No Spend Monday

Happy Monday! and ready or not, here comes the cold weather!

There are three days until the next month. And I cannot emphasize the need for the new month enough.

So, here are the basic details for the No Spend Month initiative:

• budget per month: $250
• does not include:
• bills
• pet expenses
• tithe/donations
• gas
• does include:
• shopping
• eating out/groceries
• presents/gifts

For starters, I adore adore ADORE food. I love eating out, I love eating in. I love eating until I feel ill. So, needless to say, the majority of my budget goes to food. I added up my food expenses, and it came to a whopping $169.26. yikes! That's 51% of my budget going to food, and this is from eating out only, mind you. I didn't include all the grocery store expenses, because I usually grab non-food items while I'm at Kroger, Target, and/or Walmart. Houston, we have a MAJOR problem here.

This past week I spent $191.51 on the following:

1. October 21: ($17.93) at Kroger - food/ingredients for dinner
2. October 21: ($4.54) at Yogurtland - frozen yogurt with the boyfriend
3. October 21: ($40.41) at PetsMart - three tetras & Greenies for my cats & dog
4. October 22: ($7.88) at Kroger - salad and soup lunch
5. October 22: ($3.99) at Kroger - eye drops for my contacts
6. October 24: ($39.43) at Kroger - dinner and ingredients for a dessert I failed royally on baking.
7. October 25: ($11.25) at Amazon - a book that was recommended to me
8. October 25: ($25) at GSU - unfinished business
9. October 26: ($22.99) at Target - halloween costumes for my pets (a dinosaur and shark.. pictures are below heehee)
10. October 26: ($18.09) at Goldbergs - lox on a bagel & a chicken caesar wrap. I was totally unimpressed by the lox on the bagel. I miss the ones from the cruise!!

11. October 26: ($21) at Takorea - goodbye dinner for one of my girlfriends from work *tear* (picture of the burrito below)   

I restate the fact that there are three days remaining. I better not spend one more penny within the next three days, because I have currently spent ... holy smokes. I have spent $538.29 this past month. oh em gee. Do you realize how disgusting this is?

Last month, my first month of attempting this, I spent $828.79. Granted, I did spend $212 on the new iPhone, $78.98 on a replacement fleece for my boyfriend that my lovely cat ate (yes.. she ate his fleece), and $114.25 on a traffic citation. But that's still $423.57 I spent on other random, useless, disposable crap. 

*sigh* I need to stop making excuses, and stop caving into my cravings. because this is seriously ridonkulous! 

Going forward, maybe I need to start micro-managing, like setting weekly or even daily budgets!

There are 30 days in November, giving me a daily budget of $8.33, and a weekly budget of $62.50. That doesn't seem impossible to abide by.

There is one discouraging event though:

• Black Friday!
• I desperately need a new computer... :( okay, maybe not desperately, but I do need one.
• I need new clothes and shoes!...so we all know I use the word "need" and "want" interchangeably...

I will be out of town the second week of November though, so hopefully that'll curb some of my spendings..

As far as this week goes, I have done well by not going out for breakfast or lunch today (go me!)

I have small group after work tomorrow, so the chances of me going out to eat for dinner increases slightly, but hopefully I'll be able to wait until I get home to eat dinner.

I plan on sleeping over at my boyfriends tomorrow, and if I do, I probably won't pack my breakfast & lunch.. which means I'll be spending a bit on Wednesday for my meals. Except my company's CEO is taking us out for lunch, so hopefully I'll be paying for nothing more than my breakfast that day.... or I could be a good little girl and pack my breakfast. Thursday & Friday should be good days... but who knows. I could crave lox on a bagel like I did last week and spend close to $20 at the Jewish deli down the street....

we shall see where my stomach takes me.

Cheers!