Goal and a Payday

Wallet Expenses

• $1.08 Bagel
• $0.80 Garlic toast
• $7.38 Smokes
• $8.07 Groceries

And today is payday!! As a state employee, I get paid once a month on the last weekday of the month. This makes month long budgeting an absolute necessity, but I still suck at it. So long as I have a positive balance in my checking account at the end of every month, I feel okay. Last month I got down to $12.36, and I didn’t like it much. Heck, I freak out when I see that my bank balance dips below $1,000 (which it does every month, so I don’t know why I’m surprised).

Yesterday may be the last time I buy a bagel from the grill in the morning. I brought an apple and a V8 from home this morning and together they were very filling, lower in bad stuff, higher in good stuff, and cheaper. I’m not seeing any lose to losing the bagel and if I really want a bagel, I can always go get one. Okay, I can see one lose. The guys that run the grill depend on people purchasing food there for their livelihood… But I have to remind myself that I alone am not responsible for whether or not they make or break at the end of each month. But they are kind of my friends! And I’m still not responsible for them… am I? That $1.08 over the course of a month is over $20 I could be either saving or spending elsewhere. Over a year, that’s over $250!! Dang, whoever thought it was possible to spend $250 on bagels for one? Yikes! Yes, I could be buying my bagels from the store and toasting them at home myself, but I’ve not managed to wake early enough to do this on a consistent basis. That’s something else I’m working on, waking earlier in the morning.

The grocery expense yesterday: I really hate doing this, but I went to the store mid-week. I baked taters last night to go with supper and we didn’t have sour cream. A total travesty, I know. While there, I thought it would be nice to have cheese and green onions on the taters as well, and we were out of creamy peanut butter. So I picked up those four things. Currently, that $8.07 was involved in feeding the three of us for supper last night, and me for lunch today, and it still has a long ways to go! We haven’t even touched the PB yet, and there’s still plenty left of each of the other three items as well.

One of these days, I hope to be able to post that I’ve spent NOTHING over the course of a day… maybe that should be a goal and not just a wish. Okay, new goal. I would like to have at least ONE DAY during the upcoming month of May during which I do not spend a cent.

Yay for goals!

The Problem Expense

During the course of my personal finance journey thus far, I've identified two problem spending areas for me. These are the areas in which I KNOW I should spend less, but continue, almost every month to go overboard. Curiously enough, these are also two of my biggest stumbling blocks to better health. Both showed up in yesterday's wallet contents*, and one shows up again today. The most expensive of my two bad habits is dining out. I'm good about breakfast; spending money on breakfast is --well, I was about to say non-existant, but it occurs to me I spend $1.08 almost every morning on a bagel with cream cheese from the grill in our building, however, I already have that money set aside in the form of a "lunch allowance". At the beginning of every month I cash a check for $3/weekday. This money goes in an envelope in one of my desk drawers and can then be used for any of my work day expenses, be it breakfast, lunch, snack, or a spare coke. My almost-daily bagel comes out of this. Otherwise, it's a V8 brought from home, or a glass of OJ at home. But back to dining out. Last night after the last home soccer game of the season, of course we ate out again. Actually we picked up Bueno on the way home and ate together at the table, so the good part is it still involved family interaction. The funny part? BG is the one that wanted Bueno. A month ago she would have strongly balked at the suggestion, but LG and I finally talked her into just trying it and now she loves it! Who knew a seventeen year old girl could actually CHANGE? The other expense that's kicking my butt and my health? The smokes. I didn't buy any yesterday, but I'm out now, and will probably pick up a couple packs on the way home. I am kind of proud that I've switched from one of the big brands to a local brand that's free of additives (or so they claim), however, I need that not to be an excuse or a pat on the back. I still need to quit. Wallet Expenses

• $16.22 Taco Bueno receipt

Non-wallet Expenses

• $5.00 cash
• $179.50 Insurance
• $1.88 work day food

I forgot about the cash expense. BG's boyfriend came to the soccer game last night, but didn't have any cash to pay his way in. I actually did have cash for a change, so I paid his $3 entry fee and then gave him the remaining $2 to buy a drink. I don't feel bad about this for a couple reasons: 1) he never asks me for anything in the way of money, and 2) I'm rarely able to do even little things like this for people I like. I definitely don't feel like it's a case of me being an overindulgent sucker parent, nor of him being a whiney broke teenager. This was still money left over from my Arts Festival cash, so I feel even less bad about it than I might otherwise.

