I tried really hard this week to control my food budget. I brought my lunch to work four days last week. Ok...Ok...I didn't eat it one day, I ate out for lunch two days last week. That is an improvement over five days. I had plans after work several nights and I brought food to eat for dinner so I wouldn't spend so much eating out. I though I was doing great until I pulled up my weekly spending amount.
Gasp...Gasp...Gasp
$144.59
This puts me right in line to spend my usual $600 per month.
I really thought I was doing good, however my undoing was the weekend. On Friday night I went to dinner at the Cheesecake factory, bought six cookies at a cookie stand in the mall, went to the movies and bought a $4 Coke. The evening cost me $33.95, although, the movie was classified as entertainment not food. This totaled 17% of my weekly food budget.
Then there was Saturday. I woke up late and had to rush to meet Ems for biking at Crown Hill. The caused me to stop at Wendy's for a double cheeseburger, Diet Coke and oranges. After biking I was feeling parched so I needed another Diet Coke, bottled water and a ice cream cone. Then I was off to Honors Beauty College for a hair cut and scalp treatment. When that task was completed I felt the need for two beef mexi-melts at Taco Bell. Do you see how this category keeps creeping up.
After mowing the loan I went downtown to meet NM and CH at the Rathskeller for fun and drinks. NM introduced me to the most wonderful Belgium Beer, Lindemans Framboise Raspberry Lambic Beer. It was very delightful and tasty. I don't think I have ever liked a beer as much as this one. Of course there was a problem. Rathskeller charges $12 per bottle. It didn't take me very long to drink the bottle, so I had two. I had just spent $24 on two drinks. Did I think I was rich?
After we were done at the Biergarten we moved on to McNiven's for a small meal, more drinks and great conversation. This place was great and they served us a very tasty Beef Stu at 11:30. This was the cheapest place I had been to the entire night. My total bill was under $6 for my food and two Cokes.
The total damage for Saturday night was $43.46, this amounted to 30% of my weekly budget. So between Friday and Saturday I spent 47% of my weekly expenditures. I guess I was rewarding myself for doing so well during the week. I am definitely going to rethink my spending behavior this week.
$24 for two drinks....I have gone INSANE!!
BTW...when I am on my fab vacation next week I will not be tracking my food or entertainment expenditures....all of this will be lumped into vacation budget and as long as I stay within my $500 allocation I will be very happy.
4 comments:
I've noticed that you do not pay attention to alcoholic beverage spending when ordering. Remember Nicky Blaine's after the symphony? Perhaps you need a separate category for adult beverages. Also, I don't know how you ate a double cheeseburger before bike riding. I can't eat like that before exercise/physical activity. It has to be after.
D.M.
You are right...I might have to start tracking a new category for alcohol. I will keep that in mind.
Hmm ... I can tell you a lot about what might help, but I can't show much from my own experience. (I guess I feel that of all my problems, if spending is that one that I control the least, I'm not in bad shape.)
I would definitely say that everything has to have a category, and you need to track everything, even if you have a catch-all category that is something like "ATM withdrawals" or "Black hole from which my money never returns."
It might also help to make your budget tangible instead of hypothetical ... you could do what I think ems does and only spend physical money on dining/drinking out, or another idea I've heard is to put envelopes on the fridge and put Monopoly money or something like that in them to represent your spending. So if your goal is to spend no more than $400 per month (or $100 per week, if you have to start with shorter periods of time), you just put that in the envelope to start, and before you go somewhere, you check the envelope.
I figure you were joking, but don't reward yourself for being frugal by spending more money! Not until you know you have it under control, and even then, you should probably save toward a specific goal, like a nice vacation or something like that. (For me it would be a TV. I can always find room for another TV.)
I should now change my blog to The Hypocrite ...
You know I do this kind of stuff all of the time at work. I know what to do, I know how to track my money and how much I am spending. Sometimes I just don't care...this is where the accountability thing is rearing it's ugly head again.
Uggg...it is definitely a work in progress!
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