Obsessive Consumption: What did you buy today?

Now available in book format, "Obsessive Consumption: What Did You Buy Today?" is artist Kate Bingaman-Burt's winsomely self-conscious take on transparency and consumer culture. Beginning in 2002, in the face of growing credit card debt, Bingaman-Burt resolved to give new meaning to the term "retail therapy" by documenting her daily purchases, first with photographs and then with ink drawings. Parking tickets, coffee, packs of gum, shoes, electricity bills, and burritos. She has been drawing something that she purchased every day since February 5, 2006.

Obsessive Consumption represents a selection of these daily drawings. The drawings in this book started as a guilty pleasure. I really enjoy looking at those daily purchases in this really helpful book, cause by looking at those drawings I realized how much I spent, do you ever feel like there's a leak in your bank account? It's like the sound of water dripping, a tiny crack through which a slow stream of money is draining away. You know it's there (because the cash isn't), but you can't find the source. You scrounge through your bank account, looking at all of your expenses, but they seem normal. So what's causing the constant shortfall, the perpetual feeling of falling behind, the sleepless nights and nagging anxiety?
The embarrassing truth is that every day, in countless idiotic ways, you (and I, unfortunately) just . . . waste . . . money. Perhaps I should start saving some money too. Ok I'll start tomorrow! =)