I nearly went for it yesterday. On the back of a sh*tty day and a late finish at work, I almost, almost, went for it.

My head was turned for a moment because I was low, and the solution in front of me was to get something to cheer myself up.

That ‘get something’ was in the form of buying a big-ticket item. I had my eye on a camera… I do not need another fecking camera. But it would have felt good to buy another camera because it is something new. It would also be a distraction from the flight notification for the day I was supposed to fly but didn’t because, well, pandemic.

I didn’t buy the camera because I knew I would have felt crappier the next day. I would have had the whole buyer’s remorse thing without having the bottle and strength to take the camera back for a refund. It was not easy to walk away, but I did. After deliberation, number crunching and arguing out my justification, I managed to talk myself out from buying the camera.

This is where my resolve was tested. Still feeling crap, I stopped for a coffee, took out my phone, and surfed my shopping app. Like a three-act play, the heroes journey, the Shakespearean twist… up popped the camera in my feed. (how do they know that I was looking at that camera in the store!!) Low and behold, the price of the camera on here was discounted.

Aghhh, feck right off you horrible basturd of a phone app. It continued to torture me by dangling the added extras included in this excellent one-off price.

I had to concentrate on avoiding making the pity purchase. But it was not an easy struggle. I continued to run the numbers, and then, just as I was losing the battle, something ran into my shopping app feed. Like a white knight brandishing the Excalibur, this four-pound giant of a purchase ran to the rescue.

I mean it was four pounds in price, not in weight. It arrived on my feed just in time. It was a perfect distraction, and I bought it. Buying it eased the need to purchase something to appease my crappy day, and it was cheap as a big bag of chips.

I am now the proud owner of a wristband that will hold my action camera, and it will arrive today by post. This is awesome because I get the high of buying yesterday and an additional high for receiving the parcel and opening today.

The moral of this story is that there is sometimes no need to buy a big-ticket item if shopping is your go-to drug for dealing with a shit day.

Sometimes you just need to spend a penny.