I have guilt!

So it is pretty obvious that I am an incredible lucky little girl, case in point I am sitting in a flat in Oxford right now!! However, it goes further than that. I am preparing to serve a mission for the LDS church, I was able to spend over a year living with my paternal grandparents while going to school in Boston, I worked on a Maya archaeological dig in Belize this summer before backpacking around Guate and Honduras, I have a family that loves and supports me, educational opportunities that seem endless, and a vast network of friends and support. I had a lovely childhood and grew up in a fully functioning family, I am healthy (except for a perpetual case of acne urg!) and mentally stable (a rarity in my field), and have an exceptional extended family of cousins, aunts, uncles, and grandparents that are always there to support me and take me on exciting adventures. In short I am a remarkable blessed young woman.

This means when I do slip up, even a little, I get incredibly guilty because I have been given so much I should use it to its fullest potential. I am my hardest critic and demand perfection while constantly falling short.

So what is the source of my current guilt you may ask? I didn't have great opportunities for work before coming to England which means I came here with a very small bank account. My parents told me that they would support me so that I could come to Oxford which means to me that I have to live on the strictest budget known to man because in my mind its borrowed money (even though they freely gave it with no thought of return). Anyways I have been doing fairly well on living within my means and found that the lower my bank account was the better I was at avoiding impulse buying and staying within a self created budget. 

Well, my lovely mum kindly put some money into my bank account this week. I immediately transfered most of it to my savings account to save it from my impulses but it seems that was not enough. Today after spending 5 hours in intense study I went out to buy a loaf of bread for lunch. I came back with 2 bags of groceries which is fairly normal and understandable but that wasn't all I brought home... I was on my way to Sainsbury's (the grocery store) when I passed by a store called "Primark". It is known for its cheap yet fashionable clothes and such. I had budgeted for an inexpensive pair of black shoes for Sundays and decided Primark would be a good place to get them. However, after a long internal battle I walked out with 2 shirts, 2 sweaters, a tank top, and the shoes. I spent almost 9x the amount I had originally planned on and am still feeling the guilt for not sticking to the budget. This was the first purchase that was not school, flat, or food related. Hopefully I won't do anything like it again till I am back in the states. To be fair the final total was about 30 pounds so nothing excessive but once again it was not part of the plan.

Why can I not control the impulse buying... not that's not quite right because I really liked everything and it looks good so I think its more a matter of - why do I not have the self control I want yet?