Inconspicuous Consumption & Perverse Incentives

Two days ago I spent $90 on a bathing suit and $50 on rain boots. I know, conspicuous consumption is SO last year, but the bathing suit was over 50% off retail, and the rain boots are that of the classic Hunter brand and bought at a 65%+ discount. The wellies make sense; I shuttle between Boston and Chicago, where both liquid and solid precipitation is present for 9 months out of the year.

The Vitamin A bathing suit, however, had a completely different motive. I'm going to Hawaii for spring break, and since my skin has not felt the warmth of delicious UV rays since my Australia trip at the beginning of this year, I felt compelled. This will have been the first bathing suit I will have bought since sophomore year in college, and that one was bought for me by my ex-boyfriend while vacationing in Puerto Rico. Second, over-spending on what is essentially a piece of lined stretchy fabric with strings attached creates a perverse incentive to eat right and go to the gym. I usually go straight home after my Thursday early evening classes end at 6pm, but in that crucial inflection point where I was driving home, the image of the bathing suit with its less than ample bottom flashed in my head. I think perhaps that is how habits are created. You make the same choices again and again at similar inflection points, and then it becomes automatic. I'd never gone to the gym right after Thursday's class, after all, 6pm is when I become crotchety with hungry. But today, I made a different choice. Maybe the bathing suit was a good idea after all.