Stumbling, stumbling – Days 18 and 19

These last few days have been tough! I am not exactly sure what happened.

We had dinner out (first time in the whole month, so that is impressive, but not spending fast friendly!). $19.50 for a ton of vegan Indian food (buffet).

I spent $11.71 on snacks and soda. That is from falling back into my old ways. Something else that makes me sad about this is that it’s not just soda but some of the snacks were non-vegan. Fod some reason, being in school makes me crave the comfort of cheese and eggs and ice cream and donuts. This has to stop. I made up some unbelievably delicious vegan cookies last night that I am going to put in my car — no excuses!

But the biggest thing from falling back into my old ways, I stopped by a craft store yesterday and bought stuff to make a skirt.

I am not exactly sure why. I haven’t sewn a skirt in a awhile. This is the only way I can imagine it happened.

1.) I watched SNL and loved the dress the girl in the band was wearing.

2.) I surfed onto SewWeekly.com and fantasized for awhile.

3.) I saw Hobby Lobby on the way home.

4.) I stopped, shopped and spend $30 on fabric and a pattern.

I was mentally scolding myself on the way home. You can’t return fabric, so I just felt overwhelming guilt.

I even didn’t want to post about it. $30 on absolutely nothing, but I am glad I did, because it has inspired me to try to return the pattern ($12), and really do something important with the fabric.

Skirts are fine, but I have plenty. I also have plenty of jeans and pants. And shirts and sweaters and dresses.

So what can I do with $18 worth of brown and yellow fabric that would make it worth it? That I would actually use? That would vindicate it for me to have purchased it?

Here are a few things I am thinking about making:

2 headbands: http://sewing.about.com/od/healthbeautyitems/ss/Free-Pattern-Sew-A-Headband.htm (Value to me, $5)

8 cloth napkins: http://www.designsponge.com/2008/10/diy-wednesdays-cloth-napkins.html (Value to me: $4)

Library tote bag: http://thelongthread.com/?p=3257 (Value to me, $10)

I will work on these this weekend and see what I come up with.

3 day weekend, days 15, 16, 17

We are getting to the end of the month, one and a half weeks left!

My husband’s cellphone and motorcycle insurance were taken out this past weekend. He has a Dr Appt and will pick up his medicine today, and then all we’ll have left to pay for this month is gas and groceries.

Speaking of gas and food, this weekend was pretty expensive on “wants”. My husband took a few friends hiking yesterday and even though they paid for his lunch and dinner, he still spent $27 on gas. Meanwhile in town, I bought my husband a $15 bedside table of Craigslist, I bought myself a $5 shirt from Goodwill to wear under my scrub top (required), and then blew $20 on lunch for myself and my mom, snacks and soda.

I was pretty bummed about that $20 until I realized that blowing $20 like that used to be a regular thing, every day or two. In retrospect, I would have been happier making granola bars, hummus and iced tea.

Day 14 — Yippie! Reaping benefits!

Today I checked and double checked our bank account, and even though the last couple of days have been relatively pricey and we still have more expenses coming up this month, I decided we had enough extra to go ahead and pay off our credit card bill.

Normally we pay $100 a month to pay the total off in 6 months, no interest (we were completely broke when we “bought” $600 worth of tires for our car on credit very shortly before the car decided to “give up the ghost”, lessons learned the hard way).

This month our balance was $271. I attribute our ability to pay this much entirely to the money saved during the 2 weeks we’ve been on a spending fast. I also can’t explain how happy it makes me. It makes me 100 Diet Dr Peppers happy.

Now I get to update our debt snowball. And think about new goals! Our remaining debts are a LOT bigger, but we can now use the $100 a month we were paying towards this bill for the IRS, my car and my student loans. Yippie!

Day 12 & 13!

These have been some expensive days! Almost every expense has fallen under “needs” versus “wants” but they have been adding up.

We had a payment taken out for the IRS ($105), a payment to my husband’s professional organization ($32), car insurance ($52) and today I have to buy that school software ($136) and get my oil changed ($42). The only “want” we paid for was our membership to Hulu + which is $8 a month. I will probably buy some groceries on my way home from school tonight.

