Are you an actual or self-proclaimed millennial? Are you a teacher? Mother? Wife? Professional in any capacity? A human being? Entered a Target while it is light outside only to emerge when it is dark with no concept of time? If any of this applies to you or someone that you care about, stop what you are doing and read this.
Before you leave your home today, stare at yourself in the mirror and repeat this in an even, controlled tone that suggests “anthem” or “mantra.”
1. You do not need anything from Target. Even from the “dollar deal” section. Not new shampoo. Not another wicker basket. Not even a fake, mini, magnetic succulent in a precious ceramic vase to grace your refrigerator or your whiteboard or your file cabinet.
2. “Just to see what they’ve got” is not a valid reason to enter Hobby Lobby. Despite your 40% off coupon.
3. You do not need more pens. Go through select personal bags, your vehicle, drawers, and your desk. They are there. And they are the ones you like.
4. You do not need more bins. Stop it.
5. You do not need more notebooks. Despite the "perfect line spaces" or the "quality of paper" or the fact that "the pages are pastel, though." Ones you have already purchased this year, or last year, or in the summer of 2014, remain empty because “you don’t want to ruin them.”
6. There is no evidence to support the need for purchasing more than one planner per calendar year. As a matter of fact, the one “you loved and had to have” last year that you spent too much on personalizing from Etsy was a two-year one and contains, at the very least, the rest of 2020. Additional pages can be purchased at a low and reasonable price to continue using it. The small business owner whom you purchased it from bought a new car for her teenaged son and a speedboat for her family lakehouse with the commission gained from your one purchase. You aren’t even in love with the font you chose.
7. Storing purchased items in the back of your car to sneak into the house when your spouse is in the shower or doing work in the backyard does not magically deposit the money spent back into your bank account.
8. Erin Condren and Martha Stewart are enabling you to repeat past behavior and perpetuate the targeted spoon-feeding of the millennial addiction to office supplies.
9. Going into The Container Store one more time might be the “last straw” in your marriage. Severing the very financial partnership you have established together.
10. Going into the store “real quick” to grab bread and the box of cereal your six-year-old requested and not getting a cart to “prove you can do it and that is all you are getting” is not research-based. Based on current data, you are now 79% more likely to spend more than you intended. Playing Tetris with unneeded items across your chest, holding unnecessary toiletry items between your arm and sides, transporting a throw pillow (albeit clearance for personal justification) between your knees, and using the elastic band connecting the pink rain boots around your neck, all while waddling to the self-checkout balancing beef jerky on top of the already-smashed loaf of bread (you forgot the cereal), is not efficient nor healthy. You can avert your eyes from the obnoxiously-clear HD screen capturing your live image all you want. You can even break up your purchase between two gift cards, cash, and your debit card to create the ruse to yourself that you have somehow spent less.
11. While looking for those pens you already own, grab highlighters and post-it notes while you’re at it. You don’t need any more of those either.
12. There is a nail polish somewhere in your home that will satiate your need to provide your own “self-care.” It’s even likely in the perfect shade of mauve.
13. Lunch bags? Pencil cases? A letter board that you never update? A 100-count of new, perfectly-thin markers to use on your new, adult coloring book to ensure you maintain peace and patience? Nope. You aren’t going to color. You don’t have time. And you own the already-desired markers that you are “eyeing” on the end cap. Your children have just emptied out the heavy-duty case and deposited them throughout your home and backyard. The green one (“pine green” to be exact); however, is indeed missing.
14. To search for owned supplies and arts-and-craft items that you have not located, it has been suggested to lift up all couch cushions and peer underneath decorative shelves and bookcases containing the perfectly-stacked books you just had to purchase that you haven’t even read. Even if you did “save money” by purchasing them “used” from Half Price Books.
15. Do not enter Barnes and Noble. For any reason. You do not need a $50 throw blanket containing twelve first lines of classic novels.
16. Returning items you are ashamed of purchasing does not remedy your current situation. You are just 38% more likely to return the items previously purchased and spend the same amount (actually $8 more) than the original amount on other things.
17. “But I got it from Ikea” is a well-intended yet self-enabling excuse for the chronic buyer. Even if you chose a less-expensive item than desired and crafted it into something else as a trend that you saw on TikTok.
18. Yeah, Dollar Tree is cool. Until you spend $62. On 62 less-than-quality items. Better, sure, because the same items would have rung up $179 at other select retailers. But not a solution nonetheless.
19. Forget about “cute” door stops altogether. And the only one calling you a "boss babe" is you.
20. If you have ever searched for “cute black white striped free background succulent hand lettering transparent” on Google, quarantine for 21 days. And enter a rehabilitation facility.
Repeat as needed.
Note: This is based on fictional characters. This is absolutely not based on any autobiographical or biographical information and is not gleaned from my own current state for the past decade. All of the items on this list are fabricated and have not been actual experiences from this year. There is no correlation between this list and people that I know nor have worked with. Nor do I have any personal vendetta against professional individuals that create attractive products for the organized and working professional.