may come a day when I am comfortable paying 1000.00 for shoes but I don’t really think its any time soon. So we went to another store and I spent 150.00 ( half my allocated budget by the way!) for three pairs of awesome shoes. The feeling of freedom I got knowing that a payment on these shoes does not await…  was incredible.. and made the finds that much sweeter! I love that I waited, it was hard, but worth it. I also LOVE my new shoes!!!

I really feel like its important to mention the need for rewards, we spent three years of sacrificing, saving, and scrimping and working extra jobs to get out of debt and along the way we did things like this (nothing this big before) to acknowledge that hard work.

The next thing we will do to acknowledge the hard work we have done is to take a road trip to Houston, New Orleans, Nashville, and St. Louis to see family and some sightseeing sometime in April. Stay tuned to this blog for that one 🙂

What goal have YOU (that’s right you!) been working toward that is “still in process” or close to fruition.. have you had a “milestone celebration” or “getting there award” If you haven’t, I recommend planning one.. it will truly help you stay on course.

That applies whether you are in graduate school, getting out of debt or losing weight.

You get to decide what your “shoes” are.. and plan it.. put pictures on your refrigerator, write it down and make it a goal, YOU CAN DO IT!!! It will just take time, hard work, and sacrifice!

Think about it!!!