Fiscal Fridays: Progress (or, Shoes: A love story)

It's been a while since my last Fiscal Fridays post, but I haven't really had anything new that I could talk about in terms of finances. The Financial Diet has continued with very few slipups (though I'll admit, I do overspend a tad once in a while). But this week, something incredible happened, and I just wanted to share my progress, so to speak.

I'm not sure how the conversation started. I was watching the Academy Awards with my upstairs neighbors, and one of them mentioned that she had no idea who Christian Louboutin is. Now, I've been obsessed with his shoes since my friend introduced me to them a few years ago. (When we went to New York last summer, I even made a point to stand outside the store and drool for a bit.) So naturally, I did a Google image search and showed her several (gorgeous) pairs. And then I saw it.

A website selling overstock CL shoes. For cheap. Like, really cheap. And I saw the shoes I've been lusting after for ages: Simple black leather pumps. They'd go with anything. I could wear them anywhere. And they were beautiful.




Images via placeshoes.com
I prefer the non-platform ones, only because they're a little lower in the heel and I'm a complete klutz, but really, I wouldn't complain about either if I had them. Each pair was listed at only $89.00. I about died.

Since I transferred my credit card balance to a low-interest personal loan, my credit cards have carried very low balances. (I still use one sometimes for the points, but I pay it off as I go.) So putting a $90 pair of shoes on a credit card would definitely have been a possibility. I would just have to pay it off over the course of a few months is all. And then I stopped, cursor hovering over the "order" button. This was the exact kind of mentality that got me into huge credit card debt in the first place. And if I ever want to be debt-free, I have to change the way I think. Starting now. So I closed the browser window.

I've decided instead that those shoes will be my "reward" for becoming debt free, when I eventually do. And I'll buy them by saving up, not by charging them and paying later. And even though a little bit of me died inside when I thought about how long I'd have to wait for those shoes, another part of me started cheering. Because finally, I'm making the changes necessary to live a debt-free life.

(On a side note...has anyone used placeshoes.com before? Their "FAQs" page says that all their product is overstock and is invoiced as being authentic, but since they're not authorized dealers, they can't legally say the shoes are 100% authentic. Anyone have any opinions on that?)