Gazingus Pins
Confessions of a Graphic Tee Addict
My Gazingus Pin: too many t-shirts.
Georgia and I recently took a trip to Charlotte to visit a friend, and we found ourselves at a bustling and chaotic street market. Local vendors from all over Charlotte lined up to sell their goods and services to passerby’s. I was holding strong, batting away the various attempts to capture my attention, until I spotted an artist selling t-shirts with cool graphic designs printed on them – my weakness. Georgia even made a comment to the effect of “oh, you love t-shirts! You should check them out” but I had already made up my mind that I would buy one as I approached the vendor with my wallet out.
Recently, I read the book Your Money or Your Life by Vicki Robin and Joe Dominguez and they introduce the term Gazingus Pin as something that you feel compelled to buy every time you pass buy it in the store, despite having too much of that stuff to even get use out of it all. The second part of the definition is important. While cutting out that daily Dunkin Donuts coffee can have a positive impact on your finances, it isn’t your Gazingus Pin. Sometimes, we love buying more and more of something, even if we have not been able to make the time to enjoy that thing in the past. Whether it’s graphic tees or, in my wife’s case, books, everyone has something sitting in their home that is unused and forgotten. I tread carefully every time she picks up a new book at the bookstore, giving her a gentle reminder about the 20 unread books sitting on our shelf at home. In her head, she tells herself she will read those books eventually, but they are not what she is interested in right at this moment, which of course she was not interested in until we walked by it. Your Gazingus Pin stems from the idea of “enough” and what that word means to you.
It’s not like I have a mountain of graphic tees sitting at home and I would never describe myself as a collector, but are there perfectly good t-shirts that I no longer wear that have moved to the bottom of my stacks of shirts, condemning them to the old but true adage, out of sight, out of mind? I would certainly be lying if I told you that I wear them all. The first step in determining what is “enough” for you is knowing where your money flows to. Just recognizing what your Gazingus Pins are puts you squarely in front of your spending problems and allows you to take a step back and think every time you come across that particular thing.
I invite you to think about anything you own that you have too much of. Do you use all the tools that are taking up space in your garage or do your kids use all those art supplies they claim they need for school each year? Once you discover how much “enough” is for you, you will be well on your way to eliminating wasteful spending habits that have been dragging you down.
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