maximising the buy:shop ratio

I've shared on this particular hobby horse of mine before, but it wouldn't be a hobby horse if it... went professional?... hang on, think I've lost track a bit here. Anyway, today I went on a buying trip to Wellington.

Now many people go on shopping trips, an experience I detest greatly. To me, shopping is spending time failing to buy things, whereas (and this is the quite profound bit) buying things is actually buying them. I am reconciled to the fact that needing to buy things—oh, take clothes as a completely random example—is a fact of life. However, in my view spending much time shopping for them is not necessary. After some years of experiencing shopper's frustration, I realised that what I needed to do was to maximise the ratio between time spent buying versus time spent shopping. Being a person of a certain height and furthermore particular arm length, shopping can be doubly frustrating—the majority of clothes out there simply do not fit, I can never buy anything on sale, and for certain items I routinely require custom tailoring.

One technique I've developed over the years to minimise my aggravation is to do as much buying as possible all in one go, so I can then do no shopping for as long as possible. Around the time I acquired my first cufflinks I went on to buy at least four shirts, three or four pairs of trousers, and a few other things. I've then rested, for almost 18 months, I believe buying not a single item of clothing in that period.

Well today it was time again. With Bronwyn's encouragement that I need some additional items in order to look at least slightly presentable at her family wedding on Saturday, I set out to find a jacket. I found one—it's been altered this week—and added to the list two work shirts, two outdoors layers for hiking and getting about, a haircut, a power plug to rewire a British cable, and just to cap it off I am having a third (particularly nice) shirt made to measure. Phew.

Somewhere around that I caught up with Sally for lunch, another good friend we've missed while we've been away. This is what makes being back great.

And I won't have to shop again for most of the rest of the year.  :D