Until recently, I had no idea how difficult it can be to try to buy something for yourself using birthday money. One of my friends wrote me a check for $20.00 and another gave me a gift card for the same amount. I thought it would be a lot of fun spending my friends’ money, but I was soon to discover that there is more to it than simply slapping down the cash. There is also a little problem known commonly as “now that I have the money to spend, there is nothing to buy.”

I went to town all aglow, wondering what I would buy with my $40.00 windfall, only to find once in the stores that there was nothing there I was willing to blow forty bucks on. I looked at tee shirts, and couldn’t find one I liked. I looked at costume jewelry, and decided I already have enough of that, and I looked at videos and decided there was nothing there that I wanted to see bad enough to slap down $19.98. Strange…when I earn the cash myself through my own hard work, I can toss it away just like that, but give me gift money, and I will hang on to it for years.

It’s an interesting new version of “catch 22″, having the dough in your hand and wanting to spend it, but being totally unable to do so on the spur of the moment. Spur of the moment has always been my favorite way to shop, finding stuff as you stroll down the aisles and just tossing it into your cart. It is not necessarily the most frugal method of shopping but it beats wandering up and down the aisles, looking for the one thing on your shopping list that you absolutely must have RIGHT NOW, which you will never find again in life because it has been discontinued.

I thought I might enjoy a brand new book, but found to my dismay, that I could not buy one, because I am totally spoiled by my local dollar store, where I can buy full sized, hardcover novels for a buck. Going into a store and buying the same thing for $24.95 just doesn’t do it for me anymore. I mean, so what if the novels I buy are a couple years older than dirt? So what. At least I got it for a buck, and that’s the frugal thing to do. My only concern now, is the fact that I too have published a novel. I wonder if I will someday find shelves of it for sale at the dollar store? A sad thought indeed.

Of course, if that happened, I could always buy out the store’s supply for $1.00 each, and then re-sell them for $24.95 to innocent passers-by. But would I do a nasty thing like that? Of course not. $16.95 is probably more appropriate for a paperback first novel written by a complete unknown like old What’s-her-face, the girl I see in the mirror every so often. I try not to look at her but sometimes she simply commands attention. Anyhoo, to make my long story short, suffice it to say that I did not buy a book with my birthday money.

I really don’t know what to do with that money. I can’t seem to find anything to spend it on, and it costs too much in gas to drive around looking for something that I can’t live without, so there it all sits, in my wallet, waiting for me to make a doggone decision, for Pete’s sake. I could buy myself a nice, new winter coat, except that in the summer I can’t stand to look at new winter coats, and besides, they don’t start selling those until August anyway, the hottest darn month of the year, so I don’t know how they manage to sell any to begin with.

I could buy a pair of nice sandals, but there really is no point to buying nice sandals because I will actually wear them and then they will no longer be nice sandals, so it’s cheaper just to buy a lot of cheapie sandals and wear them until they wear out. So, obviously I don’t need to buy any sandals with my birthday money. Hair do-hickeys I don’t bother to wear anyway because my hair is allergic to them and will cough them out as soon as I put them in. Necklaces I don’t buy either, because they always get caught in my hair, which will wind itself into cute little figure-eights around those dinky little latches.

I love rings but since I already own seventy million of them, I think I should probably not spend my birthday money on more of those. Clothes I also have too much of and my closet is bulging with stuff I will never wear even once in my life because after I got the stuff home from the store it no longer looked like anything I would wear while alive. Most of the above-mentioned clothing I purchased at the same dollar store that sells me my reading materials. So what, if the left arm of my favorite sweater is six inches longer than the right one? I’ll roll both sleeves up to my elbows, so my arms will be cold all winter. Hey, a deal is a deal, you know?

Okay, so no books, no sandals, no movies, no jewelry, no clothing….what is left? Computer games? Please. If I buy any more computer games my PC will start rejecting them out of concern for my poor taste in entertainment. I get into a computer game rut anyway. I will play the same game for months, rejecting all others, until finally I either conquer it, (thereby making it impossible to ever again get interested in playing it) or get bored with it, at which time I will find another game to play to death. When I get bored with that one, I’ll go back to the first one again or find another new one. My favorite thing to do is to find out how to play the game the wrong way, just to watch the crazy thing screw up.

I could buy an i-pod but can never really see the point, since I seldom even listen to the radio, let alone downloaded internet music. Frankly, it’s just a waste of good birthday money for something that is going to sit around and gather dust. Cell phones are the same way. Believe it or not, I actually considered buying a cheapie cell phone with my birthday money, until I came to my senses and remembered that I can’t talk on the phone and walk at the same time. Besides that, I don’t have time for a social life, so who am I going to call? (I can hear the world shout, “GHOST BUSTERS!!”)

New freon for my car’s air conditioner might be a good idea, considering that my current system is to open all the windows, and let the outside air blow in on my face, thereby enabling my ears to go deaf from the roar of the wind. That would probably be pointless too, considering that I never did quite get the knack of driving down the road, and correctly activating the air conditioner at the same time. There are little dials to twist, and buttons to press, all of which do about as much good as a hair dryer set on high heat. Let’s face it, I’m just not technology compatible and that’s all there is to it.

So what do I do with my birthday money? Well, the gift card makes a really great book mark for those dollar store books, and the other twenty bucks will probably eventually disappear anyway, so I guess I shouldn’t worry so much about it. I could put it into my savings account so it can grow some interest in the future, but heck….where’s the fun in that?