Somebody Talk Me Down

So I am letting myself get WAY overwhelmed by a great many things: work (both mine and Todd's), health, knitting, money, bills, my crazy-ass house, cats, weird neighbors, etc. I am at the point now where I an starting to lose sleep with worry over such things. Deep down, I know that there really is no sense in allowing things --- over most of which I really have little control --- to get me all wound up. But, I am a human being, and a female, so I worry.

Several of the things on the top of my list go hand-in-hand. And are things over which I DO have control, or at least should. For instance, take knitting and money. Over the last 5 years since I've been a knitter, I have spent God-only-knows-what amount on yarn and other random knitting supplies, not even counting the stuff that I've bought and given away either as a gift or for a swap. I don't think I can even give a half-way accurate stab in the dark as to how much money I've spent. But I do know that it's a lot. Like disturbingly so. Like "what-the-crap-is-wrong-with-you-that-you-shelled-out-that-much-money" a lot. Gotta be in the thousands. Buying things in general is a weakness of mine (I'm particularly weak about yarn and anything on Etsy) and I need to get it under control.

Now.

I'm sure you've seen a few photos here on this blog about my yarn stash. It's big and it keeps getting bigger. There is no way in HELL that I would or could ever use all the yarn in my stash for knitted items within the rest of my entire lifetime. I'm convinced of that, and I'm not even that old.

So why, oh why, do I KEEP BUYING STUFF?!?

Like yesterday, I went to an online knitting store called LittleKnits and allowed myself to be sucked into buying $55.50 of yarn. It's not a ton of money. But it's still money that I didn't really NEED to spend. What did I buy? Oh, some very lovely stuff: a bag of 10 skeins of Skacel Adagio, which is a llama/silk blend DK weight yarn for $27.75 (I mean really, 28 bucks for all that yarn --- nice yarn --- is a steal) and three skeins of really nice, good-quality sock yarn in some gorgeous colors. Here's one of them. But this is all just sad rationalization. I don't need more sock yarn. I have a lot of it. Too much of it.

I seriously don't need ANY more yarn. Ever. I know this.

As I see it, my issue is two-fold. One, part of the problem is that I get an idea in my head or I see a pattern on Ravelry or somewhere on the Web and I say, "Ooh! I want to make this." So I go and find yarn that I like from some online store when really, I should go up to my yarn room and look there first. Chances are, I already have something suitable. It's just so fun to buy new yarn for a new project. And I probably wouldn't be agonizing so much if I always used what I bought, which brings me to number two: The biggest part of the issue is that 95% of the time, I don't make what I had set out to make with the yarn I purchased. No. It just sits there on my shelves. This is all kinds of wrong.

And I've only mentioned the knitting spending. :-(

With Todd's job being in an indefinite state (one of his bosses passed away about 2 months ago), and our bills being what they are, and our house needing maintenance and such, and the general state of the economy, etc., etc., it's supremely irresponsible of me to spend like I do.

If anyone has any recommendations for spending-reduction techniques that really work, I am all ears! I've tried cutting up credit cards, immediately throwing out all catalogs that come in the mail, I've even deleted my web browser off my computer at work. (This was not a good idea; you'd be surprised how much you need access to the Internet at work.)

I really do want to destash some yarn and some knitting books. But a) there just doesn't seem to be a good place to do it. Ebay is a pain and, as someone who buys from Ebay (and has sold things on Ebay), I know that people won't want to spend what the yarn is really worth. I'm not about to sell 100% cashmere for $5 a skein when it cost me $20. Etsy might be an option, but I'm not a spinner, so none of the yarn I want to sell was handmade by me, which is what Etsy is all about. I've sold a couple of things in the past on the Destash blog, but the market there is really small and there really isn't any buyer/seller protection in place. So where can I go? And b) I find it really difficult to devote the time to properly photograph and research the yarn/books I want to sell and load it up onto my computer and then the Web somewhere. I know I'm lazy; and that's another part of the problem with my destash endeavor having any real success. Again, anyone who has any good idea here, I'm totally open for suggestions!

I'm making myself nervous, anxious, and worried now. I can't write any more. Time for wine.