"Men pitch Mighty Putty, not Tupperware."

I didn't want ANYTHING to be advertised to me today. Not that yesterday was horrible, and expensive, and I'm running out of cash... which is true, but today was to be a very important day for me at work.

I arrived at the office at 7:45am. On the way there I didn't see any advertisements that really caught my eye. I sat down and ate my homemade breakfast of instant oatmeal with dried cranberries and some fiberous weird grain crap I found in the bins at the store a few months ago. I got to work right away. We use mostly internal websites, so I don't really see many online ads throughout the day unless I go online to a social networking site or eBay, etc. Today I wouldn't really have time for that.

I made it all the way to lunch before I bought my first product. When lunch came at 3pm, I sat alone in the conference room eating a bowl of canned chili with spicy potato chips crumbled on top. I found the bag of chips in the room and snaked 'em for myself. Free: No advertising necessary. I turned on ESPN (we have a nice flat screen in there) and within a few minutes I was purchasing a "wow Tupperware set" that stacks neatly in a pile. The lids are bottoms and the bottoms are lids; everything is interchangeable. It's a good idea really. The spokeswoman (men pitch Mighty Putty, not Tupperware) had just doubled the offer for two sets for $19.99. Evidently, these things are so cutting edge that I couldn't even find a picture for them on Google to put on this blog.

Sadly, I think that's the only thing I bought today. Oh never mind, my sister Brigit just said we saw an "Umcka Swedish cold medicine" commercial. I just had to Google the price, which is breaking one of the rules of my blog. It's $9.99. Cutting edge medicine? Sold.

My lack of buying leads me to the lesson for today... I started the day very focused. I finished the day focused. I worked a lot in-between. I had homemade breakfast and lunch. Then for dinner, post-gym (which is an ad-free two hour chunk of my day), Brigit and I ate baked pizza, microwaved pasta, and microwaved potatoes. That reminds me that at the store tonight, among the thousands of point-of-sale items like gum, razors, disposable cameras, and pocket size lint rollers, there was one advertised item larger than the others: an eight-pack of AA batteries for $4.99. I'll count that as my third and final item. Oh yeah, back to the lesson... if you don't want to be advertised to you, they don't come to you. Well, they're still there, but you don't care. You don't notice them. Yesterday when I was out and about much more, and in a different mood, I had lots more advertised to me. Or so it seemed. But a more likely answer is that yesterday I was more susceptible to becoming a victim to the ads around me.

Today's total: $34.97
Running month total: $630.01

Today's homework: what moods make you want to purchase more? Do you do retail-therapy when you're sad or upset? Or do you do extra shopping when you're happy?