The car insurance payment left the bank today, but this was expected. I love automatic withdrawals, and even better, I love the emails I get alerting me they're going to happen!

From the work-lunch envelope I spent $1.08 on my morning bagel, and then $0.80 on two slices of garlic toast to go with the leftover balsamic chicken I'd brought for lunch yesterday.

Totaly spending for yesterday: $202.60. Planned expeneses: $181.38 Unplanned expenses: $21.22

Eh, not too bad, but I can do better.

hh.

*Yesterday's wallet contents included receipts from several days back.

Opening the Wallet

Welcome to Diary of a Wallet! My name is Hannah and I'll be trying to take a daily tour through my wallet, checkbook and Quicken accounts included, to track my spending, allowing the world to see where I'm frugal, where I'm not, and where I go overboard in any one direction. What's my goal here? Well, I'd like to share my spending habits for two purposes: 1) maybe, just maybe, someone else who is also trying to save money and get (or stay) out of debt will find something worthwhile they can take away, be it an idea, a bit of inspiration, or even a good laugh; 2) I'll have a public forum in which to tell ALL (it's a diary after all) of what I'm doing financially, and readers will have the opportunity to tell me where I've gone wrong and where I've gone right. Why am I doing this? I want to find like-minded people, those of us that want to be debt free, that want to have wads of cash in savings, and fat investment accounts but still have trouble sticking by the decisions we know are the right ones. Who am I? I'm nobody, really. I don't have a degree in finance or economics, or at all for that matter. I'm a divorced mother of two teenaged daughters, trying like heck to make it all work for me and them. I work full time and try to keep up with their lives, while rebuilding my own after divorce. Why should you care? Really, there is no reason, unless you WANT to hear about someone else's wallet. So... stick around... come back tomorrow... maybe we can start a good conversation. Oh sorry. Maybe you want to know what's in the wallet today, huh. $10 cash 1 debit card Receipts for:

• $34.98 Dinner out
• $11.65 Smokes
• $102.00 Fillings for me and LG (LG is my youngest daughter)
• $100.00 Cash for the recent Arts Festival (this was a planned expense)
• $ 22.11 Gasoline

There are some other money things I want to share, but for today, opening day, we'll start with the contents of the wallet itself and move on in time.

Dinner out... I probably shouldn't have done that one, or I shouldn't have done it to quite that extent. But allow me to explain: there was this soccer game see, and the girls went into OT, and then on to Penalty Kicks to determine the game. (Sadly after all that time and effort, they still lost.) By the time they were finished, all three of us were hungry and I offered dinner out, knowing I didn't have anything planned to cook at home. I was originally thinking about McDucks or Rareby's but then BG suggested Panera... well, I'm not a huge fan of Panera, and it was a little higher up the price spectrum than I really wanted to go... so I suggested Pops. It's a one of a kind place and a fun little treat when we're up that way and we were maybe 2-3 miles away at the time. The really sad thing? We've been there twice, and I've yet to be impressed with the food.

Smokes: Yeah, I know there are savings galore to be had here if I'll only quit! The better news? I'm at half the daily consumption now that I was during 2008, so I AM working on it. You'll have opportunities to yell at me for it later!

Fillings: I'll see a portion of this money back as the Ex is required by the decree (and has complied thus far) to pay about 2/3 of any of LG's medical (and a few other) expenses.

Cash: A couple years ago I decided I was tired of going to community events and not having anything to spend, even to the point of picking the really cheap food and still feeling guilty about the $20-30 I had begrudgingly spent. So I planned ahead. I use Quicken's calendar feature to plan my expenses in advance, so last year, I put in a $100 expense for the Arts Festival, as well as one for the Medieval Faire, and one for the State Fair. I won't have loads to spend, but the girls and I can eat and drink without guilt about what it's doing to my finances, and maybe even get a souvenir* of some sort.

Gasoline: Self-explanatory, plus I'm not ready to ride the bus yet.

So that's it. Oh, the $10 cash is actually leftover from that $100 AF, so I'm stretching it out a while. And the debit card garners 1 point/$2 spent via signature transactions (aka use it like a credit card).

I think that's enough for today, but we'll talk more later, okay?

hh

*I'm not a big fan of souvenirs, particularly as they're usually just stuff that will grow dust later, but something like a henna tattoo or an addition to a collection work well as souvenirs too.