We are getting closer to the end of the month, though, which makes me proud of our accomplishments so far. We have about 5 more planned expenses coming up (my dog’s vet plan, motorcycle insurance payment, credit card bill, my husband’s medicine and cell phone). We will probably need to get gas 2 more times this month, as well.

Then next month, we’ll start all over.

I made a big jug of iced tea today because I admit to raiding the change jar for quarters for a soda a couple of times. I am also planning to make some granola bars to take to eat after school tomorrow. Hopefully I will have enough enthusiasm after school today to make lasagna

I finally got rebated for our double charge from the hostel we stayed at in New Mexico. I took that money and put it straight into the savings account so it will earn some interest.

Day 11 – Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice…

My lunch today was super yummy, and I remembered my iced tea.

Unfortunately it was AFTER school that I got hungry and thirsty. I am about 45 minutes away from home, so I decided to go ahead and stop for a snack.

Next time, I must also pack snacks for after school. Only way about it.

Total for today: $2.75.

Day 10 — whooooops!

Last night I relaxed and didn’t really do anything to get ready for the week. My huband kept asking what was for dinner and eventually I said: you fix it! He made two big amazing pizzas. Love that man!

My lack of forward thinking bit me in the rear this morning.

I mentioned I needed to give $10 to a classmate. I had many opportunities this weekend but kept putting it off. This morning I realized I needed to go a few minutes early to go by the ATM to get $10.

I rushed to get out the door a little earlier than usual. I remembered my lunch (thank goodness for my husband’s cooking) but forgot my iced tea.

I found out when I got to the ATM that I could only get out $20, not a $10 like I originally intended.

So I had $20 and needed to break it before I got to school and my classmate. I also realized I forgot to put on deodorant (jeez!).

I ran into the corner store to get deodorant. They had none, but I needed to break my $20 so I bought a can of soda for $1.

I realized when I got into my car that I was still going to need deodorant today. I stopped by the drug store, bought the cheapest I could find that was neutral scent I thought (unfortunately my husband says I smell like the women’s department at JC Penney’s). I  made it to school barely on time.

Delivered the $10 and then had some risidual dollars floating in my pocket all day.

Obviously that is dangerous… I bought 2 more sodas and a snack just because the money was “there”. My plan now is to take the remaining money and deposit it into the bank ASAP! Even if it’s not much. Since every penny counts. For now, I am admitting that I withdrew $20 from the bank today. $10 falls under “School expenses” (in my mind, justifiable spending) and $10 falls under “Wants”, which I am trying to avoid spending on.

This was a good lesson for me this AM, that even though lunch is important, a big icey drink is also very important to me. If I forget my tea or whatever from home, I may be too tempted to pay a premium for one later. Also, deodorant is important enough to keep a stick in the car. And having cash in my pocket is not something I need to tempt me.

Only other expense today was gas. $28.63.

 

 

Day 8 & 9 – Unsubscribing

I recieve a lot of junk e-mail.

Mostly, it’s for things like Petco, Joann’s, etc. but sometime last semester I signed on to Groupon and Amazon Local for coupons and now I’ve been getting that junk every day.

I decided to unsubscribe from every site, since I won’t be buying anything from them for a year or more. I realize you can get great coupons through email, but mostly what the coupons do is inpire me to buy stuff I wouldn’t have bought in the first place.

Dog food is cheaper at the grocery store and I can make my own cat toys.

I have enough craft supplies to last me well over a year.

Meals at home are cheaper than 2 for 1 Indian food coupons.

Etc, etc.

It is liberating to unsubscribe to these things.

Yesterday I made lentil burgers out of leftover lentil sweet potato curry stew, they were great! I also woke up early, went for a walk, and made everyone breakfast tacos. Since my dad and husband were going into work, this meant they wouldn’t be tempted to stop and buy breakfast on the way (mostly my dad, my husband has been great about eating at home.) We spent a couple hours driving around looking at houses. And finally I groomed my dog. It was a fun, free Saturday.

I was proud of not spending yesterday, and realized that having a non-spending day makes me happier than most things. I decided to do a chart and compare negative transactions per day during the month of December and the month of January. While I was doing this, I found that the hostel we stayed in in Albuquerque had not yet refunded us for our double-charge that I brought up before we left. I sent them an email about it and will follow up tomorrow via phone. Grr!