I have a few thoughts after watching Confessions of a Shopaholic with my girlfriend yesterday. For those who aren’t already familiar with the title you probably won’t ever be and that’s OK. I’ll give a brief synopsis: this is a movie of a journalist with a shopping problem who lands a job as a personal finance columnist. She falls in love with her boss while combating her problem and evading her debt collector. Eventually all of these pieces collide and make a big mess, but the heroine perseveres through the adversity and the leading man comes and sweeps her off her feet. It is a happily-ever-after romantic comedy written and directed by the book.1.) This movie debuted in February 2009 right before the market’s crater-y bottom (right after the bottom if you go by the movie poster at right). Despite this unusual timing, I don’t think that it is an ill-timed allegory praising consumerism. Rather, I feel that it is a parody that mocks the excesses of mid-2000s in a light-hearted fashion, e.g. the main character says “When I shop the world gets better, and the world is better, but then it’s not so I need to do it again.”
2.) I realized that I’m probably similar to the main character in that I love accumulating things, but different in that these things aren’t tangible, they are financial. I have financial goals and I know the path to reach them involve heavy saving, no debt, and smart (and hopefully low-risk)investing. I'm taking that path. Many negative behaviors are curbed just by their conscious realization and this one is no different; which is why I decided to slow my stride down my financial goals-path and as a result I took my girlfriend out to a Sunday night sushi dinner and bought some books I’ve been wanting after I thought about my obsessive saving.
JDW
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